You know those photochromic lenses that turn regular glasses into sunglasses on sunny days? Wellness company Narbis just developed a unique twist on that idea — with a new pair of smartglasses intended to encourage concentration and discourage distractibility by darkening when your mind wanders from the task you should be focused on. If you ever lied to your parents that you were doing your homework when, in fact, you were thinking about something else entirely, this is the giveaway technology that promises to rat you out.
As it turns out, the term “rat you out” may be more than a little appropriate. The technology is built on a penalty-and-reward model based on brain patterns, known as operant conditioning, which has been practiced for more than 50 years. Operant conditioning, in which individuals make an association between a certain behavior and a consequence, was developed by B.F. Skinner, notable for his experiments involving rodents.
Using a trio of smart sensors, the smartglasses track relaxation, distraction, and focus. When distraction is detected, the glasses darken. When a person is relaxed and concentrating, the glasses instantly clear. An associated app tracks your progress and performance. Narbis recommends using the glasses two to three times per week for 30 minutes.
“Since a young age I worked alongside my father, who was a clinical psychologist [who] used neurofeedback in his clinics,” Narbis CEO Devon Greco told Digital Trends. “I watched my father help countless people improve their [lives] and wellbeing with this powerful technology. I have worked with my father since the late 90s developing different kinds of neurofeedback technology which built the foundation for Narbis.”
Greco said that one of the biggest shortcomings of previous neurofeedback technologies was their inability to be used in real-life situations, since they required a person to stare at a screen or listen to sounds. “It has been a long-term goal of mine to make neurofeedback more immersive and to find ways to integrate with real life,” Greco noted.
The Narbis smartglasses are available to pre-order online for $590, a reduction of $100 from their planned retail price.
“Narbis represents an exciting option for families looking for a convenient way to practice attention and focus in day-to-day tasks,” Greco said. “What makes this so exciting is that Narbis integrates with daily life, and applicable to many activities, allowing you to practice attention in the moment when concentration counts most.”
Does it all sound a little bit Black Mirror? Certainly. Could it nonetheless be a game-changer for anyone wanting to improve their own concentration levels? You bet. Color us cautiously intrigued.
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.