Technologies

Standalone AI Devices Are Back, Baby. The Note-Taking Plaud Note 3 Proves It

Plaud AI has already sold over a million AI devices. Is it time for you to add it to your tech collection?

There was a moment around 18 months ago when it felt like AI had unlocked an entirely new consumer technology category. The wearable Humane Pin and handheld Rabbit R1 were small, standalone devices that promised to be your AI personal assistants and threatened to be smartphone killers.

But almost as soon as the hype around them peaked, it died down again. The devices that hit the market during that initial wave of excitement overpromised and underdelivered, and today we remain just as reliant on our phones as ever.

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The tech industry hasn’t completely discarded the idea of standalone AI devices, which combine the power of sensors and large language models. Former Apple design visionary Jony Ive and OpenAI are working on their own AI-centric “screenless phone” concept. Meanwhile, smaller tech companies are also building interesting devices of their own — and making surprising successes of them.

I was recently introduced to Plaud AI, which has already sold over a million AI note-taking devices, and just unveiled its latest product, the Note Pro. This credit card-sized slice of tech perches on the table next to you and slides into a slim case on the rear of your phone for easy transportation. Its five microphones can capture audio up to 5 meters away, and 2 hours of charging will give you 50 hours of continuous recording time.

This third device from Plaud is an update to its original tabletop note-taking device (it also sells a wearable note taker) and comes with more powerful recording capabilities, along with a clutch of new features. First is the small AMOLED display along the top edge, which will display the recording status and battery life. The second notable adjustment is that the power button can also be pressed to highlight key parts of a conversation in real time.

The Note Pro has 64GB of built-in storage, but the core of its intelligence is in the companion smartphone app, which parses all the material the device captures, hopefully into something genuinely useful, intelligible and actionable. Plaud Intelligence relies on LLMs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, and is multimodal — meaning you can add in pictures and text, which it can analyze as a whole.

As with Plaud’s previous products, the Note Pro is designed for use in professional contexts and provides access to over 2,000 templates, including those designed for people working in specific fields — medical or legal, for example. As a journalist, I need to record many of my conversations and meetings, so I’ll be interested to see if Plaud can offer anything above and beyond Otter, which I usually rely on.

Note Pro vs. my phone: The real test

That brings me to the big question hanging over the Note Pro, which is why would I carry a separate device to record my meetings when my phone is more than capable? It’s a question I’ll attempt to answer as I test the device out in the coming week. Plaud CEO Nathan Xu laid out his vision for the Note Pro in a briefing, explaining why he thinks people would want to carry one themselves.

Xu said that he sees “lots of beauty in human intelligence,” but that he wants to help humans overcome our shortcomings — our limited memory span, tendency to get distracted and our inconsistent energy levels, are examples he gives. By applying the power of an LLM to our daily lives, AI can help pick up the slack, he said.

Yes, you could use an app on your phone to record a meeting and run it through AI, or rely on the AI tools built into Google Meet or Zoom, but they’re often captured in isolation. Instead, Plaud is with you all the time, filling in the gaps between those meetings, capturing nuggets from every conversation — including the face-to-face ones, which are often overlooked – and understanding them in the context of your entire day.

“Conversation is a form of intelligence — it’s where the ideas begin, the decisions are made and the meanings are shared,” Xu said. “So we exist to help people to capture, extract and utilize intelligence.”

There are other questions I still have about the Note Pro, largely based around privacy. Xu says Plaud’s privacy protections are “best in class,” which it will need to be if it’s capturing confidential and sensitive medical, legal or corporate discussions. Some doctors I’ve spoken to are already wary of using AI transcription services due to potential breaches of doctor-patient confidentiality, and many corporate environments may be resistant to people using these devices in the workplace.

A lesser, but still significant concern is how long it will take for me to lose the proprietary charging cable. The Note Pro is slimmer than a USB-C connector, so it’s clear why having its own charging connector is necessary, but it may prove tricky to keep tabs on.

I’ll be updating this piece with my impressions as I get to grips with using the Note Pro, but if you just can’t wait for that, it is available for preorder now for $179 (£169 or roughly AU$350) and will ship at some point in October.

Technologies

Oil prices fall as crude exports recover at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports

Saudi Arabia has restored flows through the pipeline to around 3.5 million barrels per day, according to media reports.

Oil prices fell Tuesday as Saudi Arabia’s crude exports from its Red Sea ports recover from an attack on a key pipeline earlier this month.

Brent crude

Satellite imagery has confirmed a “major operational recovery” at the Yanbu and Muajjiz terminals, according to a Kpler note published Tuesday.

A total of 12.5 million barrels were loaded onto nine tankers at Yanbu from Saturday through Monday, according to Kpler. Exports from Yanbu were disrupted by the drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline earlier this month, raising fears of another major hit to global supplies.

But Riyadh has restored flows through the pipeline to around 3.5 million barrels per day, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News on Monday. Its maximum capacity is 7 million bpd.

U.S. and Iranian officials, meanwhile, spoke to mediators on Monday as they try again to negotiate a deal to end the seven-month-long conflict.

Iran offered last week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in seven days if the U.S. commits to the conditions in the failed June memorandum of understanding. But President Donald Trump on Saturday rejected Tehran’s proposal as oil exports through Hormuz recover.

Oil flows through Hormuz have hit a seven-day average 13.2 million barrels per day, which is 77% of the 17 million bpd that transited the waterway before the U.S.-Iran war, according to Kpler data.

The U.S. military provides protection to tankers from its Gulf allies and maintains a blockade against Iran’s exports.

Technologies

Bank of America Warns Bond Market Echoes 2022 Conditions

Bank of America warns that current bond market conditions mirror those of 2022, when rising yields and rate hikes triggered a significant equity correction. The firm advises investors to consider hedging strategies as real yields break out of trading ranges.

The bond market is giving 2022 vibes right now, and not in a positive way, according to Bank of America. Yields skyrocketed to multiyear highs this week, as oil prices stay elevated and new U.S. data suggests the Federal Reserve may need to hike rates even more to quell inflation. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield reached levels not seen since 2007 above 5.2%. The 30-year bond yield also spiked to its highest levels since 2004. Equities, for their part, weathered the move higher well. The S & P 500 is up around 1% week to date. The Nasdaq Composite jumped nearly 2%. But for BofA technical strategist Paul Ciana, this may be the calm before the storm. US10Y YTD bar US 10-year yield in 2026 “We see parallels with 2022, when the US 10-year real yield broke out of a trading range and rose from approximately -1% to +1.5%. Around that period, the SPX, Euro and Bitcoin formed important peaks and declined, while equity, rates and FX volatility accelerated higher,” Ciana wrote. “The comparison does not require an identical outcome, but we do think it argues for greater caution.” Stocks entered a bear market in 2022, as the Fed quickly raised rates to fend off a massive surge in inflation. The S & P 500 fell more than 19% that year, marking its worst annual performance since 2008 — when it tumbled 38%. Ciana noted investors can hedge by scooping up put options on the SPY ETF , which tracks the S & P 500. “Investors seeking protection may consider one- to three-month SPY 750 puts or 750/730 put spreads,” he said. “The lower strike corresponds to the July lows.” “However, the rise in real yields is quite stretched on weekly RSIs. If yields retrace lower and positive SPX seasonals follow through, hedges may not perform,” he said, referring the relative strength index, a popular indicator that helps assess whether an investment may be overbought or oversold.

Technologies

Anthropic warns investors of AI’s ‘existential risk to humanity’ in IPO prospectus, reports say

Anthropic’s IPO filing dedicates 80 pages to the risks of AI, nearly double the 48 pages it spends discussing its business plans, according to Reuters.

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