Peripheral and accessory maker Griffin Technology is looking to score some points with parents this holiday season with its forthcoming MyPhones, a new pair of over-the-ear headphones designed for kids ages 3 to 12 with a special feature: a built-in limiter circuit caps the volume of the headphones at 85 decibels, the level that safety agencies and audiologists recommend as the highest safe sustained noise level for children.
“Children are as interested in technology as adults these days,” said Griffin CEO Paul Griffin, in a statement. “MyPhones are the first headphones that kids can really call their own. And with MyPhones’ 85 decibel volume limit, parents can rest easy, knowing that their kids’ hearing is not being compromised.”
The over-the-ear headphones don’t have any in-ear component—which is generally a good idea when kids are at that phase where they’re likely to stick things deep in their ears—and feature soft ear cushions and an adjustable band. The headphones can be popped into anything with an 1/8th-inch headphone jack (and into almost anything else with adapters), and kids can customize their MyPhones using interchangeable design inserts: the MyPhones come with three designs, and of course kids can make their own. Templates are available on myphonekids.com, and kids can upload and share their own designs if they like (with parents’ permission).
MyPhones will be available in October for a suggested retail price of $39.99.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.