Cala Health, the non-invasive bioelectronic medicine maker, announced it has completed the initial closing of an oversubscribed $50 million growth round, co-led by Vertex Growth Fund and Nexus NeuroTech Ventures. All existing Cala investors participated in the round, including Action Potential, Johnson & Johnson (through its corporate venture capital organization, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc.), Lightstone, Lux Capital, GV (Google Ventures), OSF Ventures, Ascension Ventures, TriVentures, Reimagined Ventures, Peak6 and Fiscus.
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Related Cala Health's Neurostimulation System Treats Parkinson's
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"This round of funding will propel Cala's commercialization trajectory, notably with the recent positive Medicare Coverage Determination for Cala TAPS (Transcutaneous Afferent Patterned Stimulation) Therapy. It allows us to broaden patient and physician awareness of this effective and innovative treatment," said Deanna Harshbarger, Cala Chief Executive Officer. "We are very excited about the strong support from both our legacy and new investors who believe in our vision and first in class, on-demand technology to address tremor relief."
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Cala is continuing to build strong clinical evidence to expand patient access for our neurostimulation therapy. The results of a study by CVS Health, presented at the Movement Disorders Congress this year, concluded that TAPS therapy offers substantial benefits for patients with essential tremor (ET) in reducing ET-related healthcare resource utilization (HCRU), healthcare costs and improving clinical outcomes, says a press release.
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ET impacts over 7 million people in the United States and is characterized by uncontrollable movement that can make critical daily activities very difficult. Drugs are most used to treat ET, but they can cause a range of unwanted side effects such as fatigue, nausea and depression and may not provide desired outcomes. Surgical options like Deep Brain Stimulation or Focused Ultrasound ablation can be effective but are invasive procedures that carry the risk of potentially irreversible side effects.
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The Cala kIQ System with TAPS Therapy is the only non-invasive, FDA-cleared, wearable device that delivers effective therapy for action hand tremor relief in people with essential tremor and Parkinson's disease. The TAPS device is clinician-prescribed and clinically proven to safely and effectively reduce action hand tremors. The Cala kIQ device treats tremor by sensing each patient's unique tremor signature and delivering individualized stimulation to the nerves on the wrist that then reach the brain to counteract tremor.
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About Cala Health
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Cala Health is a bioelectronic medicine company transforming the standard of care for chronic disease. The company's wearable neuromodulation therapies merge innovations in neuroscience and technology to deliver individualized peripheral nerve stimulation, and its direct-to-home digital durable medical equipment (DME) platform is reshaping the delivery of prescription therapies.

Immersive therapeutic solutions provider XRHealth launched its groundbreaking AI-powered medical XR platform. This release marks a major milestone in the integration of cutting-edge AI technologies within a comprehensive therapeutic system.

The newly launched platform features an advanced multi-space capability, allowing clinicians to seamlessly transition between various therapeutic environments for optimized treatment outcomes. At the heart of this innovation is the AI Generator Space, which enables the creation of custom 360-degree environments tailored to individual therapeutic needs. In addition, a groundbreaking new feature allows for the generation of dynamic avatars, utilizing AI and XR to further enhance patient interaction and personalization, XRHealth says in a press release.
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"Our new AI-powered platform represents a transformative step in healthcare technology," said Eran Orr, CEO of XRHealth. "By combining artificial intelligence with immersive XR experiences, we're enabling clinicians to create tailored, interactive therapeutic environments that adapt to each patient's unique needs. This platform not only improves patient engagement but also has the potential to significantly elevate clinical outcomes across a wide range of treatments."

Related How AI and XR Industry Is Serving Millions

In addition to the AI Generator Space, XRHealth is incorporating AI into three other critical areas of its platform:

• AI Treatment Search – Delivers targeted recommendations by identifying the most relevant environments for specific conditions.
• AI Reports Analysis – Automatically generates detailed insights from therapy sessions by comparing real-time data with patient history, past interactions, and industry benchmarks.
• AI Treatment Plan – Provides clinicians with personalized treatment suggestions based on comprehensive data analysis, improving therapeutic strategies and patient outcomes.

Designed for a wide range of medical applications, including physical therapy, cognitive rehabilitation, pain management, and mental health, this multidisciplinary solution empowers clinicians with an AI-driven toolkit to enhance patient engagement, increase efficiency, and drive better clinical outcomes.

About XRHealth
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XRHealth is a pioneering company in the development of immersive therapeutic solutions, leveraging VR and XR technologies to revolutionize healthcare. The XRHealth platform empowers clinicians with personalized treatment plans that enhance patient engagement and improve clinical outcomes across multiple therapeutic areas. With strategic acquisitions such as Amelia Virtual Care and NeuroReality, XRHealth is on a mission to become the largest XR therapeutic platform globally, advancing the boundaries of virtual healthcare for diverse patient needs.

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) recently has partnered with Avantis Education to bring educational virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) solution ClassVR to its students. The partnership is bringing upwards of 16 thousand ClassVR headsets to students for advanced virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) learning. This collaboration supports LAUSD’s Instructional Technology Initiative, which aims to provide students with engaging, immersive learning experiences that enhance both academic instruction and student engagement.

ClassVR is an immersive learning solution created specifically for K-12 classrooms. It offers a comprehensive package that includes all necessary hardware, software, training, and support for seamless VR/AR deployment. This service will allow the Los Angeles Unified education group to access a broad library of immersive learning tools and resources, enabling students to interact with XR lessons.  

Related A New Level of Immersion in Virtual Training

“Los Angeles Unified has demonstrated its commitment to being a pioneer in educational technology by placing students at the forefront of innovative learning tools. Through our collaboration, we’re proud to help the district expand its use of VR technology in a thoughtful, strategic way, supporting the district’s vision of making learning more engaging and future-focused,” says Huw Williams, CEO of Avantis Education.

With VR experiences that pique curiosity and encourage dynamic learning throughout the district, Avantis Education has been a valued partner of LAUSD for the past two years. ClassVR was first implemented in a small number of schools, but because to its popularity, it has quickly expanded. In order to create an engaging learning environment, many LAUSD schools now deploy ClassVR headsets in both classroom settings and extracurricular programs. Students can investigate a variety of topics, such as physics, history, and professional and technical education, using virtual reality, reports ImmersiveTechnology.

This partnership's most recent extension focuses on enrichment programs that take place before and after school and offer good chances for integration into a variety of academic subjects. This partnership demonstrates LAUSD's dedication to using immersive technology to improve student learning results and position the district as a pioneer in educational innovation.

University of Oxford researchers have made a significant step towards realizing miniature, soft batteries for use in a variety of biomedical applications, including the defibrillation and pacing of heart tissues. The work has been published today in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering.

The development of tiny smart devices, smaller than a few cubic millimeters, demands equally small power sources, reports ScienceDaily.

For minimally invasive biomedical devices that interact with biological tissues, these power sources must be fabricated from soft materials.

Ideally, these should also have features such as high capacity, biocompatibility and biodegradability, triggerable activation, and the ability to be controlled remotely.

To date, there has been no battery that can fulfil these requirements all at once.

To address these requirements, researchers from the University of Oxford's Department of Chemistry and Department of Pharmacology have developed a miniature, soft lithium-ion battery constructed from biocompatible hydrogel droplets.

Surfactant-supported assembly (assembly aided by soap-like molecules), a technique reported by the same group last year in the journal Nature, is used to connect three microscale droplets of 10 nanoliters volume.

Related Higher Performance Battery for Wearables

Different lithium-ion particles contained in each of the two ends then generate the output energy.

'Our droplet battery is light-activated, rechargeable, and biodegradable after use.

To date, it is the smallest hydrogel lithium-ion battery and has a superior energy density' said Dr Yujia Zhang (Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford), the lead researcher for the study and a starting Assistant Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

'We used the droplet battery to power the movement of charged molecules between synthetic cells and to control the beating and defibrillation of mouse hearts.

By including magnetic particles to control movement, the battery can also function as a mobile energy carrier.'

Proof-of-concept heart treatments were carried out in the laboratory of Professor Ming Lei (Department of Pharmacology), a senior electrophysiologist in cardiac arrhythmias.

He said: 'Cardiac arrhythmia is a leading cause of death worldwide.

Our proof-of-concept application in animal models demonstrates an exciting new avenue of wireless and biodegradable devices for the management of arrhythmias.'

Professor Hagan Bayley (Department of Chemistry), the research group leader for the study, said: 'The tiny soft lithium-ion battery is the most sophisticated in a series of microscale power packs developed by Dr Zhang and points to a fantastic future for biocompatible electronic devices that can operate under physiological conditions.'

The researchers have filed a patent application through Oxford University Innovation. They envisage that the tiny versatile battery, particularly relevant to small-scale robots for bio applications, will open up new possibilities in various areas including clinical medicine.

In today's rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, some challenges remain hard to address. Especially when considering access and performance of remote monitoring, which tends to be either expensive or inaccurate. Remote monitoring technologies are emerging as powerful tools for improving patient care and outcomes. Among these, remote electrocardiogram (ECG) and sweat monitoring stand out as particularly promising innovations.

These tools combine innovations in materials, sensing technologies, and industrial processes. Developing a stick-to-skin wearable, also known as electronic skin patch or smart patch, does not require industrial machines only, but creativeness and experience on how to design a patch and assemble layers of different polymers, to obtain a product with very specific features such as comfort, stretchability, breathability or stickiness.

Linxens Healthcare, as a contract design and manufacturing company, started its journey in medical sensors by designing and manufacturing the electrochemical sensors for blood gas monitoring used by Siemens Healthineers in their EPOC system. Since then, the capacity to propose custom design for a diversity of electrochemical sensors has expanded and combined with unique capabilities in stick-to-skin wearables. Today Linxens   offers design support and full manufacturing for stick-to-skin wearables, addressing complex manufacturing challenges through our clinical expertise, especially in ECG patches. Leveraging a deep understanding of market demands and customer requirements, we enhance production efficiency and application performance, delivering exceptional results with time-saving solutions. Our capabilities include screen-printed electrodes, converting and die-cutting, full assembly, and packaging—ensuring a seamless process from design to final product.

Enabling remote health opens the ways to innovative companies to build up their products, while they focus on what to do with the data, Linxens Healthcare focuses on how to collect the data. Many applications in healthcare, and more particularly in the medical sector, benefit today from remote monitoring patches. EEG, fetal monitoring or vital signs are only few of them. And two applications in particular show a fast-growing development:

• Remote Electrocardiogram (ECG)
• Sport patches based on sweat monitoring

Remote ECG monitoring offers a non-invasive approach to continuously track a patient's heart rhythm. By leveraging wearable devices and wireless technology, healthcare providers can monitor patients remotely, enabling early detection of potential cardiac issues such as arrhythmias.

• Early Detection: Continuous monitoring allows for the early identification of irregular heart rhythms, potentially preventing serious complications.
• Reduced Hospitalizations: Timely intervention, facilitated by remote monitoring, can reduce the need for hospitalization and improve patient quality of life.
• Enhanced Patient Engagement: Remote monitoring empowers patients to take an active role in their own care, increasing adherence to treatment plans.
• Data-Driven Insights: The wealth of data generated by remote ECG monitoring enables healthcare providers to analyze trends and make informed decisions about patient management.

Another area requires to combine unique competences in skin patches assembly, microfluidic for sweat collection, and electrochemical sensors for real-time sweat monitoring. Widely used in glucose strip for diabetes for many years, electrochemical sensors are now expanding to other point-of-care testing such as infectious diseases and chronic diseases, or to continuous monitoring, offering accurate measurement at cost.

Sweat monitoring, a relatively new technology, offers a non-invasive method to assess various physiological parameters, including hydration status, electrolyte balance, and stress levels. By analyzing the composition of sweat, healthcare providers can gain valuable insights into a patient's overall health.

• Real-Time Insights: Sweat monitoring provides real-time feedback on a patient's physiological state during exercise or daily activities.
• Personalized Health Management: By understanding individual sweat profiles, healthcare providers can offer tailored recommendations for hydration, electrolyte intake, and stress management.
• Early Warning Signs: Sweat analysis can detect potential health issues like heat stress or dehydration before they escalate.

Combined together, remote ECG and sweat monitoring represent powerful tools for improving access to healthcare, enhancing patient monitoring, and promoting proactive health management.

Linxens Healthcare combines these unique capabilities into a single assembly for sweat collection, incorporating microfluidic channels in a stick-to-skin wearable with microfluidics integrated into the adhesive. This setup also enables simultaneous heart monitoring, making it easier for companies to develop wearables for applications in sports or medical biomolecule analysis.

Linxens Healthcare’s contract manufacturing services aim to enhance and accelerate the development of new solutions for remote monitoring. With over 550 million medical electrochemical sensors supplied and over 30 million medical skin patches delivered, Linxens, with its expertise in flexible materials and medical-grade adhesives, supported by dedicated innovation teams, ensures the delivery of products precisely tailored to the specific requirements of today’s healthcare applications, ensuring optimal performance.

About Linxens Healthcare

Linxens Healthcare leads the way in quality-driven product development in connected health with biosensors, stick-to-skin wearables, and traceability solutions.

Biosensors
Gold electrodes are widely used in electrochemical biosensors and physicochemical sensors due to their high conductivity and biocompatibility. Our electrodes are fully customizable, from design to materials. Our roll-to-roll manufacturing process enables scalability, economy of scale, and reproducibility from batch to batch.

Stick-To-Skin Wearables
We have a strong track record in delivering remote cardiac monitoring patches and other medical-grade patches. We excel in patch design according to usage, in multilayer converting, in screen-printed electrodes as well as in the integration of electrochemical and physicochemical sensors.

Track & Trace solutions
We supply HF and UHF RFID labels for tracing and authenticating consumables used in medical devices and diagnostic instruments. Our services include inlay manufacturing, converting, and RFID performance testing.

A headset worn at home that zaps the brain with the energy of a 9-volt battery could help relieve symptoms of depression, according to a study. The treatment relieves all symptoms of depression in more than half of patients (57.5%) in just 10 weeks, the study suggests.
The study was led by researchers at King's College, London, the University of East London, and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. It was funded by Flow Neuroscience, a Swedish company that makes a $500 (€459) brain stimulation headset that's designed to be used at home over 30-minute sessions while you do other things, reports NewAtlas.

The study also showed that the headset was able to improve symptoms in 64.2% of the patients involved in the trial.

No serious side effects associated with using the device were reported in the research published in the Nature Medicine journal.

The device can be purchased in the UK, Norway, Hong Kong, and other EU nations. The Swedish manufacturer, Flow Neuroscience, claims to be nearing completion of its application for US Food and Drug Administration approval to sell the depression gadget in the US.

Related NTU Researchers Develop Way to Detect Depression Risk Using Data from Wearables

Although there are comparable devices available in the US, the majority make no claims to treat any particular ailment or symptom. Rather, they may not specifically target certain parts of the brain, but they do promise to increase focus and alertness.

The headset uses an app with a video tutorial, as well as a telemedicine visit, to make sure people are able to correctly position the two electrodes to stimulate two specific brain regions. The first is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is a part of the brain linked to cognition and executive function. The second is engaged in emotional regulation and is referred to as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Research indicates that individuals suffering from depression typically exhibit higher levels of activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and lower levels in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

The device is designed to speed up brain activity in the region that’s moving too slowly and slow it down where it’s overactive, said Daniel Mansson, a clinical psychologist who co-founded Flow Neuroscience.

Professor Cynthia Fu, the study’s senior author and a professor of affective neuroscience and psychotherapy at King’s IoPPN, said: “The burden of depression is mostly keenly felt by the 280 million people worldwide currently managing symptoms.

“While a combination of antidepressants and therapy generally proves to be effective for many people, medication can have side-effects that some can find disruptive.

“Our study has demonstrated that tDCS is a safe and effective alternative that has the potential to help those in need.”

Researchers at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have made a groundbreaking advancement by creating grain-sized soft robots, controllable through magnetic fields for precision drug delivery. This innovative technology has the potential to revolutionize therapies in the future.

While this kind of small-scale biotechnology is not novel, the fact it has four compartments that can carry and release different medications is, reports NewAtlas.

"In this work, we have proposed a millimeter-scale soft robot, which can be actuated by alternating magnetic fields to dispense four types of drugs with reprogrammable drug-dispensing sequence and dosage," MAE lead investigator, Assistant Professor Lum Guo Zhan, told New Atlas. "This drug-dispensing functionality is unprecedented for small-scale robots because the majority of such existing robots can at most transport one type of drug. While there exist rare miniature robots that can carry multiple drugs, such robots are unable to change their drug-dispensing sequence and dosage. These robots can't transport more than three types of drugs, selectively dispense their drugs, maintain their mobility, or release their drugs at multiple sites.

"In comparison, our soft robot has great potential to enable advanced targeted combination therapy, where four types of drugs must be delivered to various disease sites, each with a specific sequence and dosage of drugs."

Researchers said their work is inspired by the iconic 1960s film ‘Fantastic Voyage,’ in which a crew is miniaturized to repair damage within a scientist’s brain.

Read more Market Launch for Automated Insulin Delivery System

Advanced smart magnetic composite materials, which include human-safe polymers and non-toxic magnetic microparticles, were used in the design of the grain-sized robot. This novel soft robot exhibits remarkable dexterity and can roll and crawl over obstacles quickly, in contrast to existing small robots that have trouble maintaining accurate orientations.

Although it has not yet undergone clinical testing, the robot has shown that it can travel through a variety of liquid viscosities that replicate the conditions it would encounter in a human body. At a pace of 0.30 mm to 16.5 mm per second, it was able to traverse to four distinct locations in lab testing and release a particular medicine at each location. Additionally, the engineers were able to control the apparatus to release a drug gradually over a period of eight hours. They think the robot could provide both immediate and continuous pharmaceutical delivery, depending on the patient's need.

"The roadmap towards realizing this goal is to first evaluate the performance of robots further with organ-on-chip devices and eventually conduct animal trials," Lum added. "We can perhaps complete this stage of research within the next two to five years’ time."

Researchers at Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) have unveiled a new wearable robot developed for completely paralyzed persons that can walk to them so that the user can wear it right out of their wheelchairs without the help from others. Also, it was announced that Professor Kyoungchul Kong's team from KAIST will be participating in the wearable robot category of the 3rd Cybathlon, which is being held four years after the team’s gold medal win in 2020.

KAIST (President Kwang-Hyung Lee) announced this new version of the wearable robot for paraplegic people, WalkON Suit F1, by Professor Kyoungchul Kong (CEO and founder of Angel Robotics) of KAIST Department of Mechanical Engineering on the 24th of October, reports KAIST.

WalkON Suit is a wearable robot for people suffering with paraplegic disabilities that the research team has been continuously researching since 2015. This robot targets to assist persons with American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) Impairment Scale – A (complete paralysis) grade injury, the most severe level of paraplegia. Therefore, its development purpose is different from that of other rehabilitation therapy and muscle strength assisting robots currently being supplied nationally by Angel Robotics.

Professor Kong's research team first announced WalkON Suit 1 in 2016, and then introduced WalkON Suit 4 in 2020, increasing the walking speed to 3.2 km/h, achieving the normal walking speed of people with no disabilities. In addition, it demonstrated the ability to pass through obstacles such as narrow passages, doors, and stairs that can be encountered in daily life.

However, it had the same fundamental problem all wearable robots have, which is that they require the help of others to wear the robot. While you can walk without help from others once you are wearing the robot, you needed someone's help to put it on to begin with.

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The newly released WalkON Suit F1 presented a technical solution to this fundamental problem. It applied a frontal-docking method instead of a rear-sitting method so that you can wear the robot right away without getting out of the wheelchair and into the robot, which would require help from others mid-transition.

In addition, before wearing the robot, it can walk on its own like a humanoid robot and approaches the user. It is also implemented a function that actively controls the center of its weight against the pull of gravity so that it maintains balance without falling over even if the user pushes the robot otherwise. The outer design of the WalkON Suit F1, which crosses between a humanoid and a wearable robot, was done by Professor Hyunjoon Park of the Department of Industrial Design at KAIST.

Technological advancements at the components level are also noteworthy. Through close collaboration with Angel Robotics, all core components of the robot, such as the motor, reducer, motor driver, and main circuit, have been domestically produced. The output density of the motor and reducer modules has been improved by about two folds (based on power per weight) compared to the research team's existing technology, and the control performance of the motor driver has been improved by about three times (based on frequency response speed) compared to the best overseas technology.

Professor Kong explained, “WalkON Suit is the culmination of wearable robot technology for the disabled,” and added, “The numerous components, control, and module technologies derived from WalkON Suit are setting the standard for the entire wearable robot industry.”

Swiss startup Padrone has created a wearable AI mouse ring that fits the index finger and can turn any surface into a laptop or computer touchpad. The smart ring, dubbed Primera, is currently the subject of a Kickstarter campaign.

The device is worn on the index finger of the user's dominant hand. Among other electronics, it incorporates a six-axis motion sensor, a forward-facing camera, a microprocessor, a Bluetooth LE module, and a rechargeable battery.

The cursor movements on the screen exactly repeat the finger movements, and touching the surface works like a mouse click. It is important to note that all information processing is performed inside the device, ensuring the security of user data.

According to the designers, it has taken the technology team ten years in total to develop the wearable AI mouse ring. In 2024, they’re confident enough to say that they can start releasing the product in May 2025. When the clients receive the ring, they slide it onto their index finger and connect the device to their laptop or computer through a Bluetooth connection, reports NewAtlas.

To activate the Primera, double-tap the thumb on the side of the index finger. The onscreen pointer is then moved appropriately by dragging the fingertip across the desk's surface. A left click is made by tapping the desk with the index finger, while a right click is made by tapping the middle finger.

Related This $100 Wearable Keyboard/Mouse Turns Any Surface Into A Workstation

The index and middle fingers are slid together to scroll. Users can drag and drop objects by pressing the thumb against the side of the index finger. Additionally, the Primera detects the keyboard when the hand is moved to the keyboard to begin typing and immediately enters standby mode until the hand is brought back to the desk.

It is worth noting that the wearable device only works on reasonably well-lit surfaces that don't have overly chaotic color patterns. Battery life also isn't great, as one 100-minute USB charge is said to be sufficient for one full work day.

Padrone says the device should work with any tablet or computer that accepts a Bluetooth mouse, without any added software.

When the company starts production, you can get one for a pledge of €259 (about US$279).

Smart ring maker OURA announced that it’s entered into an agreement to acquire Sparta Science, an enterprise software company that transforms health and performance data into actionable intelligence. This marks OURA’s third acquisition in two years, following Proxy, a digital identity signal platform, in May 2023 and Veri, a metabolic health company, in September 2024.

OURA will leverage Sparta Science’s Trinsic data platform, which streamlines the process of collecting, analyzing, and delivering human health and performance information at scale to improve and expand the Oura Teams B2B offering. The result will be an enhanced Oura Teams platform to serve OURA’s growing base of enterprise, healthcare, and government customers, helping them empower their employees and service members to deliver improved organizational readiness and resilience, the company said in a press release.

“Our enterprise offering supports organizations of all kinds to solve complex health and human performance challenges at scale, such as optimizing sailors’ schedules1 for maximum rest and recovery and early detection of illness2,” said Dorothy Kilroy, OURA chief commercial officer. “Through our work over the years with partners like the Department of Defense, we’ve proved that Oura Ring is uniquely positioned to support population health remotely and at scale. The addition of Sparta Science and its Trinsic data platform will help us meet the specific needs of our partners.”

Since its inception over 10 years ago, OURA has had an ambition of improving population health by making a significant impact on the health outcomes of individuals and addressing the various factors that influence their well-being. To understand population health and enable organizations to support their people effectively, it is crucial to merge diverse data sets—securely and anonymously—to gain comprehensive insights into health trends and disparities.

Related England Players Wearing Smart Rings to Boost Euro Hopes

OURA’s enterprise data management platform, Oura Teams, allows account administrators to invite their organization to opt-in to share data, manage users, review group insights and trends, and visualize or export data. The addition of Trinsic will enable Oura Teams to:

• Combine insights from Oura Ring with multiple third-party data sources in a flexible, scalable platform.

• Enable customizable solutions to either integrate with a customer’s existing systems (such as athlete management systems (AMS), electronic medical records (EMR), and research and operational data platforms) or create customized dashboards and workflows directly.

• Provide insights to optimize scheduling, resource allocation, return-to-duty processes, and fitness and safety measures.

• Continue supporting HIPAA compliance and adherence to government and enterprise information security frameworks.

In addition to adapting the Trinsic data platform to create a new Oura Teams offering, several members of the Sparta Science team will join OURA, adding technical talent across engineering, data science, solutions architecture, and product development.

"Trinsic is a powerful data platform that can address many of the advanced needs of OURA’s customers,” said Greg Olsen, Sparta Software's chief technology officer. “By joining forces, we can create a more comprehensive and scalable solution. Our technology will enable Oura Teams to incorporate a wider range of data sources, perform more precise individual and population-level analyses, and ultimately better serve unique customer requirements."

The acquisition of Sparta Science is part of a significant year of growth milestones for OURA; most recently, in October 2024, OURA introduced its fourth-generation hardware product, Oura Ring 4. The company is nearly two years ahead of its profitability targets, surpassed 2.5 million rings sold in June 2024, and has more than doubled its member base over the past year.

Trinsic will continue to ingest and support force plate data from Sparta Science’s legacy force plates and those made by third parties, and OURA will continue to support Sparta Science’s legacy force plate business until the end of the calendar year. OURA will cease production and distribution of force plates at the end of 2024. Existing Sparta Science customers will be supported individually and on a contract basis. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.

Bearmind, a sports tech company, has introduced an innovative brain health monitoring device for athletes, designed to transform how sports teams track and manage head impact risks. The product, a helmet insert equipped with advanced sensors, continuously monitors impacts to an athlete’s head, sending real-time data to a secure cloud platform. Here, Bearmind’s proprietary algorithms analyze the data, providing sports teams and medical staff with instant insights into both immediate impacts and long-term brain health risks.

The technology aims to address a major concern in contact sports, such as football, rugby, and hockey, by helping teams make informed decisions to protect players from traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) and concussions. In addition to real-time monitoring, the system tracks cumulative impacts, identifying players who may be at higher risk over time.

About Bearmind

Bearmind is dedicated to advancing athlete safety through cutting-edge wearable tech. The startup has already conducted successful trials with teams in Europe and the U.S., and has received enthusiastic feedback for its data-driven approach to sports safety. By combining sports science with practical technology, Bearmind is on a mission to set new standards in brain health monitoring and make sports safer for athletes worldwide.

A tiny chip with a special surface can precisely identify the blood biomarkers of a heart attack in a matter of minutes, even if they are at very low concentrations. The device's creators envision it being used as a diagnostic tool at home.

Time is of the essence when dealing with a heart attack. Patient outcomes are improved by early diagnosis because less damage is done and blood flow is restored to the heart more quickly. However, heart attacks are cunning creatures, with symptoms that vary from person to person.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) have led the design of a tiny chip that diagnoses heart attack by detecting important biomarkers in minutes rather than hours, even if they are present at very low concentrations, reports Paul McClure in New Atlas.

The proof-of-concept work, which can be modified to detect infectious diseases and cancer biomarkers, is newly published in Advanced Science.

"Heart attacks require immediate medical intervention in order to improve patient outcomes, but while early diagnosis is critical, it can also be very challenging—and near impossible outside of a clinical setting," said lead author Peng Zheng, an assistant research scientist at Johns Hopkins University. "We were able to invent a new technology that can quickly and accurately establish if someone is having a heart attack."

Related Ultrasound Wearable Patch Could Provide Early Warning for Heart Attacks and Strokes

Zheng and senior author Ishan Barman use biophotonics to create diagnostic tools that use laser light to find biomarkers, which are the body's reactions to various conditions, including disease. Here, they employed technology to detect the first indications of a heart attack in the blood. Heart attacks continue to be one of the most difficult conditions to diagnose; symptoms vary greatly and biological signs can be subtle and easy to miss in the early stages of a heart attack. In the United States, more than 8000,000 people have heart attacks every year.

The stand-alone blood test the team created provides results in five to seven minutes. It's also more accurate and more affordable than current methods, the researchers say.

Though created for speedy diagnostic work in a clinical setting, the test could be adapted as a hand-held tool that first responders could use in the field, or that people might even be able to use themselves at home.

"We're talking about speed, we're talking about accuracy, and we're talking of the ability to perform measurements outside of a hospital," said Barman, a bioengineer in JHU's Department of Mechanical Engineering. "In the future we hope this could be made into a hand-held instrument like a Star Trek tricorder, where you have a drop of blood and then, voilà, in a few seconds you have detection."

“We developed this sensor to collect physiological data, information including ECG, heart rate, respiration, and body temperature,” said Jenny Tseng, Singular Wing’s marketing specialist, when New Atlas spoke with her at the expo. “And at this exhibition, we display the glucose monitoring. So, we use ECG to estimate the glucose level for high, medium, and low glucose level.”

Used to diagnose problems with heart rate or rhythm, an ECG is a non-invasive method of reading the electrical activity of the heart. In a medical setting, it might involve applying several tiny gel pads to the arms, legs, and chest and having the patient lie motionless for a minute or so. Naturally, a lot of wearable technology now continuously tracks a user's heart rhythm and rate, reports Paul McClure in New Atlas.

Research has demonstrated that both hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia impact the electrical properties of the heart, resulting in specific alterations that are visible on an electrocardiogram. In order to reliably forecast blood sugar, researchers have employed machine learning to analyze ECGs and create algorithms based on those data.

Related South Korean CGM Receives Regulatory Approval

While the product is still under development, Singular Wings has done the same with their non-invasive CGM.

“Because we use machine learning method and … the accuracy, the average accuracy, I can tell you, is about 80%,” said Dick Hsieh, PhD, account manager for Singular Wings. “But it’s about model training. We still need [a] validation stage. But the result of [the] validation stage, it is [at] the moment unknown.”

An attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) video game 'test' that uses a wearable, non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) to rapidly measure neural activity while the user plays is helping doctors make more accurate diagnoses. This new idea has great potential to eliminate the gray area around the diagnosis of ADHD, even if it is still in the research stage.

Currently, mental and behavioral evaluations are the main methods of diagnosis until further research on genetic biomarkers for ADHD is conducted. According to the Mayo Clinic, three distinct forms of ADHD are identified based on symptoms: mostly inattentive, primarily hyperactive/impulsive, and combined or mixed—where a person falls on the wide and diverse continuum between these two.

Related Neuralink Implants Brain Chip in Human

Even though EEG can now be used to measure brain activity for ADHD diagnoses, it ignores this resting/task state and fails to recognize the subtleties of the condition's subtypes, which are, predictably, complicated and highly diverse when it comes to mixed type ADHD.

Researchers from Taiwan’s National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCY) developed a wireless BCI device that fits comfortably on a patient's head to record both resting-state and 'task-state' electroencephalography (EEG) signals.

This BCI works in conjunction with a game or video designed to stimulate a visual and auditory response in the patient, and information from the brain is transmitted from each dry EEG electrode in different channels to specially designed AI-assisted software, reports Bronwyn Thompson in New Atlas.

"It's convenient and time-saving – it only takes 10 minutes to put on this device," explained researcher Jo-Wei Lin at Taiwan's Innotech Expo on October 18. "For children, traditional ADHD diagnosis needs many interviews with teachers and parents, and questionnaires to decide whether the child has ADHD or not.

The device serves as an extra tool to precisely diagnose and treat ADHD, but it is not intended to take the role of medical professionals. Although children have been the focus of the research, the team claims that adults can adapt to the way brainwave processing functions.

Compared to questionnaires and interviews, the game-based test feels more approachable to children and is a new addition to the evaluation of ADHD. Additionally, in collaboration with Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Hsinchu Ton Yen General Hospital, the team's equipment has a 95% accuracy rate.

“We let the children wear the testing device to play the ‘game-based attention test’ by the research team," said team lead Li-Wei Ko, professor of the Institute of Electrical and Control Engineering at NYCU, in September. "At the same time, we analyze their brainwave changes to determine whether they tend to hyperactivity, which can shorten the traditional diagnostic process that takes three months to one month."

Early research into the technology was published in the Journal of Neural Engineering.

Brighton, UK-based Emteq Labs unveiled Sense, the world’s first emotion-sensing smart glasses. Alongside the unveiling of Sense, the company announced the appointment of Steen Strand, former head of the hardware division of Snap Inc., as its new Chief Executive Officer.

The new AI-powered eyewear platform provides lab-quality insights in real life and in real time. This includes comprehensive measurement and analysis of the wearer’s facial expressions, dietary habits, mood, posture, attention levels, physical activity, and additional health-related metrics, Emteq said in a press release.

“Our faces reveal deep insights about our minds and bodies. Since founding Emteq Labs in 2015, we have been on a mission to improve lives and health outcomes through a deeper understanding of our emotional responses and behaviors,” said Dr. Charles Nduka, founder and Chief Science Officer at Emteq Labs. “Our proven, breakthrough Sense eyewear allows us to look inward, rather than outward. Wearers will peer into the future to see how subtle, nearly invisible factors can shape long-term health and wellness like never before.”

Emteq’s Sense glasses are equipped with contactless OCO sensors that detect high-resolution facial activations at key muscle locations, as well as a downward-facing camera for instantly logging food consumption. Data collected is analyzed using proprietary AI/ML algorithms, and securely transferred to the Sense app and cloud platform. The user has full control over the data and can choose to share it with researchers, trainers, coaches, or clinicians upon consent.

Related UK MOD Picks XRAI to Help Hearing Impaired Employees

The powerful insights that Sense uncovers have a transformative impact on weight management and mental health, as well as broader healthcare applications, consumer sentiment, augmented reality, and more.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 1 billion people in the world are living with obesity and approximately 970 million people worldwide are living with a mental health disorder. Emteq’s platform helps address these critical health issues by enabling a deeper understanding of everyday behaviors, decisions, and the emotions that drive them.

A recent peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Medical Internal Research found that Sense accurately tracks food intake and eating behavior in everyday settings, overcoming the major limitations of traditional self-reporting methods such as manual food logs. This research confirms the effectiveness of Emteq’s technology for precise dietary monitoring, which is essential for successful interventions to promote a healthy lifestyle.

Additionally, research published in Frontiers in Psychiatry journal demonstrated that Emteq’s platform can distinguish between depressed and non-depressed people as compared with current gold standard diagnostic methods. By effectively assessing affective behaviors in remote settings – such as the home, office, or school – Sense is poised to significantly improve the diagnosis and monitoring of chronic mental health and neurological conditions including depression, anxiety, autism spectrum disorder, and more.

"Having spent my entire career at the intersection of innovation and consumer products, I can confidently assert that Emteq will transform the smart eyewear landscape and, more importantly, improve and save lives," said Steen Strand, CEO of Emteq Labs. "Health applications have catalyzed the rise of wearables, and eyewear is the next frontier. Emteq will deliver the most compelling case for smart glasses yet—proving that they can dramatically improve your health."

Prior to joining Emteq, Strand led Snap Inc.'s hardware division, SnapLab, where he was responsible for the Spectacles line of augmented reality eyewear as well as the company’s hardware-related investments and acquisitions.

Emteq Labs’ Sense development kit will be available to commercial partners tackling a wide range of applications starting in December.

About Emteq Labs

Emteq Labs is a UK-based deep technology company pioneering real-time emotion recognition in virtual and augmented environments. The company’s patented emotion-sensing eyewear captures facial muscle activity across diverse settings, leveraging proprietary AI/ML algorithms to provide insights on expressions, eating behaviors, attention and physical activity. With nearly a decade of research backing its innovations, Emteq Labs holds 27 patents, has published 28 peer-reviewed publications, and has earned multiple awards for its cutting-edge technology.

At its annual Connect conference on Wednesday, Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms unveiled Orion, the first functional prototype of augmented reality glasses. The California company outlined its goals for products that would bring the virtual and physical worlds together.

"This is the physical world with holograms overlaid on it," Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said after pulling out the chunky black glasses from a metal case dramatically brought to him on stage.

"For now, I think the right way to look at Orion is as a time machine," he said. "These glasses exist, they are awesome and they are a glimpse of a future that I think is going to be pretty exciting."

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Orion is the most sophisticated AR glasses that Meta has produced to date, fusing the immersive qualities of augmented reality with the appearance and feel of a standard set of glasses.

The glasses are powered by specially engineered silicon that was created by Meta and are composed of magnesium alloy. Through voice, hand-tracking, and a neural interface based on the wrist, users will be able to communicate with the glasses.

The glasses combine cutting-edge augmented reality technologies that project 2D and 3D content directly into the user's surroundings with transparent lenses that allow users to maintain eye contact and monitor their surroundings. Orion's release, according to Meta, is a step toward accomplishing a major objective: making sure users are no longer forced to choose between being present in their actual environment and receiving digital information, reports Auganix.

According to Zuckerberg, Meta intends to focus on making it more affordable, sleeker, and smaller before selling it to customers.

According to Meta, there are three primary reasons why AR glasses are key to unlocking the next great leap in human-oriented computing.

• They enable digital experiences that are unconstrained by the limits of a smartphone screen. With large holographic displays, you can use the physical world as your canvas, placing 2D and 3D content and experiences anywhere you want.

• They seamlessly integrate contextual AI that can sense and understand the world around you in order to anticipate and proactively address your needs.

• They’re lightweight and great for both indoor and outdoor use, and they let people see each other’s face, eyes and expressions.

Meta also unveiled a new Quest mixed-reality headset and additional AI chatbot features for its services. On Wednesday, Meta's stock hit a record closing high of $568.31, up 0.9%.

Chinese researchers have developed a suture that electrically stimulates the wound when it is under tension, as happens during movement.

The most common therapy for deep and big skin wounds is sutures, which physically reunite the cells on each side of the wound to allow them to repair the damage. In their absence, injuries have a higher chance of infection, heal more slowly, and leave bigger scars.

However, they have some issues of their own. They can be opened by movement of the affected area, and once they have served their purpose, doctors typically need to remove them. Researchers at China's Donghua University have found solutions to both of those issues in a recent study.

A specific mechanoelectrical fiber is used to create the new sutures. In essence, electric fields are created when the fiber's core and sheath layers come into contact and split apart due to movement; this has been demonstrated in earlier studies to hasten healing.

Rats with wounds and artificial muscle fibers were used in a number of studies the researchers conducted with the suture, reports Guardian.

The findings show that its components get electrically charged when the sutures are stretched and the core moves inside the sheath; this is the same process that happens, for instance, when a balloon is rubbed against hair.

“The suture generates electricity by creating opposite charges on the suture’s middle and outer shell when muscles relax and contract, based on the triboelectric effect,” Hou said. “This generates an electric field at the wound site to accelerate wound healing.”

Related This Smart Bandage Provides Wound Report in Real-Time

While movement can strain and hinder how well traditional stitches work, it can be a benefit for the new sutures.

Through research in a petri dish, the scientists discovered that the presence of an electrical field enhanced the rates at which cells multiplied and moved to the area surrounding the sutures, while electrical stimulation also decreased the growth of bacteria.

In their experiments with rats, the researchers also discovered that cuts in their muscles held together with the new sutures had fewer bacteria and healed more quickly than those stitched with regular bioabsorbable sutures. The team notes that this is significant in lowering the risk of postoperative infections.

Compared to when no sutures or alternative bioabsorbable sutures were used, the wounds were nearly fully healed after ten days. "This suture can help wounds heal faster by almost 50% by creating an electric field through the object's natural movements," according to Hou's tests on rats.

Happy Health, an innovative health technology company based in Austin, TX, has received FDA clearance for its groundbreaking consumer-focused platform designed to bring clinical-grade healthcare directly into the home. At the heart of this revolution is the Happy Ring – the first and only truly wearable medical device that seamlessly combines medical accuracy with all-day comfort.

Accuracy Meets Wearability

The Happy Ring is designed to monitor key health metrics such as sleep, blood oxygen, heart rate, activity, temperature, brain activity, and more - all while fitting comfortably on your finger. With a near-indestructible, diamond-hard ceramic design, the Happy Ring has been recognized by the IDSA with its prestigious Design Award, the company said in a press release.

"We're inundated today with wearable devices that are invalidated and inaccurate, leading to poor decision-making and, ultimately, anxiety. Imagine driving down a remote highway with a fuel gauge that's constantly fluctuating and faulty. Instead of providing reassurance, it leaves you frustrated. This is the reality for many people relying on today's wearables for health decision making. We're here to change that,” says Dr. Dustin Freckleton, CEO of Happy Health.

The Future of Healthcare

Happy Health's platform goes beyond just the Happy Ring and associated devices. It's a comprehensive diagnostic and ongoing clinical monitoring solution that uses personalized machine learning algorithms and generative AI to integrate data into a clinical context where it matters most. With Happy, data becomes more than numbers on a screen – it's translated into actionable notifications and alerts sent directly to patients and their care teams. This full-circle approach allows individuals to receive coordinated clinical monitoring for a wide range of health conditions – from sleep apnea and heart disease to diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and more.

Related England Players Wearing Smart Rings to Boost Euro Hopes

Patient-Driven, Doctor-Powered Healthcare

Happy Health's platform empowers individuals with health data and clinical expertise, literally at their fingertips, allowing them to take charge of their own health journey right from the comfort of their home.

Happy Sleep

Happy Health's first clinical program, Happy Sleep, is set to launch later this year, offering an all-encompassing approach to sleep health. The Happy Ring will be available directly to consumers at launch through the Happy Sleep website as well as through partnerships with hospital systems, physician groups, and other medical service providers.

About Happy Health

Based in Austin, TX, Happy Health is pioneering the future of healthcare by creating a consumer-first healthcare experience that is patient-driven and doctor-powered. Through its novel platform, Happy Health empowers individuals to take charge of their health with accurate, actionable data and clinical expertise, right at home.

AR software solutions provider XRAI has been selected to supply AR glasses as part of a pilot program aimed at enhancing accessibility for employees with hearing impairments within the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD).

The three-month-long pilot program is being conducted in Bristol's MOD Abbey Wood. Eight sets of AR glasses, supplied by XRAI Glass under a £10,000 contract, are among the first to be tested by staff members of the Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) company. Under a £10,000 contract with XRAI Glass, the Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) organization is one of the first to test the technology, which comprises eight sets of AR glasses, reports Auganix.‍

Users wearing phone-tethered augmented reality (AR) smart glasses will be able to read speech in real-time through closed captioning. The XRAI Glass software converts audio into a subtitled version of conversation which will then appear on the user’s glasses screen. The software’s sophisticated voice recognition capabilities can identify who’s speaking and will soon have the power to translate languages, voice tones, accents, and pitch.

Related These AR Glasses Can Translate Languages and Detect Images

Steve Crump, Founder and Chair, DeafKidz International, said: “As a profoundly deaf person myself, I was blown away by this technology. When I tried on the glasses, I was astonished – real time subtitles that enable you to engage and participate as never before. I see XRAI Glass as a hugely positive force, and I can’t wait to work with the team to help bring this to life.”

The trial is being led by Chris Chennell, a senior architect on the DE&S Digital delivery team. Chennell stated: “The initial feedback has been really encouraging, and I’m very hopeful this will prove to be a really positive addition for our staff. The next three months will gather more feedback to help us determine the best way to assist our colleagues with hearing loss, whether it’s through this technology or something else.”

DE&S said that if the trial is successful, the goal would be to make the glasses available throughout the MOD and possibly other government agencies.

Snap doubled down on its prediction that wearable electronics that improves one's vision of the actual world will be among the next big things in the IT industry on Tuesday by announcing an updated version of its Spectacles augmented-reality glasses.

Snap, well-known for its fleeting messaging service and animated filters, was a pioneer in augmented reality, a technology that allows users to superimpose virtual effects on images or videos taken of real-world scenes using a camera or lens.

Related Portable Google TV Experience for XR Glasses

The new fifth generation Spectacles integrate with mobile devices through the new Spectacles app, allowing users to control Lenses, mirror their phone screens, use their phone as a gaming controller with Lenses, and enable a spectator mode that allows people without their own Spectacles to follow along.

Compared to earlier models, the glasses offer a wider field of view and automatically darken in direct sunlight.

Initially, developers who create augmented reality features would be able to purchase spectacles for $99 a month, rather than selling them to consumers, reports Reuters.

In an interview conducted prior to the summit, Spiegel stated that this is a crucial step in increasing adoption among regular users.

"There has to be really compelling experiences," he said. "By working really closely with developers and just continuously improving our platform, I think we're going to get to a place where there are a lot of compelling lenses for people to try with Spectacles."

According to Snap, developers will be able to create more engaging augmented reality experiences for groups of two or more Spectacles wearers with the new OS. For instance, chess might be played in real time between two users in the same room on a virtual board that is rendered in the players' environment.

Additionally, Snap announced a revamp of the Snapchat app, condensing it from five distinct parts to three. In the past, the firm streamlined Snapchat's user interface for ads in an effort to boost advertising results.