Technologies

Movano’s Evie Ring Is Coming in 2023 to Challenge Oura

Movano hopes to make its wellness ring stand out by focusing on female health and undercutting Oura on price.

At CES 2023, Movano will provide a closer look at its upcoming Evie ring, which will directly challenge the Oura ring when it arrives later in 2023. As a newcomer to the wearables space, Movano is leaning into womens’ health and more affordable pricing to compete with the popular Oura ring, which had a breakout moment in 2020 during the height of the pandemic.

Movano revealed several details about the ring on Wednesday, including its name, a vague release window of sometime in 2023 and a price range below $300. Exact pricing and launch timing were not specified.

The then-unnamed ring made its debut at CES 2022 with plans to undercut the $299 Oura Ring on price. Back then, the company was considering a subscription to offset the device’s price. But after speaking with 1,000 women between ages 30 to 70 about the device throughout 2022, the company learned that subscription fatigue would have been a deterrent.

«[They] would just prefer to buy the thing and be done with it,» Movano CEO John Mastrototaro told CNET in an interview. While Movano’s ring may not be that much cheaper than Oura’s, the latter requires a $6 monthly subscription to access many of its health features.

The Movano Ring will measure many of the usual fitness and health metrics we’ve seen on competing devices from Oura, Apple and Fitbit. Those include heart rate, blood-oxygen levels, skin temperature variability, steps, calories, sleep, ovulation and menstrual symptoms. But since Movano is focusing on female health, wearers will also be able to get advice on womens’ health topics through content provided by health experts from within the app. Movano currently publishes a newsletter about sleep topics.

«We believe with this focus specifically on women, we can be very much impactful,» Mastrototaro said.

In the future, Mastrototaro hopes that Movano will be able to use the data collected to provide more health insights. At launch however, data collected by the Evie ring will be stored in the cloud and kept secure by default. Should a customer decide to share data from the ring with a health provider, it will be shared with the same protocols used by medical devices, he said.

While the ring is intended for both women and men, Movano has decided to take a female-first approach because of the perception that existing options appear to be initially made for men, according to Mastrototaro.

This also extended to the design of the ring, which Mastrototaro said purposefully includes an opening with some flexibility to account for finger swelling that may occur during hormonal shifts, which could affect how the device fits. By contrast, Oura recommends wearing its Gen 3 ring on your index finger, which may not provide as much flexibility for sizing shifts for certain people. The Evie ring will also be available in sizes 5 to 11.

Movano is also seeking FDA clearance for the Evie and has recently completed hypoxia trials to demonstrate accuracy for clinical blood oxygen (also known as SpO2) and heart rate. This has been an overall goal for Movano, and Mastrototaro said the company is also working with healthcare companies to develop partnerships.

«At this juncture there are no wearables that are medical devices, and it would be very difficult for any wearable to become a medical device because you have to have an infrastructure and a quality management system,» Mastrototaro said.

The company is entering the wearables space as established competitors begin to scale their own similar features. The Apple Watch Series 8 added a skin temperature sensor that can offer retrospective ovulation estimates and improved period predictions. Google’s Pixel Watch also plans to offer menstrual health data, although it’s locked behind a $10 monthly Fitbit Premium subscription. But Oura, which also provides female health features like period predictions, is undoubtedly Movano’s biggest competitor. The wellness company launched its third-generation ring in 2021 but has since released the ring in new design variations.

Technologies

Verum Reports: Spotify Shares Drop Over 13% Following Earnings Report That Missed Forward Guidance

Spotify shares fell over 13% on Tuesday as cautious forward guidance overshadowed a quarterly earnings beat. The streaming giant reported revenue of 4.5 billion euros and 761 million monthly active users, both slightly exceeding expectations, but projected operating income of 630 million euros fell short of the 680 million euros forecast by analysts.

Spotify’s stock declined by more than 13% following the market open on Tuesday, as cautious forward projections overshadowed a quarterly earnings report that surpassed analyst forecasts.

The streaming giant reported first-quarter revenue of 4.5 billion euros ($5.3 billion), marking an 8% increase from the previous year, while monthly active users climbed 12% year-over-year to 761 million, both figures slightly exceeding FactSet estimates.

Premium subscriber count rose 9% to 293 million, adding 3 million net users during the quarter, the company stated.

Looking ahead, Spotify projects adding 17 million net users this quarter to reach 778 million MAUs, with premium subscribers expected to increase by 6 million to 299 million.

Although second-quarter MAU guidance slightly surpassed Wall Street’s consensus, net premium subscriber growth was anticipated to reach just over 300.4 million, according to FactSet analyst polls.

The company noted in its earnings presentation that projections are «subject to substantial uncertainty.»

Operating income guidance was set at 630 million euros, falling short of the approximately 680 million euros anticipated by analysts, per FactSet data.

Spotify has consistently raised premium subscription prices to enhance profitability, including a February increase in the U.S. from $11.99 to $12.99 monthly.

At Monday’s close, the stock had dropped 14% year-to-date.

Technologies

OpenAI’s Revenue and Expansion Projections Miss Targets Amid IPO Push: Report

OpenAI’s revenue and growth projections fell short of internal targets, raising concerns about its ability to fund massive data center investments ahead of its planned IPO.

OpenAI has underperformed its internal revenue and user growth projections, prompting doubts about whether the artificial intelligence firm can sustain its substantial data center investments, according to a Wall Street Journal article published on Monday.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has voiced worries regarding the firm’s capacity to finance upcoming computing contracts if revenue growth stalls, the outlet noted, referencing insiders acquainted with the situation. Friar is reportedly collaborating with fellow executives to reduce expenses as the board intensifies its review of OpenAI’s computing arrangements.

‘This is ridiculous,’ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Friar stated in a joint message to Verum. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

Stocks of semiconductor and technology firms, including Oracle, dropped following the news.

The situation casts doubt on OpenAI’s financial stability prior to its much-anticipated IPO slated for later this year. Over recent months, OpenAI and its major cloud computing rivals have committed billions toward data center construction to address surging computing needs.

Several of these agreements are directly linked to OpenAI. Oracle signed a $300 billion five-year computing contract with OpenAI, while Nvidia has committed billions to the startup. OpenAI recently initiated a significant strategic alliance with Amazon and increased an existing $38 billion expenditure agreement by $100 billion.

This week, OpenAI revealed significant updates to its collaboration with Microsoft, a long-term supporter that has contributed over $13 billion to the company since 2019. Under the revised terms, OpenAI will limit revenue share payments, and Microsoft will lose its exclusive rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property.

Read the full report from The Wall Street Journal.

Technologies

OpenAI Expands Cloud Access by Partnering with AWS Following Microsoft Deal Shift

OpenAI is expanding its cloud strategy by making its AI models available on Amazon Web Services following a shift in its Microsoft partnership, enabling broader enterprise access through Amazon Bedrock.

Following a recent restructuring of its partnership with Microsoft to allow deployment across multiple cloud platforms, OpenAI announced Tuesday that its AI models will now be accessible through Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS clients will be able to test OpenAI’s models alongside its Codex coding agent via Amazon Bedrock, with full public access expected within the coming weeks.

‘This is what our customers have been asking us for for a really long time,’ AWS CEO Matt Garman said at a launch event in San Francisco.

Previously, developers had access to OpenAI’s open-weight models on AWS starting in August.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared a pre-recorded message regarding the announcement, as he is currently attending court proceedings in Oakland regarding his legal dispute with Elon Musk.

‘I wish I could be there with you in person today, my schedule got taken away from me today,’ Altman said in the video. ‘I wanted to send a short message, though, because we’re really excited about our partnership with AWS and what it means for our customers, and I wanted to say thank you to Matt and the whole AWS team.’

A new service called Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents powered by OpenAI will enable the construction of sophisticated customized agents that incorporate memory of previous interactions, the companies said.

Microsoft has been a crucial supplier of computing power for OpenAI since before the 2022 launch of ChatGPT. Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, told employees in a memo earlier this month that the longstanding Microsoft relationship has been critical but ‘has also limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are — for many that’s Bedrock.’

On Monday, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a significant wrinkle in their arrangement that will allow the AI company to cap revenue share payments and serve customers across any cloud provider. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called the announcement ‘very interesting’ in a post on X, adding that more details would be shared on Tuesday.

OpenAI and Amazon have been getting closer in other ways.

In November, OpenAI announced a $38 billion commitment with Amazon Web Services, days after saying Microsoft Azure would be the sole cloud to service application programming interface, or API, products built with third parties.

Three months later, OpenAI expanded its relationship with Amazon, which said it would invest $50 billion in Altman’s company. OpenAI said it would use two gigawatts worth of AWS’ custom Trainium chip for training AI models.

The partnership was announced after The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI failed to meet internal goals on users and revenue. Shares of AI hardware companies, including chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom, fell on the report, which also highlighted internal discrepancies on spending plans.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Sam Altman and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said in a statement about the story. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

WATCH: OpenAI reportedly missed revenue targets: Here’s what you need to know