X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom is spinning out the property’s multifaceted AI platform, The Owl AI, into a standalone company backed by $11M in seed funding. The seed round was led by S32 (founded by Google Ventures creator Bill Maris) with participation from Menlo Ventures and Susa Ventures.

“All three groups I’ve known for 10-plus years,” Bloom told SBJ. “It’s three incredible firms, certainly tier one venture capitalists that I think will be additive as we scale the business.

“It’s a relatively big seed round. We weren’t anticipating raising quite that much but we were delighted of the interest. We could’ve raised double that if we wanted to. Now the fun begins.”

Josh Gwyther, Google’s former Head of AI Solutions Architecture, left Google to become CEO of The Owl AI, where he started last Monday and reports to a BOD that includes Bloom, one S32 representative and Jahm Najafi and Jeff Moorad of MSP Sports Capital (which owns X Games and is on The Owl AI cap table).

The seed funding, according to Bloom, will be channeled into research-and-development, scaling and proof-of-concepting with potential sports league clients. The Owl AI currently has three full-time employees — Gwyther, a CTO and a VP/Finance — and, although Bloom said they will hire some humans in “strategic areas,” the company is experimenting with AI agents that can fill other business functions.

“Based on my background and based on what’s happening in the industry, before we make any hires, we’re going to figure out what can be done with artificial intelligence versus having to scale the team,” Gwyther said. “We really want to take not just the technology to the bleeding edge for our customer base, we’re really going to push the envelope of what the technology can do in building a company as well.”

The Owl AI platform has several core capabilities. Its multimodal AI models use competition footage to produce objective scores and predictions; deliver insights for coaching use; and even provide language translations for alternate streams. Needless to say, what started as a judge’s aid developed in partnership with Google Cloud has grown into much more.

“Instead of a traditional vision model, where you have to be very rigid and you have to give it a ton of training data for a specific movement — and only that specific movement will it know — this changes the paradigm of being able to take a PhD level artificial intelligence model and put it behind the camera,” Gwyther said. “It’s a combination of additional tuning of the general model — the general model is getting smarter and smarter every day — but there’s lots of nuances as these sports continue to evolve.

“The superpower is we can provide [the models] with tools with an infinite amount of data to pull historically from.”

For its event in Salt Lake City this week, X Games will use The Owl AI to offer YouTube streams in Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish as a supplement to its English broadcast. The Owl AI’s judging capabilities are still in beta, but its models will also power broadcast elements including predictions and analytical segments that break down the physics of the competition.

While declining to disclose specifics, Bloom said there has been “great interest” from other sports properties about using The Owl AI. He envisions a B2B2C model that serves institutions and athletes.

“We’re having some really interesting conversations,” he said. “We’re not quite ready to talk in specifics about who those leagues are and what we’re doing, but I think we’ll be able to do that in the next couple of months.”

New to Whoop 5.0 is the ECG, an FDA-cleared health feature that checks your heart rhythm. Fire it up on your app, hold the device’s sensor between your thumb and index finger, and wait 30 seconds for your reading. I don’t have any specific heart concerns, so I didn’t use this feature often (and when I did, it often took a few tries to get it to finish), but it was kind of nice to see it spit out “normal sinus rhythm detected” with no signs of atrial fibrillation. (Whoop also processes your report as a PDF, showing a graph of your heart’s activity during the duration of the test. You can export it and share, which would be super helpful if you needed to show your healthcare provider.)

Another new feature—and probably the one I was most excited to try—was Healthspan, which uses Sleep, Strain, and Fitness metrics in its analysis. You get a Whoop Age, which compares how your body is aging to your chronological age. If your Whoop Age is younger than your actual age (mine was by six years and change, yay?), it suggests that you’re “exceeding recommendations for good long-term health.” Whoop Age looks at six months of data, so it’s more focused on long-term habits that span weeks or months, and doesn’t really change much on the day to day.

What does change more: Pace of Aging (and, from personal experience, thank god it does.) Pace of Aging reflects your last 30 days of data, so it takes more recent habit changes into account than Whoop Age—which means you can see fluctuations by the week. And I sure did. The week of my half marathon, I checked my Pace of Aging and was rather, um, horrified to see that it was 1.4 (meaning “accelerated” aging—my Whoop Age was increasing 1.4 times that of my chronological age.) The reason Whoop gave? It told me to keep an eye on my Strength Activity Time, which, to be fair, did drop over those past couple weeks—but only because I was tapering for my race! The following week, when I got back into my more normal exercise routine, it dropped to 1.0, or “stable” or “steady” aging, and now, it’s at 0.7, or, as Whoop helpfully describes it, as “reverse” aging.

Original photo by SELF director of fitness and food Christa Sgobba

Original photo by SELF director of fitness and food Christa Sgobba

My bottom-line experience with Whoop 5.0

After testing the Whoop 5.0 for five weeks, I’m convinced that it’s a recovery device rather than a workout device. It’s a tracker that seeks to help you reach your ultimate fitness potential not by pushing you to hit certain paces or strength PRs during your workouts, but by building holistic understanding of your body outside of them so you can learn when you need to take your foot off the gas—or when it’s time to floor it. By keeping your body in top form, you’re then able to give your all to those fitness pursuits.

For that reason, I’d consider it a great supplemental choice for someone who has big, objective fitness goals. For runners like me, you’re probably not going to get all you need from the Whoop alone—you’d be missing out on key intra-workout data, like time, distance, or pace, which you need in real-time. I wore my Garmin during the whole time I tested the Whoop; if I didn’t, I would have had a really tough time getting through my running workouts.

Yokneam Illit, Israel, June 25, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Wearable Devices Ltd. (the “Company” or “Wearable Devices”) (Nasdaq: WLDS, WLDSW), a technology growth company specializing in artificial intelligence (“AI”)-powered touchless sensing wearables, recently announced the expansion of its Large Motor Unit Action Potential Model (“LMM”) into new potential markets, such as predictive health monitoring and cognitive state analytics. This development will enable the broadening of bio-signal intelligence applications beyond wearables and will offer businesses and healthcare providers access to real-time physiological insights for monitoring health and wellness conditions.

This strategic expansion into predictive health monitoring aligns with the rising interest in personalized wellness devices. This interest is now demonstrated at the federal level. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has recently advocated for wearable devices to enhance health monitoring and cognitive well-being, underscoring the public and institutional momentum toward real-time data-driven care.

This announcement follows Wearable Devices’ recent introduction of LMM as a groundbreaking AI-driven bio-signal platform focused on gesture-based control in extended reality (“XR”) and neural interaction with digital devices. The Company’s LMM approach to analyzing muscle activity signals will support the expansion into the field of health monitoring, enabling users to enhance their performance across various domains.

From Passive Monitoring to Proactive Intelligence

Unlike traditional bio-sensors that collect data passively, LMM continuously learns and adapts, turning muscle activity signals from the wrist into actionable insights. The technology is now being evaluated in controlled environments for real-world applications, including:

A Platform for Innovation: Opening LMM to Business Partners

Recognizing the transformative potential of bio-signal intelligence, Wearable Devices is intending to make LMM available to enterprises, researchers, and developers. The Company’s AI-powered bio-signal data platform is expected to enable businesses to:

Following the initial evaluation phase, Wearable Devices aims to accelerate commercialization and strategic partnerships across the health sector, reinforcing its position as a pioneer in bio-signal intelligence and neural interface technology.

About Wearable Devices Ltd.

Wearable Devices Ltd. is a pioneering growth company revolutionizing human-computer interaction through its AI-powered neural input technology for both consumer and business markets. Leveraging proprietary sensors, software, and advanced AI algorithms, the Company’s innovative products, including the Mudra Band for iOS and Mudra Link for Android, enable seamless, touch-free interaction by transforming subtle finger and wrist movements into intuitive controls. These groundbreaking solutions enhance gaming, and the rapidly expanding AR/VR/XR landscapes. The Company offers a dual-channel business model: direct-to-consumer sales and enterprise licensing. Its flagship Mudra Band integrates functional and stylish design with cutting-edge AI to empower consumers, while its enterprise solutions provide businesses with the tools to deliver immersive and interactive experiences. By setting the input standard for the XR market, Wearable Devices is redefining user experiences and driving innovation in one of the fastest-growing tech sectors. Wearable Devices’ ordinary shares and warrants trade on the Nasdaq under the symbols “WLDS” and “WLDSW,” respectively.

Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, that are intended to be covered by the “safe harbor” created by those sections. Forward-looking statements, which are based on certain assumptions and describe our future plans, strategies and expectations, can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terms such as “believe,” “expect,” “may,” “should,” “could,” “seek,” “intend,” “plan,” “goal,” “estimate,” “anticipate” or other comparable terms. For example, we are using forward-looking statements when we discuss the benefits and advantages of our devices and technology, including the potential of LMMs, the potential to accelerate commercialization and strategic partnerships across the health sector, the rising interest in personalized wellness devices and entering markets that need real-time physiological insights. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this press release regarding our strategies, prospects, financial condition, operations, costs, plans and objectives are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, they are based only on our current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of our business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the economy and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Therefore, you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause our actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements include, among others, the following: the trading of our ordinary shares or warrants and the development of a liquid trading market; our ability to successfully market our products and services; the acceptance of our products and services by customers; our continued ability to pay operating costs and ability to meet demand for our products and services; the amount and nature of competition from other security and telecom products and services; the effects of changes in the cybersecurity and telecom markets; our ability to successfully develop new products and services; our success establishing and maintaining collaborative, strategic alliance agreements, licensing and supplier arrangements; our ability to comply with applicable regulations; and the other risks and uncertainties described in our annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2024, filed on March 20, 2025 and our other filings with the SEC. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

Investor Relations Contact
Michal Efraty
IR@wearabledevices.co.il

The Apple Sports app, launched last year, is introducing tennis coverage ahead of Wimbledon, along with a redesigned home screen experience, Apple announced on Wednesday.

Users will now be able to access live tennis scores for Grand Slam and 1000-level tournaments and can track every point across all men’s and women’s singles matches. Fans can also stay updated on a player’s progress throughout tournaments and get results from every match from the first round through the finals.

Apple says the revamped home screen experience is designed to make it easier for fans to follow their favorite teams and leagues. Events and matchups are now grouped by league and displayed according to users’ preferred order.

Fans’ favorite teams always appear at the top, so it’s easy to quickly see the latest scores and updates.

Apple debuted Apple Sports in February 2024 and was updated last August with football scores and Live Activities. The app is available in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Currently, the app also includes coverage for the Bundesliga, Champions League, Conference League, EFL Championship, Europa League, FA Cup, FBS and FCS NCAA College Football, LaLiga, League Cup, LIGA MX, Ligue 1, Men’s College Basketball, MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL, NHL, NWSL, Premier League, Serie A, WNBA, and Women’s College Basketball.

Key Takeaways

• Fitness trackers aren’t accurately reflecting the effort of people with obesity

• Differences in gait, speed and energy burn throw the trackers off

• A new algorithm achieves more than 95% accuracy

WEDNESDAY, June 25, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Fitness trackers aren’t accurately assessing the physical activity of people with obesity, a new study argues.

Differences in walking gait, speed, energy burn and other factors mean that folks with excess weight aren’t getting an accurate read from their devices, researchers wrote in the journal Scientific Reports.

“People with obesity could gain major health insights from activity trackers, but most current devices miss the mark,” senior researcher Nabil Alshurafa, an associate professor of behavioral medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said in a news release.

Alshurafa’s team has developed a new algorithm that enables smartwatches to more accurately monitor the calories burned by people with obesity, researchers said.

Lab tests show that the new algorithm achieves over 95% accuracy in real-world situations, the study says.

“Without a validated algorithm for wrist devices, we’re still in the dark about exactly how much activity and energy people with obesity really get each day — slowing our ability to tailor interventions and improve health outcomes,” Alshurafa said.

Alshurafa said he was motivated to create the algorithm after going to an exercise class with his mother-in-law, who has obesity.

“She worked harder than anyone else, yet when we glanced at the leaderboard, her numbers barely registered,” Alshurafa said. “That moment hit me: fitness shouldn’t feel like a trap for the people who need it most.”

Current algorithms used by fitness trackers were built for people without obesity, Alsurafa explains.

Hip-held trackers often misread energy burn because people with excess weight walk with a different gait and wear the devices at a tilt, researchers said. Wrist-worn devices offer better accuracy, but haven’t been rigorously tested and calibrated for people with obesity.

The team tested their new algorithm against 11 other state-of-the-art methods for estimating exertion, using research-grade fitness trackers and wearable cameras to catch every moment when wrist sensors misread calorie burn.

In one group, 27 people wore a fitness tracker and a mask that calculates energy burn based on the amount of oxygen inhaled and carbon dioxide exhaled.

In another group, 25 people wore a fitness tracker and body camera during their daily activities, the study says.

Alshurafa also had people perform standard exercises modified to take their weight into account — for example, wall pushups as opposed to floor pushups.

“Many couldn’t drop to the floor, but each one crushed wall-pushups, their arms shaking with effort,” Alshurafa said, “We celebrate ‘standard’ workouts as the ultimate test, but those standards leave out so many people. These experiences showed me we must rethink how gyms, trackers and exercise programs measure success — so no one’s hard work goes unseen.”

The next step is to deploy an activity-monitoring app that uses the new algorithm for Apple- and Android-powered smartwatches, researchers said.

The algorithm is open-source, and other researchers are encouraged to test it and build upon it.

“To date, many works have examined the validity of proprietary algorithms from commercial activity monitors,” the research team wrote in their paper. “However, to the best of our knowledge, none of them have published an open-source algorithm that others can replicate using raw data obtained from commercially available wrist-worn sensing devices.”

More information

Harvard Medical School has more on the usefulness of fitness trackers.

SOURCES: Northwestern University, news release, June 19, 2025; Scientific Reports, June 19, 2025

What This Means For You

People with obesity might soon have more accurate fitness trackers to help them lose weight and improve their health.

You’ve probably noticed something different about sports betting lately. What started as simple digital versions of traditional bookmaking has morphed into something that’d make Silicon Valley take notes. We’re talking about an industry that’s processed nearly $520 billion in bets since 2018’s PASPA repeal — and that’s just getting started.

The transformation isn’t accidental. Four major innovations have reshaped how millions engage with sports wagering: live streaming that 67% of bettors now consider essential, mobile apps pulling in $7.4 billion annually in the US alone, virtual reality markets exploding at 53% yearly growth, and AI systems driving what’s become a $2.2 billion market heading toward $29.7 billion by 2032.

What’s fascinating isn’t just the scale — it’s how these advances create genuinely better experiences while building legitimate, regulated markets that benefit everyone involved. The industry’s push toward accessibility has reached new heights, with everything from 1 dollar deposit casino bonus offers to sophisticated mobile platforms designed to welcome newcomers without intimidating barriers to entry.

1. Stream and Bet

Here’s where things get interesting. Live streaming didn’t just add video to betting platforms — it fundamentally changed how people interact with sports wagering. YouGov’s research reveals that 67% of sports bettors would use sportsbook apps specifically for live streaming capabilities. More telling? A quarter of current bettors cite live streaming as their primary reason for opening accounts with new sportsbooks.

The numbers tell the real story. When you can watch and bet simultaneously, engagement shifts dramatically. That same YouGov study found 74% of respondents emphasizing the ease of placing bets while watching sports. It’s not rocket science — remove the friction between watching a game and acting on what you’re seeing, and behavior changes.

Stats Perform, one of the industry’s major data providers, now delivers over 20,000 live streaming events per year across football, tennis, and basketball. Think about that scale for a moment. ESPN’s recent integration exemplifies this trend perfectly — after linking ESPN and ESPN BET accounts in November 2024, they reported significant increases in customer engagement time, betting frequency, and parlay wagering. Their new streaming service launching at $29.99 monthly will feature advanced watch-and-bet capabilities.

This isn’t just about convenience. Live streaming transformed sportsbooks from betting platforms into entertainment destinations. The shift from placing a bet and waiting for results to actively engaging throughout an event represents a fundamental change in how people experience sports wagering.

2. Mobile Mania

Mobile betting apps didn’t just digitize traditional wagering — they created an entirely new economy. The numbers speak for themselves: US sports betting apps generated $7.4 billion in revenue during 2022, representing a 71% increase from the previous year. Across the pond, UK sports betting apps pulled in £2.36 billion that same year.

But here’s what’s really compelling about mobile’s dominance. The global sports betting market hit $49.96 billion in 2024 and is growing at a 7.68% compound annual growth rate, projected to reach $67.17 billion by 2028. That’s not speculative growth — it’s happening right now. The US market alone recorded $57.6 billion in legal wagers during just the first five months of 2025.

FanDuel leads the pack with 4.9 out of 5 stars on iOS and 4.7 on Android — ratings that reflect genuine user satisfaction rather than marketing spin. Meanwhile, bet365 dominates the UK market with similar user approval. These aren’t accidents. The apps that succeed combine intuitive interfaces with robust security features like SSL encryption and two-factor authentication.

What makes mobile betting particularly interesting is how it’s democratized access while maintaining security standards. You don’t need to understand complex betting terminology or visit physical locations. The best apps guide users through the process while providing real-time data, social sharing capabilities, and instant access to live betting markets. That accessibility, combined with the convenience of betting from anywhere, explains why mobile has become the primary channel for sports wagering.

3. Virtual Reality

VR gambling represents something genuinely new in the betting landscape. We’re looking at a market segment growing by $1.74 billion from 2021 to 2025 at a remarkable 53% compound annual growth rate. Supporting this expansion, the broader consumer VR market is projected to increase from less than $16 billion in 2024 to more than $18 billion by the end of 2025.

The infrastructure’s already substantial. Consumer VR hardware reached $11.4 billion in 2024, while the software market hit $4.3 billion. These aren’t pie-in-the-sky projections — VR casinos are operational right now, allowing players to walk through virtual casino floors, sit at blackjack tables, and chat with live dealers.

What’s compelling about VR betting isn’t just the novelty. It addresses a real limitation of traditional online gambling: the social element. When you’re sitting at a virtual poker table, chatting with other players and reading body language, you’re getting closer to the authentic casino experience than any flat-screen interface can provide. Some platforms are already testing VR poker tournaments and virtual slot machines that respond to your physical movements.

The technology requirements aren’t prohibitive either. You need a VR headset and solid internet connection — that’s it. Cloud computing handles the heavy lifting, making high-quality gambling experiences accessible on relatively basic hardware. It’s this accessibility that’s driving adoption rates industry analysts suggest could reach significant levels by 2025.

4. AI Algorithms

AI’s impact on sports betting goes well beyond what most people realize. The global market for AI in sports betting was valued at $2.2 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a 30.1% compound annual growth rate, reaching $29.7 billion by 2032. But here’s the kicker — virtually every oddsmaker at licensed and regulated sportsbooks already uses AI algorithms and predictive modeling to set betting lines.

Modern AI systems process in-game events and adjust odds within milliseconds. When a quarterback gets injured or a penalty gets called, AI responds faster than human bookmakers ever could. The systems run thousands of simulations in brief timeframes, analyzing massive datasets that include historical performance, player statistics, weather conditions, and even social media sentiment to create more accurate predictions.

AI outperforms traditional methods in six critical areas:

• Processing large data volumes in real-time
• Eliminating human bias from odds calculation
• Adjusting live betting odds with unmatched speed
• Detecting betting anomalies at scale
• Automating profit margin calculations
• Scaling efficiently across multiple sports simultaneously

What’s particularly interesting is how AI democratizes sophisticated analysis. Small operators can now access the same predictive capabilities that were once exclusive to major sportsbooks. The technology levels the playing field while improving accuracy across the industry.

The Convergence Effect

These innovations don’t operate in isolation — they’re converging into integrated platforms where AI-powered odds meet VR environments, mobile apps deliver live streams, and 5G enables truly real-time betting experiences. The industry’s transformation from simple wagering to AI-driven entertainment represents one of technology’s most successful applications to traditional commerce, creating more engaging, secure, and profitable experiences for operators, regulators, and consumers alike.

This convergence is reshaping not just how we bet, but how we think about the intersection of technology, entertainment, and regulated commerce. The results speak for themselves.