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Tag: Technology

  • Tesla is unveiling its long-awaited robotaxi amid doubts about the technology it runs on

    Tesla is unveiling its long-awaited robotaxi amid doubts about the technology it runs on

    DETROIT — Expectations are high for the long-awaited unveiling of Tesla’s robotaxi at a Hollywood studio Thursday night. Too high for some analysts and investors.

    The company, which began selling software it calls “Full Self-Driving” nine years ago that still can’t drive itself, is expected to show off the so-called “Cybercab” vehicle, which may not have a steering wheel and pedals.

    The unveiling comes as CEO Elon Musk tries to persuade investors that his company is more about artificial intelligence and robotics as it struggles to sell its core products, an aging lineup of electric vehicles.

    Some analysts are predicting that it will be a historic day for the Austin, Texas, company as it takes a huge step toward a long-awaited robotaxi service powered by AI.

    But others who track self-driving vehicles say Musk has yet to demonstrate Tesla’s system can travel safely without a human driver ready to step in to prevent crashes.

    “I don’t know why the headlines continue to be ‘What will Tesla announce?’ rather than ‘Why does Tesla think we’re so stupid?’” said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who studies autonomous vehicles.

    He doesn’t see Tesla having the ability to show off software and hardware that can work without human supervision, even in a limited area that’s well-known to the driving system.

    “We just haven’t seen any indication that that is what Tesla is working toward,” Walker Smith said. “If they were, they would be showcasing this not on a closed lot, but in an actual city or on an actual freeway.”

    Without a clear breakthrough in autonomous technology, Tesla will just show off a vehicle with no pedals or steering wheel, which already has been done by numerous other companies, he said.

    “The challenge is developing a combination of hardware and software plus the human and digital infrastructure to actually safely drive a vehicle even without a steering wheel on public roads in any conditions,” Walker Smith said. “Tesla has been giving us that demo every year, and it’s not reassuring us.”

    Many industry analysts aren’t expecting much from the event either. While TD Cowen’s Jeff Osborne expects Musk to reveal the Cybercab and perhaps the Model 2, a lower-cost electric vehicle, he said he doesn’t expect much of a change on self-driving technology.

    “We expect the event to be light on details and appeal to the true long-term believers in Tesla,” Osborne wrote in a note. Musk’s claims on the readiness of Full Self Driving, though, will be crucial “given past delays and ongoing scrutiny” of the system and of Tesla’s less-sophisticated Autopilot driver-assist software.

    Tesla’s model lineup is struggling and isn’t likely to be refreshed until late next year at the earliest, Osborne wrote. Plus, he wrote that in TD Cowen’s view the “politicization of Elon” is tarnishing the Tesla brand among Democrat buyers in the U.S.

    Musk has endorsed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and has pushed many conservative causes. Last weekend he joined Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.

    Musk has been saying for more than five years that a fleet of robotaxis is near, allowing Tesla owners to make money by having their cars carry passengers while they’re not in use by the owners.

    But he has acknowledged that past predictions for the use of autonomous driving proved too optimistic. In 2019, he promised the fleet of autonomous vehicles by the end of 2020.

    However, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who is bullish on Tesla stock, wrote in an investor note that robotaxi event, dubbed “We, Robot,” by the company, will be a new chapter of growth for Tesla.

    Ives expects many updates and details from Tesla on the robotaxi, plus breakthroughs in Full Self Driving and artificial intelligence. He also is looking for a phased-in strategy for rolling out the robotaxis within the next year, as well as a Tesla ride-sharing app, and demonstrations of technology “designed to revolutionize urban transportation.”

    Ives, whose organization will attend the invitation-only event at the Warner Bros. studio, wrote that he also expects updates on Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot, which the company plans to start selling in 2026.

    “We believe this is a pivotal time for Tesla as the company prepares to release its years of Robotaxi R&D shadowed behind the curtains, while Musk & Co. lay out the company’s vision for the future,” Ives wrote.

    The announcement comes as U.S. safety regulators are investigating Full Self Driving and Autopilot based on evidence that it has a weak system for making sure human drivers pay attention.

    In addition, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration forced Tesla to recall Full Self-Driving in February because it allowed speeding and violated other traffic laws, especially near intersections. Tesla was to fix the problems with an online software update.

    Last April in Snohomish County, Washington, near Seattle, a Tesla using Full Self-Driving hit and killed a motorcyclist, authorities said. The Tesla driver told authorities that he was using the system while looking at his phone when the car rear-ended the motorcyclist. The motorcyclist was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.

    NHTSA says it’s evaluating information on the fatal crash from Tesla and law enforcement officials.

    The Justice Department also has sought information from Tesla about Full Self-Driving and Autopilot, as well as other items.

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  • World Food India 2024 Concludes In Delhi: A Hub Of Innovation And Technology

    World Food India 2024 Concludes In Delhi: A Hub Of Innovation And Technology

    The third edition of World Food India 2024, organised by the Ministry of Food Processing And Industry, concluded in the capital, New Delhi earlier this week, drawing attention from global food industry leaders, innovators, and enthusiasts.

    With a theme of ‘Processing for Prosperity’, this edition of World Food India showcased the advancements in food processing technologies, investment opportunities, and India’s growth in the food processing sector. The event was inaugurated by Shri Pralhad Joshi, Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food, Distribution, and New and Renewable Energy along with Shri Ravneet Singh Bittu, Minister of State of Food Processing Industries and Railways; and Shri Chirag Paswan, Union Minister of Food Processing Industries on September 19, 2024.

    Also Read: Weight Loss: 5 Ways Of Making Salad With Olives For Healthy Eating

    WFI 2024 featured over 1500 exhibitors, 20 country pavilions and participation from 809 buyers and over 2000 foreign delegates. The food event saw participation from multiple food brands like Britannia Industries, Everest Foods, PepsiCo, Anmol Industries and Haldiram amongst others.

    Three major announcements were made during the event: the inauguration of food manufacturing units across 67 locations, seed capital assistance of ₹245 crores to women entrepreneurs, and credit-linked support to 25,000 beneficiaries for micro projects. Among these announcements, the government’s message of being ‘Vocal For Locals’ echoed with everyone. In line with this idea, Borges, a popular name in the Mediterranean food products space, launched its ‘Made In India’ – Borges Olive Leaf Infusion. This drink is said to be a caffeine-free healthy drink alternative made from olive tree leaves.

    Olive tree contains oleuropein*, a phenolic compound found in olive leaves and the oil of its fruit. The compound is known for its health benefits like helping lower stress and regulate blood pressure. This new infusion is made indigenously in Rajasthan and is said to offer twice the antioxidants of green tea and other health benefits. At the World Food India 2024, Borges showcased four flavours of its Olive Leaf Infusion-Classic, Lemongrass, Basil, and Mint.

    Among the other highlights were the promotion of recycled PET bottles for carbonated beverages by PepsiCo and sustainable packing solutions by Tetra Pak.

    *Autophagy And Polyphenol Intervention Strategy In Aging [Read Here]

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  • Technology unlocks Han Dynasty lifestyle at Mawangdui site for the public in reality

    Technology unlocks Han Dynasty lifestyle at Mawangdui site for the public in reality

    Yang Jiyuan, a restorer of ancient silk textile, and her apprentices study the details of the drawings on a Western Han Dynasty robe. Photo: Courtesy of Nanjing Yunjin Research Institute

    Yang Jiyuan, a restorer of ancient silk textile, and her apprentices study the details of the drawings on a Western Han Dynasty robe. Photo: Courtesy of Nanjing Yunjin Research Institute

     
    Editor’s Note: 

    Fifty years ago, not only the archaeological community but also ordinary people were stunned by the excavation of the Mawangdui Han Tombs. Among the findings was a remarkable discovery known as China’s “Sleeping Beauty” (Lady Xin Zhui), an over 2,100-year-old lady who looks nearly as good as she did when she was buried after her death at the age of about 50, during China’s Western Han Dynasty (206BC-AD25). The world has marveled at the mystery behind her body, as well as the numerous precious treasures unearthed from the tombs, including textiles, bamboo and silk manuscripts. 

    In this Mawangdui trilogy, the Global Times Culture Desk explores how digital technologies have brought the public closer to the heritage and how the “Mawangdui IP” was revived by the creative industries. This is the third installment.


    Visitors explore <em>The Art of Life: Multimedia Exhibition of Mawangdui Han Culture</em> in Changsha, Central China's Hunan Province. Photo: IC

    Visitors explore The Art of Life: Multimedia Exhibition of Mawangdui Han Culture in Changsha, Central China’s Hunan Province. Photo: IC

    Although there are many sites in China that can embody the country’s Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220) history, Mawangdui is the most exceptional one mainly due to its mysterious finds like the 2,100-year-old mummified aristocrat that is known as Lady Xin Zhui. 

    Three excavations on the site were carried out from 1972 to 1974. At that time, such excavations brought a research craze to the academic field worldwide. Thanks to new means such as the digital technology, such a scholarly craze in the past 50 years has been extended to the public, especially among the young people.

    Decoding mystery    

    Lady Xin Zhui’s silk garments are Mawangdui Han Tombs’ stellar artifacts. Due to their brittle and fragile nature, many original pieces are now only stored as archives at the Hunan Museum in Changsha, Central China’s Hunan Province. To connect the heritage with people, making replication for public display was a crucial task. The task engages both technological tools and the ingenuity of textile experts like Yang Jiyuan. 

    Yang, a restorer of ancient silk textile in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu Province, has replicated seven Lady Xin Zhui’s garments since 2016. She told the Global Times that the printed and painted floss silk-padded gauze robe was one of the most challenging tasks. 

    Through examination using a microscope and creating 3D modeling of the original “printed and painted gauze robe,” Yang revealed to the Global Times that the piece’s air-like fabric actually consists of seven sheerest silk layers, and the thickness of each one of them is like “one-third of the tissue’s thickness.”

    Matching such almost disappearing silk textiles together was not the most challenging task. Yang told the Global Times that the “painting” process was even harder since the colors should keep looking “not too vibrant and new.” 

    She said the gauze needs to be “1:1 the same to the original one” that has more than 2,000 years of history. Thanks to advanced technologies that can decode the ingredients and composition of ancient fabrics, Yang discovered that Lady Xin Zhui’s garment was painted in natural mineral dye and was covered with an extra “glue-like substance” to make it look understated while in a good shape. She said that she was only one of the heritage protectors in China, who has “felt the responsibility to show the public a legacy’s authentic aesthetics and story.” 

    “Technological tools are our assistants. They ensure the history we deliver to the public is correct,” Xiang Benshan, a restorer of underwater ceramic relics, told the Global Times. 

    Cross-field collaborations 

    Other than the research sector, technological innovations are now diversely applied on shows that relate to the Mawangdui Han Tombs. 

    Currently, a blockbuster show called The Art of Life: Multimedia Exhibition of Mawangdui Han Culture is ongoing at the Hunan Museum. The immersive digital project, a collaboration between the Hunan Museum, Digital Library of China, and the Harvard FAS CAMLab, presents a new model for showcasing the Mawangdui Han Tombs through multimedia installations. 

    The show includes three thematic sections such as “Time and Space.” They highlight the artistic grandeur and spiritual reflections of ancient Chinese, giving insight into their concepts of life, death and afterlife.

    Lü Chenchen, associate director of Harvard FAS CAMLab, told the Global Times that the future of Mawangdui-themed exhibitions lies in global academic collaboration and the integration of advanced technologies such as VR tools and interactive animations. 

    “By partnering internationally, institutions can leverage cultural IPs like the Mawangdui Han Tombs and digital tools to broaden access to historical knowledge from different perspectives and different disciplines,” Lü told the Global Times. 

    If the research lab and the museum are where the Mawangdui IP provides intellectual inspirations to people, then the site’s cross-field collaborations with the cultural and creative industries have made the heritage a joy of people’s everyday lives. 

    The Hunan Museum recently collaborated with a food brand to launch a “Mawangdui spicy strip,” one of the favorite snacks by young people that is also known as La Tiao. 

    At the museum’s “digital Han lifestyle experiencing center,” symbols of relics like the round lacquer plate and Lady Xin Zhui’s garments have been printed on products like scarves, fans and cakes.  

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  • US-China research has given Beijing’s military technology a boost, House GOP says

    US-China research has given Beijing’s military technology a boost, House GOP says

    WASHINGTON — Partnerships between the U.S. and China at universities over the past decade have allowed hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to aid Beijing in developing critical technology that could be used for military purposes, congressional Republicans asserted in a new report.

    The report said U.S. tax dollars have contributed to China’s technological advancement and military modernization when American researchers worked with their Chinese peers in areas such as hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, nuclear technology and semiconductor technology.

    The report, released Monday by Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and the House Education and Workforce Committee, raised concerns over the national security risks of scientific collaborations that were once celebrated. It urged stronger safeguards and more robust enforcement.

    The committees conducted a yearlong investigation into higher education’s role in the economic rivalry with China, especially when it comes to technology. While American universities don’t engage in secret research projects, their work — often among the best in the world — has the potential to be turned into military capabilities.

    The U.S. House of Representatives this month approved about two dozen China-related bills, with a clear goal to compete with Beijing in the tech field. The bills, which still need to be approved by the Senate, seek to ban Chinese-made drones, restrict China-linked biotech companies in the U.S. market, and cut off remote Chinese access to advanced U.S. computer chips.

    Other measures include those to curb Beijing’s influence on U.S. college campuses and to revive a Trump-era program meant to root out China’s spying and theft of intellectual property at American universities and research institutes. That’s despite such efforts raising concerns about racial profiling and the ability to keep up exchange programs that boost tolerance between the two countries.

    Collaboration among U.S.-based scholars and China also declined as a result of the Trump administration’s anti-spying program, which ended in 2022, researchers say.

    Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said at a forum by the Council on Foreign Relations earlier this year that he would welcome more Chinese students studying humanities and social sciences but “not particle physics” in American schools.

    Abigail Coplin, an assistant professor of sociology and science, technology and society at Vassar College, expressed concerns about the potential harm to academic exchange and scientific engagement, which she said promote understanding and help stabilize relations.

    “Clearly American federal funding should not be used to advance China’s military capabilities, but there also needs to be more conversation about what is not an issue of national security and the negative ramifications of over-securitization,” Coplin said. “Decreased person-to-person engagement is contributing to the rapidly fraying U.S.-China relationship at the moment.”

    Monday’s report identified about 8,800 publications that involved U.S. researchers who received funding from the Department of Defense or the U.S. intelligence community working with Chinese researchers — many of whom were affiliated with China’s defense research and industrial base. Such research is “providing back-door access to the very foreign adversary nation whose aggression these capabilities are necessary to protect against,” the report said.

    The House investigation also flagged what it described as problematic joint institutes between U.S. and Chinese universities, which the report said “conceal a sophisticated system for transferring critical U.S. technologies and expertise” to China.

    Through those institutes, American researchers and scientists, including those who conduct federally funded research, have traveled to China to work with and advise Chinese scholars and train Chinese students, the report said.

    “This creates a direct pipeline for the transfer of the benefit of their research expertise” to China, the report said.

    The Georgia Institute of Technology, which is named in the report for its joint Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute, defended its work in China, saying it was focused on educating students, not research, and that the report’s claims are “unsubstantiated.”

    “There was no research conducted at GTSI, no facilitation of technology transfer, and no federal funding provided to China,” the university said in a statement.

    However, Georgia Tech announced Sept. 6 that it would discontinue its participation in the joint institute with Tianjin University and the government of Shenzhen, a city in southern China. Georgia Tech said the partnership was “no longer tenable” after the U.S. Commerce Department accused Tianjin University in 2020 of theft of trade secrets.

    The congressional report also identified Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, which the University of California, Berkeley, and China’s Tsinghua University opened in 2015 in the city of Shenzhen to focus on “strategic emerging industries,” according to the institute’s website.

    Berkeley’s researchers “engage only in research whose results are always openly disseminated around the world” and the school was “not aware of any research by Berkeley faculty at TBSI conducted for any other purpose,” Katherine Yelick, the university’s vice chancellor for research, said in a statement.

    Berkeley also is unwinding its partnership, saying it has no oversight of research activities conducted only by non-Berkeley employees at the joint institute.

    The U.S. university has decided “to start the process of relinquishing all ownership” in the Shenzhen school “after careful consideration, which began several months ago,” Yelick said.

    She said Berkeley “takes concerns about research security very seriously — including those concerns voiced by Congress.”

    The University of Pittsburgh, which is named in the report for its cooperation with Sichuan University, said it could not comment because the Pennsylvania university “was not consulted and did not work with the House Select Committee throughout the investigation.”

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  • Google begins its defense in antitrust case alleging monopoly over advertising technology

    Google begins its defense in antitrust case alleging monopoly over advertising technology

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.

    “The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years,” said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company’s first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.

    The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.

    Google counters that the government’s case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google’s lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.

    Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.

    Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.

    The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent publishers from making as much money as they otherwise could for selling their ad space.

    It also says that Google’s technology, when used on all facets of an ad transaction, allows Google to keep 36 cents on the dollar of any particular ad purchase, billions of which occur every single day.

    Executives at media companies like Gannett, which publishes USA Today, and News Corp., which owns the Wall Streel Journal and Fox News, have said that Google dominates the landscape with technology used by publishers to sell ad space as well as by advertisers looking to buy it. The products are tied together so publishers have to use Google’s technology if they want easy access to its large cache of advertisers.

    The government said in its complaint filed last year that at a minimum Google should be forced to sell off the portion of its business that caters to publishers, to break up its dominance.

    In his testimony Friday, Sheffer explained how Google’s tools have evolved over the years and how it vetted publishers and advertisers to guard against issues like malware and fraud.

    The trial began Sept. 9, just a month after a judge in the District of Columbia declared Google’s core business, its ubiquitous search engine, an illegal monopoly. That trial is still ongoing to determine what remedies, if any, the judge may impose.

    The ad technology at question in the Virginia case does not generate the same kind of revenue for Goggle as its search engine does, but is still believed to bring in tens of billions of dollars annually.

    Overseas, regulators have also accused Google of anticompetitive conduct. But the company won a victory this week when a an EU court overturned a 1.49 billion euro ($1.66 billion) antitrust fine imposed five years ago that targeted a different segment of the company’s online advertising business.

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  • Oura Gen 3 review: can smart ring worn by celebs and athletes work for you? | Wearable technology

    Smart rings are having a bit of a moment with the Oura seen adorning the fingers of celebrities and elite sportspeople alike. It promises the health-tracking features of a smartwatch squeezed into a much smaller, less techie device focused on sleep, recovery and resilience. But can it deliver for regular people, too?

    Now several years into its third iteration, the Oura Gen 3 is the most popular smart ring on the market, available in a range of attractive colours, metals and sizes. It looks and feels like an attractive piece of jewellery, and is priced accordingly, costing from £299 (€329/$299) and requiring a £6-a-month subscription on top. Keeping up with celebrity crazes has never been cheap.

    The smooth and light titanium ring comes in various colours and finishes and in two different shapes: one with a plateau on top and a more expensive fully round version as tested. A clear plastic inner layer allows you to see the impressive array of components, sensors and contacts, including three bumps that make contact with the underside of your finger to read heart rate and other metrics.

    What’s it like to wear?

    The smooth titanium finish shimmers in different lights, with many other colours and finishes available, including classic silver or gold. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

    The Oura is quite unlike most other fitness trackers. There’s no screen, it doesn’t make a noise, vibrate or do anything visible beyond the occasional red or green glow of the sensors. You can’t pay for anything with it or get notifications. Any interactions are made through the app on your phone.

    Oura wants you to wear the ring on your index finger for the best data, but there it strikes everything you hold and was particularly annoying when using a smartphone. Switching to a smaller size on the fourth finger of my non-dominant hand was much easier to live with.

    The Oura is a uniform thickness all the way round, which makes it clash more against adjacent fingers than other large rings. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

    Even so, the Oura about twice the thickness of a traditional wedding band, which meant it digs into the adjacent fingers more than other rings I’ve worn and takes some getting used to. The company offers a kit with dummy rings of the eight different sizes available, which you should wear for at least a week to really test the fit, as the rings cannot be resized.

    Getting the size right is very important as it has to be snug to collect your biometric data, but you have to take it off frequently too. It may be water resistant to 100-metre depths, but the sensors need cleaning and drying, and I had to remove it any time I tried gripping or lifting anything. The battery lasts about five days before it needs taking off for an hour for charging on a little USB-C puck. On an average day I must have taken it off at least three times.

    Sleep, sleep and more sleep

    The Oura app syncs data and settings via Bluetooth, presenting the information in easy to digest ways. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

    Oura’s primary pitch is effortless and thorough analysis of your sleep and daily recovery to provide suggestions for meaningful improvement of your health over the long term.

    During the day the ring tracks your activities like any other Fitbit analogue, including your steps and calories, heart rate once every five minutes, stress levels and other factors, rolling it into an activity score. The ring automatically recognises activities such as walks or rides, but will only record workout heart rate if you manually trigger it in the app before going for a run and the distance tracked was way off. I got better results by syncing runs tracked through Strava.

    At night the ring tracks your sleep efficiency, cycles, heart rate, heart rate variability and blood oxygen saturation, calculating an overall sleep score out of 100. It is on par with the best smartwatches, if slightly more accurate than most.

    Oura’s strength is in its analysis of trends and crunching of the data for interesting insights. For instance, Oura’s “readiness” score combines various biometrics including body temperature and sleep data, to work out how well you’ve recovered from any activity or illness and how ready you are for another workout or stressful day.

    The “resilience” score goes one further as a measure of how well your body withstands and recovers from physiological stress, calculated from your recovery and stress over the last 14 days. If you’re sick or burning the midnight oil for long periods your resilience decreases.

    I found my readiness and resilience scores mapped very well to how I was feeling at the time, particularly when I was battling illness.

    The Oura app is packed with interesting titbits and explanations of what the data and trends mean. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

    The longer you wear the ring the more insights it produces. After three months it worked out my chronotype to be an early evening type – a person who is flexible on bedtime but does not like early mornings, describing me perfectly.

    Other interesting long-term metrics Oura has recently added include VO2 max, a common metric of cardiovascular fitness and cardiovascular age that is worked out from the stiffness of your arteries inferred from the speed that pulses travel down your blood vessels.

    No other tracker presents your health data in such an easy to understand and interesting way, either daily or over the longer term with graphs with trends. Weekly and monthly reports give you insights into how you’re doing with suggestions for improvements. The “explore” section talks you through the various factors that impact your health, offering advice on how to improve as well as various guided meditation and breath work.

    An indentation on the fully round rings shows where the sensors are that should be kept on the inside of the finger. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

    The app also offers “experiments” that challenge you to reduce something deleterious to your health such as alcohol or caffeine within six hours of your bedtime. At the end of the two week test it produces a report comparing your sleep efficiency and restfulness to see if it made an improvement.

    The ring also has extensive women’s health tracking, including menstrual cycles and pregnancy insights, using a combination of biometrics such as temperature and sleep patterns. Oura also partners with various third-party apps, including for app-based birth control.

    Sustainability

    The battery in the ring will wear out at which point it cannot be replaced making the Oura eventually disposable. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

    The Oura Gen 3 is not repairable and the battery is not replaceable. The company does not provide an expected lifespan for the battery, but it should maintain at least 80% of its original capacity after 500 full charge cycles. It does not include any recycled materials and Oura does not publish environmental impact reports or offer trade-in or recycling schemes.

    Price

    The Oura Gen 3 starts at (€329/$299) with a choice of two designs and a range of finishes. The ring comes with one month free membership subscription, which costs £5.99 (€5.99/$5.99) a month (£69.99/€69.99/$69.99 annually) and is essential.

    For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Ring costs , the Ultrahuman Ring Air costs and an Apple Watch costs from .

    Verdict

    The Oura ring 3 is an impressive alternative to a smartwatch for those that want to track their sleep and general health, but don’t want to wear a screen on their wrist.

    It is an attractive piece of jewellery that looks like anything but a piece of technology. It has some of the most comprehensive sleep, recovery and health data available, with long-term analysis that goes further than other devices and is better explained, guiding you to make meaningful improvements.

    But it comes with quite a few compromises. Not only is the ring quite expensive, it requires a £6-a-month subscription on top. It will technically work without paying monthly but only with limited daily data, defeating the point of it.

    The bulk of the ring, particularly on the sides between your fingers, may also be an issue for daily comfort. And the ring simply does less than smartwatches that cost about the same and track as much or more – particularly during exercise, which i sone of Oura’s main weaknesses.

    But the ring’s biggest problem is that it cannot be repaired and the battery cannot be replaced, ultimately making it disposable and losing it a star.

    Pros: jewellery-like designs, comprehensive sleep and health tracking, great analysis of trends and helpful advice, easy to understand, five day battery life, 100-metre water resistance, effective alternative for health to a smartwatch.

    Cons: expensive, monthly subscription, thick for a ring and can get in the way, physical activity tracking such as running is weak, doesn’t do or track as much as a similarly priced smartwatch

    A lot of sensors and technology are packed into the Oura ring. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

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