Ray Bans Parent's Smart Glasses-Hearing-Aids Shock CES

∆ Tech in the News

Gensler Says Yes… But - The SEC approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETF applications but Chair Gary Gensler added that the SEC did not “approve or endorse Bitcoin.” $3B+ of Bitcoin funds were traded on the first trading day on Thursday. 

OpenAI Store + New Tier - Two new ChatGPT features launched on Wednesday; 1. A subscription tier for small teams (<150 members), and 2. A store for custom chatbots by developers - aka ‘GPTs’.

Musk: More AI - Elon announced X’s 2024 plans including p2p money transfers on the app, and new xAI-powered features including enhanced user and advertising experience, creator tools, and yes… more Grok updates.

Hopping Out - Rabbit’s R1 pocket AI assistant that can control your apps sold out its first batch of 10,000 units in just 24 hours after launching at CES 2024.

Cuts Continue - More tech layoffs hit this week, with cuts at Google, Discord, Instagram, Humane, and Amazon’s Audible, Twitch, and Hollywood teams. 

We are swapping out native polls for Fantasy Buzz events driven polls so your answers count towards the global contest this month. Premium Subscribers are eligible to win rewards.

˚The Hottest Thing in Tech this Week

Smart Glasses With Hearing-Aids Shock CES 2024

EssilorLuxottica’s glasses for the hard-of-hearing shocked the CES 2024 crowds this week. The world leader in eyewear and lenses and home to brands like Ray-Ban, revealed its Nuance Audio glasses that can help those with ‘mild to moderate’ hearing loss. This wearable tech product looks set to be a life-changing product for many... and at just 1/5th the cost of regular hearing aids.

The glasses weigh just 40g and come in two styles with invisible ‘advanced hearing’ technology built into the frames. The volume is controlled via the glasses, an app, or a small remote and can be adjusted for each environment. The unit takes only 2.5 hours to fully charge via a wireless charging pad.

When released later this year, Nuance Audio could seriously disrupt the hearing aid market as it will attract those who resist traditional hearing aids for their obtrusive design and lack of comfort. The engineering feat of pulling this product off is impressive, as the proximity between a hearing device's mic and speakers creates feedback, making audio optimization quite difficult. However, our digital therapeutics expert co-founder attests that they have nailed it.

Part of the secret sauce is in spatial awareness and directional control. The direction the glasses point is where the audio is sourced from, drowning out any peripheral noise, a major issue with other hearing solutions. This innovation could majorly improve the livelihoods of seniors (and others) with hearing loss.

In the future, Essilor hopes to build in more tech like blood pressure, body temperature, and posture sensors, so the glasses eventually act more like an all-encompassing health monitor. Finally, we wouldn’t be surprised if they add support for AI tools like chatbots, vision recognition, or connected data retrieval, given Essilor’s existing partnership with Meta on AI-powered Ray Bans. Reach out to us if you want to try Nuance Audio early: [email protected].

Special Edition - More Highlights From CES 2024

The announcements just kept rolling over days 2, 3 and 4 of CES, leading some to suggest this has been the most significant CES conference in 25 years. So what else was blowing minds this week?

1. Health Wearables

Nuance Audio wasn’t the only one making waves in the space. Others include:

• Lumen unveiled its glasses for the blind seeking to replace guide dogs and walking sticks with a headset, sensors and trackers.

• Whispp’s voice synthesizer for the vocal impaired that turns whispers into full speech via AI generation from old recordings of the user.

• Louise’s fertility tracking tech and advice for both men and women.

• ElliQ’s AI ‘robots’ for elder care facilities that remind patients of things or ask them how they are.

2. Hydrogen Fuel Makes a Comeback

Hyundai, Nikola, Bosch and others are seriously pushing fuel cells as an alternative to batteries for use in trucking, medium-duty vehicles and air travel.

3. What’s The Matter? - Smart Home Devices

The Connectivity Standards Alliance’s Matter smart home networking protocol is finally getting some major adoption, most notably:

• Amazon will support Matter-casting on its smart displays and smart TVs.

• LG TVs will act as Matter controllers from later this year.

• Nanoleaf’s voice-controlled smart lights set to launch in early spring.

• Lockly’s Visage smart door lock that can open for 100 faces via scan.

• Roborock’s new robo-vacuum, the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra.

4. ‘Software-Defined Vehicles’ Take-Off

Vehicle launches at CES were all about the software, including:

• Sony’s PS4 controller-driven EV ‘Afeela’ demo.

• The Hyundai Supernal S-A2 Flying car with vertical take-off and landing.

• Honda's updated 0 Saloon concept vehicle with a hardware focus

• Mercedes’ MBUX Sound Drive DJ mix tool developed by will.i.am.

4. The Spatial Computing Era Arrives

• Sony won this vertical by partnering with Siemens to unveil its industrial Metaverse Headsets as we featured last week.

• Samsung's Flex Refrigerator can recognize food items and suggest recipes based on their contents

• Oro's AI-powered robots provide company to pets while owners are out

• EssilorLuxottica's Nuance glasses with spatially aware audio.

Deals We’re Watching

Founders to Watch and Opportunities to Catch

Open Deals:

Raising for your startup? 

Send us your Open Round —> [email protected]

Gently - Revolutionizing America's logistics with a sustainable and efficient EV and zero-waste packaging model. In LA with rapid growth and seeking growth capital to develop and expand nationally.

Miruni - A collaborative workspace for digital product teams, boasting 4k+ active users and 2 tech patents. Raised a $1.3M seed, and now seeks strategic investors for a $1.2M SAFE investment to accelerate growth. 

EdgeX - A comprehensive, compliant solution for hospitals to track their data - a $300B market. 25% cheaper than competitors, 6 utility patents and 20+ pending. Team has had significant past exits and raises and seeks growth funds.

GoTab - Point-of-sale, kiosk, mobile ordering, and payment solutions firm is planning to double its valuation with a $50M Series B round. 

Let us know if you want a warm intro….

Closed Deals:

Scaling Bots - OpenAI and Samsung backed a $100M Series B by AI robotics startup 1X Technologies to produce its humanoid robots at commercial scale.

‘To Grow Poe’ - Quora raised $75M from a16z to grow its AI chatbot and chatbot aggregator, primarily through a new "creator monetization program." 

Hyperexponential - a16z and Highland Europe backed the UK InsurTech startup’s $73M Series B to expand their mathematical modeling software for the commercial insurance sector to the U.S. market.

$1B+ Chinese Nvidia Rival - HongShan, a major Chinese VC firm that recently separated from Sequoia Capital, has invested in Iluvatar CoreX - a Nvidia challenger in the Chinese market.

Interest-free Down Payments - Downpayments, launched in Florida with $32.8M initial debt funding to provide interest-free capital loans to power $200M+ in investment property transactions.

Companies to Watch:

AI Crafted 3D Models - Luma has 2M+ users on its platform for AI-powered 3D crafting models and added a $43M Series B to bring their warchest to $70M+.

Stealth Attack - Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt is quietly plotting a new defense tech effort: a stealth military drone project per Forbes.

The Funding Buzz

SVB Financial - The bankrupt parent company of the failed bank, is planning to hand over its VC division to a new creditor-backed company with its value estimated at ~$572M and over $10B of AUM.

Khosla Ventures - Former partner Keith Rabois returns to the firm as a managing director to help in deploying the $3.1B raised via recent funds. 

AI-Powered FinTech - Sunrise AI closed a pre-seed round led by Andrew Ng’s $176M AI Fund to offer property owners an AI risk mgmt solution to prevent rental fraud, reveal credit insights, and improve lease income analytics.

We are in Vegas all week covering the event. We are looking to partner with companies, find more open deals, and bring value to you - our community of readers. If you have any thoughts on who we should connect with reach out at [email protected].

We just launched our Tech Buzz Partners Program!

If you are a creator, you can now gain access to exclusive opportunities to earn alongside us while delivering exclusive content to your own audience! Submit your application HERE.

It’s a new year, new Buzz! Stay tuned for more of our latest releases and don’t forget to check out Fantasy Buzz if you have not done so already! And be sure to check out our year-end stories for 2023 to recap what you missed last year and our tech to watch in 2024!

1. AI recap of 2023 

2. Your Top Stories of 2023

3. 5 Tech Trends to Watch in 2024

Stay buzzy and Happy New Year!

The Tech Buzz Team