Technologies

Oura Ring’s ‘Circles’ Makes Sharing Sleep and Other Scores Possible

As long as they also wear an Oura ring, you can share health data including Sleep, Readiness and Activity scores with friends and family. Here’s how.

If you’ve ever wondered how well your coworker slept last night, now you can know for sure as long as you’re connected with them through Circles, a new feature Oura announced Thursday for its app.

Oura, the health-tracking ring that collects data such as temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen readings, summarizes that information into Readiness, Sleep and Activity scores. With Circles, you’ll be able to share those scores with up to 10 groups of people or «Circles,» with a maximum of 20 people in each group.

You’ll be able to choose which kind of data or scores you share with each group, so one circle can get more of your wellness information than another. While only three scores are available to share through Circles now, Oura said it plans on expanding sharable information in the future.

To start a circle, open the Oura app, scroll down the main menu and select «Circles.» Then you can name a circle, decide what scores you want to share and also decide whether you want that data to be daily or weekly averages. To invite people into the circle (they have to be fellow Oura users), you’ll send them a one-time link.

Once you’ve started your circle, you can view their scores and «react» with emojis, if you choose. Everyone has to sync their rings to keep the scores visible.

A picture of Circles in the Oura app — What it looks like to react to your friend in Circles.

Oura

For people who enjoy collecting health data (and maybe boasting about a good health week), Oura’s Circles features is a good way to do that with other Oura wearers. According to a press release, though, the company is positioning Circles as another way to check in and connect with each other — an increasingly important public health goal amid a loneliness epidemic, which has impacts on sleep, mental health and physical illness.

Best Fitness Trackers for 2023 See at Cnet

«Our mission at Oura has always been to improve the lives of our members by taking a compassionate approach to health, and this new feature is just the next step in delivering a personalized experience that allows our members to connect with not only their bodies, but also their friends and family,» Oura CEO Tom Hale said in a statement.

Oura’s Circles announcements comes as the company is advancing its new sleep staging algorithm out of beta mode, which means everyone tracking sleep stages with Oura will get data from the improved algorithm. Shyamal Patel, the company’s head of science, calls the new algorithm a «massive improvements of accuracy» in sleep data. The new algorithm has 79% agreement with polysomnography sleep tests done in a clinic, Patel told CNET.

Compared to Oura’s older sleep-tracking algorithm, ring wearers might experience slight changes in the amount of time Oura tells you you’re spending in deep sleep versus light sleep versus REM sleep.

«Those numbers are likely to shift a little bit,» Patel said.

For more on the Oura ring, read more about how the tracker can tell you whether you’re a morning person and how the Oura ring compares to the Apple Watch as a sleep tracker. Also, here’s our thorough review of Oura, the wearable that can tell when you’re sick.

See Oura Ring Gen 3 at Oura $299 at Oura

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, Oct. 14

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Oct. 14.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword has an odd vertical shape, with an extra Across clue, and only four Down clues. The clues are not terribly difficult, but one or two could be tricky. Read on if you need the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Smokes, informally
Answer: CIGS

5A clue: «Don’t have ___, man!» (Bart Simpson catchphrase)
Answer: ACOW

6A clue: What the vehicle in «lane one» of this crossword is winning?
Answer: RACE

7A clue: Pitt of Hollywood
Answer: BRAD

8A clue: «Yeah, whatever»
Answer: SURE

9A clue: Rd. crossers
Answer: STS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Things to «load» before a marathon
Answer: CARBS

2D clue: Mythical figure who inspired the idiom «fly too close to the sun»
Answer: ICARUS

3D clue: Zoomer around a small track
Answer: GOCART

4D clue: Neighbors of Norwegians
Answer: SWEDES

Technologies

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Technologies

New California Law Wants Companion Chatbots to Tell Kids to Take Breaks

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the new requirements on AI companions into law on Monday.

AI companion chatbots will have to remind users in California that they’re not human under a new law signed Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The law, SB 243, also requires companion chatbot companies to maintain protocols for identifying and addressing cases in which users express suicidal ideation or self-harm. For users under 18, chatbots will have to provide a notification at least every three hours that reminds users to take a break and that the bot is not human.

It’s one of several bills Newsom has signed in recent weeks dealing with social media, artificial intelligence and other consumer technology issues. Another bill signed Monday, AB 56, requires warning labels on social media platforms, similar to those required for tobacco products. Last week, Newsom signed measures requiring internet browsers to make it easy for people to tell websites they don’t want them to sell their data and banning loud advertisements on streaming platforms.

AI companion chatbots have drawn particular scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators in recent months. The Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into several companies in response to complaints by consumer groups and parents that the bots were harming children’s mental health. OpenAI introduced new parental controls and other guardrails in its popular ChatGPT platform after the company was sued by parents who allege ChatGPT contributed to their teen son’s suicide.

«We’ve seen some truly horrific and tragic examples of young people harmed by unregulated tech, and we won’t stand by while companies continue without necessary limits and accountability,» Newsom said in a statement.

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One AI companion developer, Replika, told CNET that it already has protocols to detect self-harm as required by the new law, and that it is working with regulators and others to comply with requirements and protect consumers.

«As one of the pioneers in AI companionship, we recognize our profound responsibility to lead on safety,» Replika’s Minju Song said in an emailed statement. Song said Replika uses content-filtering systems, community guidelines and safety systems that refer users to crisis resources when needed.

A Character.ai spokesperson said the company «welcomes working with regulators and lawmakers as they develop regulations and legislation for this emerging space, and will comply with laws, including SB 243.» OpenAI spokesperson Jamie Radice called the bill a «meaningful move forward» for AI safety. «By setting clear guardrails, California is helping shape a more responsible approach to AI development and deployment across the country,» Radice said in an email.

One bill Newsom has yet to sign, AB 1064, would go further by prohibiting developers from making companion chatbots available to children unless the AI companion is «not foreseeably capable of» encouraging harmful activities or engaging in sexually explicit interactions, among other things.