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Sleep Number’s newest smart bed aims to tackle night sweats

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Sleep Number’s newest smart bed aims to tackle night sweats

Sleep Number’s newest smart bed is designed to keep you cool at night. The ClimateCool Smart Bed, starting at $5,499, is the latest product from the company famous for its adjustable mattress firmness. In a press release, the company says the new mattress can keep your body at the optimal temperature with its “scientifically backed” cooling programs that could be of particular interest to women dealing with symptoms of menopause.

This is Sleep Number’s second smart bed that offers individual temperature control on either side of the bed. The Climate360, which launched in 2020, similarly actively draws heat away from your body to help you stay cool, but unlike the ClimateCool, it can also warm you up if you’re too chilly at night.

But while the 360 starts at a whopping $10,000 for a Queen size, the new ClimateCool starts at $5,499. This pricing includes a base; you can get the adjustable one for $1,500 more. Competitors such as EightSleep, a mattress cover that can heat and cool and also has an adjustable base, start at $2,649, but you need to bring your own mattress.

Sleep Number says the ClimateCool uses the same cooling technology as the Climate360, and both mattresses in the Climate series can use the active cooling feature enabled by its new SmartTemp cooling programs. These were developed with research from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and work in conjunction with ceramic gel layers and a breathable sleep surface in the mattress to keep you cool while adjusting to your body’s temperature throughout the night.

The ClimateCool smart bed has layers of ceramic gel, an airflow system, and a breathable surface to draw heat away from your body to help maintain a comfortable body temperature.
Image: Sleep Number
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Sleep Number said it conducted studies that found body temperature changes during menopause negatively impact women’s sleep quality. Its survey of more than 10,550 Sleep Number bed users found that “90 percent of female respondents experiencing menopause or perimenopause suffer from night sweats.”

The company claims its active cooling technology could help these women sleep better by sensing their body’s temperature change and drawing the excess heat away from them with its dynamic airflow system. As with its adjustable firmness, each side of the bed can be set to different cooling programs so you can stay cooler while your partner stays cozy.

Users can create their own cooling program or choose from two programs designed to address different needs, including recovery, deep sleep, menopause, illness recovery, and relaxation:

‘All Night Cooling,’ which keeps sleepers cool and can help ease temperature changes and hot flashes.

‘Deep Sleep Cooling,’ designed to help reduce sleep disruptions in the middle of the night.

As with all Sleep Number mattresses, the ClimateCool features adjustable firmness and built-in sleep tracking that measures your biosignals to provide you with a sleep report. These features are accessed through the Sleep Number app.

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The Sleep Number ClimateCool smart bed is available now at sleepnumber.com and at Sleep Number stores, starting at $5,499 (Queen size, with integrated base) and $6,999 (Queen size, with FlexFit 2 adjustable base).

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Matt Mullenweg: ‘WordPress.org just belongs to me’

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Matt Mullenweg: ‘WordPress.org just belongs to me’

Over the past several weeks, WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg has made one thing exceedingly clear: he’s in charge of WordPress’ future.

Mullenweg heads up WordPress.com and its parent company, Automattic. He owns the WordPress.org project, and he even leads the nonprofit foundation that controls the WordPress trademark. To the outside observer, these might appear to be independent organizations, all separately designed around the WordPress open-source project. But as he wages a battle against WP Engine, a third-party WordPress hosting service, Mullenweg has muddied the boundaries between three essential entities that lead a sprawling ecosystem powering almost half of the web.

To Mullenweg, that’s all fine — as long as it supports the health of WordPress long-term.

“WordPress.org just belongs to me personally,” Mullenweg said during an interview with The Verge. WordPress.org exists outside the commercial realm of Automattic, as a standalone publishing platform that offers free access to its open-source code that people can use to create their own websites. But it’s not a neutral, independent arbiter of the ecosystem. “In my role as owning WordPress.org, I don’t want to promote a company, which is A: legally threatening me and B: using the WordPress trademark. That’s part of why we cut off access from the servers.”

“That’s true: we are pressuring them”

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Mullenweg’s feud with WP Engine fans out in a few different directions. He’s criticized WP Engine for not putting enough time and money into developing the open-source WordPress ecosystem, saying that if you gave $1 to the WordPress Foundation, “you’d be a bigger donor than WP Engine.” And Mullenweg has brought up the possibility that WP Engine “hacked” the Automatic-owned WooCommerce plug-in to collect commissions meant for Automattic, which WP Engine has denied. From those arguments, the fight appears to be one over what is and isn’t appropriate in the open-source software world.

But Mullenweg has since sidelined those arguments to make the case that WP Engine — and its “hacked up, bastardized simulacra” of the WordPress open-source code, as he describes it — is infringing on Automattic’s trademark: WordPress.

“The analogy I made is they got Al Capone for taxes,” Mullenweg says. “So, if a company was making half a billion dollars from WordPress and contributing back about $100,000 a year, yes, I would be trying to get them to contribute more.” WP Engine competes directly with the hosting services offered by Automattic and WordPress.com, and Mullenweg argues one of the reasons for its success is the use of “WordPress” across its site. “That’s why we’re using that legal avenue to really, yeah, pressure them. That’s true: we are pressuring them.”

Mullenweg began his public pressure campaign during a WordPress conference last month, telling people to “vote with your wallet” and stop supporting WP Engine. He later called the service a “cancer” to the WordPress ecosystem. Mullenweg eventually blocked WP Engine from WordPress.org’s servers, leaving WP Engine’s customers unable to install themes, plug-ins, and updates.

The decision to cut off WP Engine also put other WordPress projects in a precarious position. WordPress is open-source and free to use, with no mandate to give back. But Mullenweg has made it clear that there is some bar that successful projects must meet to stay off Automattic’s radar.

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“I happily provide WordPress.org services to literally every other host,” Mullenweg says. There is “no requirement to give back. WordPress will be open-source forever and ever, and so there will never be any legal requirement to give back.” But WordPress does still “request” that companies contribute something. “It’s better for WordPress if they give back.”

For WP Engine, what it comes down to is this: Mullenweg wants the company to contribute to WordPress, whether it’s by paying to license the WordPress trademark or by pitching into the open-source WordPress project.

Even though the WordPress Foundation controls the platform’s trademark, the commercial rights for that trademark are licensed to Automattic. That means Automattic can charge other companies for using the WordPress trademark for commercial purposes — and that’s where Mullenweg has been able to exert pressure on WP Engine.

“What they’re doing is not okay. It’s not that they’re calling it WP; it’s that they’re using the WordPress trademark in confusing ways,” Mullenweg said. He cited the “frantic changes” he claims WP Engine made to its site to remove mentions of “WordPress” after the dispute began. Under the WordPress Foundation’s trademark policies, companies can use the WordPress name and logo to “refer to and explain their services.”

The foundation says the “WP” abbreviation isn’t covered by its trademarks, but the guidelines were recently tweaked to say that companies should stop using the abbreviation in “a way that confuses people.” During The Verge’s interview, Mullenweg confirmed he changed the foundation’s trademark policies to include a “dig at WP Engine.” The policy now says WP Engine “never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.”

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This week, Automattic published its proposed solution to the dispute: a seven-year deal that would require WP Engine to pay an 8 percent fee on all revenue to either use the WordPress and Automattic’s WooCommerce trademarks or to compensate employees who would contribute to the WordPress open-source project. The deal was offered in late September, but Mullenweg says it’s off the table due to “WP Engine’s behavior, deception, and incompetence.”

The dispute culminated in a lawsuit, in which WP Engine accuses Automattic and Mullenweg of extortion. WP Engine alleges that Mullenweg said he would proceed with a “scorched earth nuclear approach” after the two failed to come to an agreement. “When WPE refused to capitulate to Automattic’s astronomical and extortionate monetary demands, Mullenweg made good on his threats,” WP Engine claims. “The threat of ‘war’ turned into a multi-front attack, part of an overarching scheme to extract payouts from WPE.”

In the lawsuit, WP Engine claims Mullenweg is attempting to “capitalize on the chaos he caused” by advertising a deal to switch to Pressable — another WordPress host owned by Automattic. The filing also includes a purported job offer from Mullenweg to WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner saying that if she declines to join Automattic, he’d tell the CEO of Silver Lake — the private equity firm that owns WP Engine.

WordPress executive director Josepha Haden Chomphosy has since left Automattic, along with more than 150 other employees who accepted Mullenweg’s offer to leave for $30,000 or six months of pay, whichever is higher, if they didn’t support his fight against WP Engine.

More importantly, WP Engine’s lawsuit raises concerns about corporate overreach, alleging Mullenweg’s actions reflect “a clear abuse of his conflicting roles” at the WordPress Foundation, Automattic, and the open-source WordPress project. In a statement on Thursday, Automattic called the lawsuit “baseless,” adding that it denies WP Engine’s allegations, “which are gross mischaracterizations of reality.”

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However the legal case may pan out, it’s become clear that Mullenweg does control WordPress.org. But his fight with WP Engine has only made the border between WordPress and Automattic murkier, casting a shadow of uncertainty over the open source community that’s long backed him. That seems to be a risk Automattic is willing to take as long as WordPress comes out on top.

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Waymo is adding the Hyundai Ioniq 5 to its robotaxi fleet

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Waymo is adding the Hyundai Ioniq 5 to its robotaxi fleet

Waymo has its sights set on its next robotaxi: the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

The Alphabet company announced that it was entering a “multi-year, strategic” partnership with the Hyundai Motor Group that will result in the Ioniq 5 eventually joining its robotaxi fleet.

But first, the Ioniq 5 will need to undergo on-road testing with Waymo’s self-driving technology, which the company says will begin in late 2025. Waymo wouldn’t specify when the Ioniq 5 will be used for passenger trips, except to say it would be “years” later.

Vehicles intended for Waymo’s fleet will be manufactured at Hyundai’s $7.6 billion Metaplant factory in Georgia, which is nearing the end of its construction. The companies have agreed to produce a number of Waymo-equipped electric Hyundais there “in significant volume over multiple years,” Waymo said in its press release.

Waymo wouldn’t specify when the Ioniq 5 will be used for passenger trips

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With robotaxis, one of the most important metrics is uptime, or the amount of time it’s on the road ferrying passengers. Time spent plugged into a charger is time not making money. The Ioniq 5 is an electric crossover SUV with a little over 300 miles of range and an 800-volt architecture that enhances its charging speed. When plugged into a 350kW fast charger, Hyundai says the Ioniq 5 can charge from 10–80 percent in just 18 minutes, depending on the conditions. Waymo certainly saw those charging speeds as a benefit to its still unprofitable business.

The Ioniq 5 has received favorable reviews since it was released in late 2021, in addition to raking in numerous awards. Today, it’s one of the bestselling EVs on the market, with 30,000 sold in the US this year alone. Its popularity has helped Hyundai, along with its sister company Kia, overtake Ford and GM as the No. 2 seller of EVs in the US behind Tesla.

Currently, Waymo operates a fleet of hundreds of Jaguar I-Pace vehicles, which has been its primary robotaxi vehicle since the company’s first one, the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, was retired in 2013. The company has plans to add a new vehicle made by Geely’s Zeekr — though the Biden administration’s recent move to quadruple tariffs for electric vehicles imported from China could complicate that.

Recent reporting from South Korea previewed today’s partnership news, with sources telling Electronic Times that the two companies met numerous times at Waymo’s headquarters in California to discuss “contract manufacturing of robotaxis.” Sources also told the publication that Waymo was looking for a “replacement” for its Zeekr vehicles because of costly new tariffs.

But Waymo pushed back against this report and reiterated its intention to eventually deploy Zeekr. “The IONIQ 5 will not directly replace any of our vehicle platforms, but it will help us prepare for additional scale and growth opportunities,” Waymo spokesperson Christopher Bonelli said in an email. Waymo is “hard at work” validating the sixth version of its self-driving technology in the Zeekr vehicle, he added.

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Tellingly, Waymo isn’t saying how many Ioniq 5s it plans to buy from Hyundai, in contrast to its approach to previous vehicle announcements. Some of this could be attributable to the fact that Waymo has grown more cautious about overly optimistic predictions after critics panned the AV industry for setting unrealistic deadlines.

This won’t be the Ioniq 5’s first self-driving rodeo. The vehicle also serves as a platform for Motional, which is Hyundai’s robotaxi subsidiary, as well as Avride, which used to be Yandex’s self-driving group.

But Waymo’s business is significantly, well, busier than those firms. The company recently celebrated a significant milestone: 100,000 paid trips a week.

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The creepy yet helpful humanoid robot ready to move into your home

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The creepy yet helpful humanoid robot ready to move into your home

Are you ready to have a humanoid robot in your home that could help with everyday tasks and make life just a little bit easier? 

Well, get ready to meet NEO Beta. This innovative humanoid robot from 1X Technologies, an OpenAI-backed Norwegian firm, is designed specifically for home environments, and it’s about to change the way we interact with technology in our daily lives. With its friendly demeanor and advanced capabilities, 

NEO Beta is set to become your new go-to helper around the house. Let’s dive in and see what makes this robot so special.

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NEO Beta humanoid robot (1X Technologies)

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Meet NEO Beta: Your new home companion

NEO Beta stands at 5.41 feet tall and weighs a mere 66 pounds, making it an unobtrusive presence in your home. This bipedal robot can walk at a comfortable 2.5 mph and even run at an impressive 7.5 mph when needed. With a carrying capacity of 44 pounds and a run time of two to four hours, NEO Beta is well-equipped to handle various household tasks.

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NEO Beta humanoid robot (1X Technologies)

NEXT-GEN HUMANOID ROBOT IS KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR

Advanced features for seamless integration

NEO Beta boasts advanced sensors and artificial intelligence that allow it to respond to human emotions, voice commands and gestures. This natural communication style sets it apart from traditional robots, making it feel more like a helpful companion than a machine.

One of NEO Beta’s standout features is its ability to integrate with existing home automation systems. It can control smart devices, manage lighting, heating and security systems, streamlining your home management experience.

Using machine learning, NEO Beta adapts to your preferences and routines over time. This means it can provide personalized assistance, offer reminders and support you in ways tailored to your lifestyle.

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NEO Beta humanoid robot interacting with a woman (1X Technologies)

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?

Safety and security at the forefront

1X Technologies says it has prioritized safety in NEO Beta’s design. The robot includes collision avoidance systems and real-time monitoring to ensure safe operation in your home. Additionally, it can provide surveillance and alerts, enhancing your home’s security.

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NEO Beta humanoid robot interacting with a woman (1X Technologies)

CARMEN, THE ROBOT COMPANION, CAN HELP BOOST YOUR MEMORY AND COGNITION

The Evolution from EVE to NEO Beta

NEO Beta builds upon the foundation laid by its predecessor, EVE. While EVE was primarily designed for industrial applications, NEO Beta is specifically tailored for household use. The shift from a wheeled base to a bipedal design allows NEO Beta greater flexibility in navigating home environments.

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NEO Beta humanoid robot opening a door (1X Technologies)

What sets NEO Beta apart?

Unlike many robotics companies that focus on showcasing human-robot interactions for testing or collaborative work scenarios, 1X is positioning NEO Beta as a close, casual companion for the home. This approach suggests a vision of robots as integral parts of our daily lives, rather than mere tools or assistants.

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NEO Beta humanoid robot picking up a ball (1X Technologies)

The road ahead

1X Technologies has ambitious plans for NEO Beta. The company aims to deploy some units into homes for research and development purposes in the near future. Looking ahead, 1X envisions producing thousands of units by 2025, potentially scaling up to millions by 2028.

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NEO Beta humanoid robot (1X Technologies)

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Kurt’s key takeaways

While NEO Beta promises to revolutionize home automation and personal assistance, questions about privacy, ethics and the societal impact of widespread robot adoption remain. As this technology continues to develop, it will be interesting to see how it shapes our homes, our relationships with technology and, ultimately, our daily lives.

Are you ready to welcome these new humanoid robot companions like NEO Beta into your home? Let us know by writing us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.

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