WEARABLES

Watch Your Health

Your Apple Watch may be able to flag a case of Covid-19 a week sooner than that good ol’-fashioned nasal swab, according to new research from the Mount Sinai health system. 

Research, abridged 

The “Warrior Watch Study,” published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Internet Research, tracked several hundred healthcare workers between April and September 2020.

• Each participant’s Apple Watch measured heart rate variability (HRV), which is a key indicator of nervous system stress. 
• It’s a “very sensitive way to pick up those changes, that infection that’s occurring, sometimes before people know it,” says Dr. Robert Hirten, who co-led the research with Dr. Zahi Fayad. 

“[It’’s] the power of wearable technologies,” Dr. Fayad told us. “Your body is telling you a lot of things, but most of the time you don't have a way to listen to it.” 

Big-deal data 

This past year, wearables have made more headlines than sourdough starters—from Amazon’s Halo release announcement to Google gobbling up Fitbit. 

Most advancements are relatively recent, Dr. Hirten told us. As wearables get more popular, the quality of their data improves significantly, which leads to better biometrics and diagnostics. 

Zoom out: These results are “generating momentum” with the power to rebrand wearables, from fitness + niche chronic care uses → predictive care on a population scale, Marissa Schlueter, senior intelligence analyst at CB Insights, told us. 

Potential glitches

There are still lots of hurdles to address before the adoption of wearables for healthcare becomes widespread. 

Accuracy: A 2020 Duke study found “overall over-reporting of heart rate during low-intensity activity” and accuracy differences between devices. 

Sensor limits: Design restrictions place limits on the number of sensors that can be included in a single wearable, which limits the number of use cases a device is good for. 

• “As smaller, more powerful batteries—or more efficient ways of powering devices, like via energy harvesting—are developed, we should see the integration of more sensors into wearables,” says Schlueter. 

Cost in context: Although wearables are getting cheaper, mass deployment is expensive. Chances are we’ll see more population-scale studies as researchers try to gauge scientific progress—and tech giants try to prove their products. 

ROBOTICS

Silicon Chefs

DoorDash announced an acquisition on Monday. If we didn’t know better, we’d predict M&A geared toward delivery consolidation or cloud kitchen integration. 

But no. This story is about salad robots. DoorDash acquired Chowbotics, a Bay Area startup that sells a refrigerator-sized robotic salad-maker on wheels. The airtight, contained design naturally lends itself to contactless food preparation, which is in demand these days. 

Salad synergy™

1. The companies say the merger will accelerate Chowbotics’ product development and  “market presence.”
2. DoorDash could offer these machines to its merchants, helping them expand menus and potential customer bases without too much additional overhead. 

Bottom line: The hype for silicon chefs probably crested in 2018, when SoftBank invested $375 million in Zume Pizza. That robo-pizza-making bet “went really bad really fast,” per Businessweek. 

Chowbotics, by comparison, raised ~$21 million total. While other food/drink-prep robotics companies may have bitten off more than they could chew, Chowbotics has stayed focused on a solvable use case.

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AI

Exclusive: Doodles to Apps

Uizard is a Nordic startup that uses computer vision to transform hand-drawn sketches or wireframes into mobile/web apps.

Today, Uizard is opening its digital design helper up to the general public and launching a new product—a “theme generator.” The generator will auto-pull colors, fonts, and other stylistic details from URLs, JPEG files, or drawings, and apply a similar theme to whatever you’re building. 

Skilled designers are expensive and supply-constrained, CEO Tony Beltramelli told us. “The Big Tech giants suck up most of the talent, and current design tools are complex and take years to master.” 

Uizard aims to automate the heavy lifting and lower the barriers to entry in product design. Beltramelli is quick to toss out the D word, comparing his quest to democratize product design with “what the iPhone/Instagram did to democratize photography.” 

• The app, in beta until today, racked up a waitlist of 120,000. Of the early users, Beltramelli says most hail from non-technical and non-design backgrounds.

Big picture: This is one small part of a growing no/low-code ecosystem that’s worth keeping tabs on. Webflow, another member of the movement, recently raised $140 million at a $2.1 billion valuation. 

BITS & BYTES

Stat: 67 SPACs listed on the Nasdaq in January. 

Quote: “An immersive workspace is no longer limited to a desk in our Towers; the 9-to-5 workday is dead; and the employee experience is about more than ping-pong tables and snacks.”—Salesforce President and Chief People Officer Brent Hyder. Emphasis ours. 

Read: Shopify is expanding the frontier of social commerce and integrating its Pay platform with Instagram and Facebook. 

Input: Asana’s “Anatomy of Work 2021” report is dropping new stats on the latest work challenges—like how 70% of knowledge workers experienced burnout in the last year. Check out the full report.*

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WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Amazon is developing a wall-mounted Echo device that will function as a smart home control panel, Bloomberg reports. 
• Aurora is teaming up with Toyota and Denso on self-driving minivans. 
• Uber is testing free rides to Walgreens for Covid vaccine appointments in underserved communities. Pilot cities: Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, and El Paso. 
• Rivian plans to go public this year, per Bloomberg. 
• The UAE’s Hope probe successfully entered Mars’s orbit, making the UAE the fifth country to reach Mars. 
• Spotify is finally testing its live lyrics feature in the US.
• Ren Zhengfei, CEO of Huawei, said President Biden is “welcome” to dial him up.

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TRIVIA

For no reason in particular, we’ve decided to focus today’s trivia on drones. Test your knowledge of the startups and bigger companies playing for keeps in the drone space. 

Take the quiz here.

HUMAN V. MACHINE (LITERALLY)

The voice of Kim Kwang-seok, a South Korean folk superstar, sang new material last month on a show called Competition of the Century: AI vs Human. The catch: Kwang-seok passed away in 1996. A voice synthesis AI system listened to 10 of his songs to recreate his voice. 

ICYMI

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions: 

• Study: Facial recognition tech is built on non-consensual personal data 
• Zipline plans to deliver Covid vaccines via drone in April
• Robotic Process Automation: Why UiPath just raised $750 million