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Widespread issues reported with new Whoop MG fitness bands

If you’ve recently purchased the new Whoop MG (Medical Grade) fitness band, you might be facing some serious problems. Many users have reported that their devices stopped working only hours after being set up. Users complain about unresponsive devices Just a few weeks after launch, the Whoop MG fitness band is making headlines for the […]

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If you’ve recently purchased the new Whoop MG (Medical Grade) fitness band, you might be facing some serious problems. Many users have reported that their devices stopped working only hours after being set up.

Users complain about unresponsive devices

Just a few weeks after launch, the Whoop MG fitness band is making headlines for the wrong reasons. Users are posting the same complaint across online forums, Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), and the official Whoop community pages: the fitness tracker shuts down and becomes unresponsive within hours of use.

After setup, the device reportedly loses all LED lights, fails to sync with the mobile app, and won’t respond to charging or other actions. This has frustrated many users, especially as the problems appear without warning and often occur within the first day.

People affected by this issue say they’ve followed all standard troubleshooting steps, including restarting their phones, reinstalling the Whoop app, and trying different charging cables — but the fitness bands still won’t respond.

Whoop responds with reset instructions

In response to growing concerns, Whoop has offered a temporary solution. The company advises users to charge their devices and perform a manual reset. To do this, tap rapidly on the top of the sensor multiple times until the side LED flashes blue. If this works, you should then be able to reconnect the band to the mobile app.

Unfortunately, this fix doesn’t seem to help everyone. Many users have reported that the LED never flashes, and the device remains inactive after multiple attempts. In such cases, Whoop has recommended contacting their customer support team for help.

It’s worth noting that some users have been sent replacements without even requesting them. This suggests that Whoop’s support team may be able to detect faults remotely and proactively resolve the issue.

Not every device is affected

Despite the number of complaints, it’s not all bad news. Some Whoop MG users say their devices are working perfectly with no issues. Still, with so many users facing similar failures, the issue does appear to be widespread. If your device has gone silent, it’s recommended that you try the reset method first. If that doesn’t work, contact Whoop support—especially since replacements are being issued free of charge in confirmed cases.

For now, if you’re considering buying a Whoop MG band, waiting until the company confirms a fix or update might be wise. Whoop has yet to issue an official statement explaining the root cause of the failures. Still, the growing volume of reports suggests this could be a bigger problem than originally expected.





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Driving the Evolution of Esports

There is constant innovation in the world of gaming. E-sports have never been more exciting both for viewers and players. Games are becoming more immersive with Virtual Reality, they are more accessible than ever before with the rise of Cloud Gaming and Blockchain technology makes it as easy as ever to do safe and secure […]

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There is constant innovation in the world of gaming. E-sports have never been more exciting both for viewers and players. Games are becoming more immersive with Virtual Reality, they are more accessible than ever before with the rise of Cloud Gaming and Blockchain technology makes it as easy as ever to do safe and secure transactions in-game.

Cloud Gaming: Breaking Hardware Barriers

Cloud Gaming is making gaming more accessible by eliminating the need for high-end hardware to run games on. Gaming computers as well as gaming consoles are expensive, a solid Gaming PC can cost up to 2000€. Cloud Gaming fully removes the need to spend big on any gaming hardware. The games are being run in large datacenters with enough computing power to run any game at high resolutions and with good FPS. The game is being streamed to your local TV or gaming monitor. All you need is a controller to send inputs tot he datacenter and a good enough internet connection to download the video that is being streamed.

The Rise of AI in Esports Strategy and Training

AI has revolutionized E-sports and the way players train. AI makes it very easy to run through infinite amounts of data in a very small period of time. It has never been easier for e-sports players and coaches to find weaknesses or strengths in their team or individual gameplay. AI can also analyze opposition performances and plot tactics for your team to counter their strategies. As esports evolves, AI is becoming an indispensable tool for gaining a competitive edge,

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are pushing the boundaries of immersion in esports. VR transports players into completely new worlds, creating the most immersive gaming experience ever. Gaming has never been more interactive than with a VR headset. Augmented Reality on the other hand overlays digital elements onto the real world. AR  is perfect for enhancing e-sports live events and user experiences.

The Role of Blockchain in Esports Integrity and Payments

Blockchain is playing a crucial role in enhancing transparency, security and speed in e-sports, particularly in areas like payments. Blockchains make processing transactions a lot easier. By providing a decentralized ledger, blockchains ensure fair transactions and combat fraud. In the realm of Counter-Strike, there are many CS2 gambling sites where players deposit and exchange skins. Blockchains add an extra layer of accountability by enabling verifiable outcomes and ensuring seamless, secure transactions.

Conclusion

The evolution of esports is being fueled by groundbreaking innovations in gaming technology. From Cloud Gaming, which removes hardware barriers, to AI-driven strategies that give players a competitive edge, the industry is advancing at an unprecedented pace. VR and AR are redefining immersion and audience engagement, while blockchain technology is enhancing security and transparency in esports transactions, including on CS2 gambling sites. As these technologies continue to develop, esports will only become more accessible, immersive, and competitive. The future of gaming is here, and it’s reshaping the way we play, watch, and interact with the esports world.



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AI job predictions become corporate America’s newest competitive sport

In late May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei appeared to kick open the door on a sensitive topic, warning that half of entry-level jobs could vanish within five years because of AI and push U.S. unemployment up to 20%. But Amodei is far from alone in sharing that he foresees a workforce bloodbath. A new WSJ […]

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In late May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei appeared to kick open the door on a sensitive topic, warning that half of entry-level jobs could vanish within five years because of AI and push U.S. unemployment up to 20%.

But Amodei is far from alone in sharing that he foresees a workforce bloodbath. A new WSJ story highlights how other CEOs are also issuing dire predictions about AI’s job impact, turning employment doom into something of a competitive sport.

Several of these predictions came before Amodei’s comments. For example, at JPMorgan’s annual investor day earlier in May, its consumer banking chief Marianne Lake projected AI would “enable” a 10% workforce reduction.

But they’ve been coming fast, and growing more stark, ever since. In a note last month, Amazon’s Andy Jassy warned employees to expect a smaller workforce due to the “once-in-a-lifetime” technological shift that’s afoot.

ThredUp’s CEO said at a conference last month that AI will destroy “way more jobs than the average person thinks.” Not to be outdone, Ford’s Jim Farley delivered perhaps the most sweeping claim yet, saying last week that AI will “literally replace half of all white-collar workers in the U.S.”

It’s a dramatic shift from executives’ previous cautious public statements about job displacement, notes the Journal. Indeed, the outlet notes that while some tech leaders — including from powerful AI companies — have proposed that fears are overblown, the growing string of warnings suggests massive restructurings are coming, whether people are ready for them or not.



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Rising Sports Injuries Is A Catalyst For Accelerated Growth

Sports Medicine Devices Stay ahead with our updated market reports featuring the latest on tariffs, trade flows, and supply chain transformations. Sports Medicine Devices Market Size Valuation Forecast: What Will the Market Be Worth by 2025? The sports medicine devices market size has grown strongly in recent years. It will grow from $7.97 billion in […]

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Sports Medicine Devices

Sports Medicine Devices

Stay ahead with our updated market reports featuring the latest on tariffs, trade flows, and supply chain transformations.

Sports Medicine Devices Market Size Valuation Forecast: What Will the Market Be Worth by 2025?

The sports medicine devices market size has grown strongly in recent years. It will grow from $7.97 billion in 2024 to $8.62 billion in 2025 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2%. The growth in the historic period can be attributed to rise in sports injuries, growing emphasis on physical fitness, increase in sports participation, expansion of arthroscopic procedures, focus on injury prevention programs, rising awareness among athletes.

Sports Medicine Devices Market Size Forecast: What’s the Projected Valuation by 2029?

The sports medicine devices market size is expected to see strong growth in the next few years. It will grow to $11.86 billion in 2029 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.3%. The growth in the forecast period can be attributed to personalized medicine approaches, expansion of sports medicine clinics, nutritional strategies for performance enhancement, global sports events and sponsorships, focus on mental health in sports. Major trends in the forecast period include technological solutions for rehabilitation, telemedicine and remote monitoring, integration of wearable technologies, advanced orthopedic technologies, collaboration with sports teams and leagues.

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https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/report/sports-medicine-global-market-report

What Are the Drivers Transforming the Sports Medicine Devices Market?

The increasing number of sports injuries is expected to propel the sports medicine market’s growth going forward. Sports injuries refer to injuries that are caused during sports or exercise, and they are not limited to athletes. They are commonly caused by a direct impact, overuse, or force application. Sports medicine provides treatment or support for sports injuries, so an increase in sports injuries will propel market growth. For instance, in October 2024, according to Insideworldfootball, a UK-based web-based news-driven service, sports injuries reached a total of 4,123 during the 2023-24 season, marking a 4% increase compared to the 2022-23. Therefore, the increasing number of sports injuries is driving the growth of the sports medicine market.

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What Long-Term Trends Will Define the Future of the Sports Medicine Devices Market?

Product innovations are a key trend gaining popularity in the sports medicine market. Major companies operating in the sports medicine market are focused on developing new technological solutions to strengthen their position. For instance, in September 2023, Tissue Regenix Group plc, a UK-based regenerative medical devices company, launched BioRinse product line for sports medicine allografts. This line features advanced sterilization technology to produce high-quality, sterile soft tissue products used mainly in tendon and ligament reconstruction. The BioRinse product line. It is sterilization technology designed specifically for sports medicine allografts. This proprietary process minimizes tissue damage, resulting in enhanced sterile soft tissue products suitable for tendon and ligament reconstruction in various joints. The innovation aims to improve performance, efficiency, and safety in allograft products.

Which Segments in the Sports Medicine Devices Market Offer the Most Profit Potential?

The sports medicine devices market covered in this report is segmented –

1) By Product: Implants, Fracture And Ligament Repair Products, Arthroscopy Devices, Prosthetics, Other Products

2) By Injury Type: Knee Injuries, Shoulder Injuries, Foot And Ankle Injuries, Back And Spine Injuries, Hip And Groin Injuries

3) By End User: Hospitals, Ambulatory Surgery Centers, Physiotherapy Centers And Clinics

Subsegments:

1) By Implants: Joint Implants, Soft Tissue Implants, Bone Implants

2) By Fracture And Ligament Repair Products: Plates And Screws, Pins And Wires, Ligament Grafts

3) By Arthroscopy Devices: Arthroscopes, Surgical Instruments, Visualization Systems

4) By Prosthetics: Lower Limb Prosthetics, Upper Limb Prosthetics, Adaptive Devices

5) By Other Products: Braces And Supports, Rehabilitation Equipment, Diagnostic Tools

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Which Firms Dominate the Sports Medicine Devices Market by Market Share and Revenue in 2025?

Major companies operating in the sports medicine devices market include Arthrex Inc., Conmed Corporation, DJO LLC, Johnson & Johnson Services Inc., Stryker Corp., Smith & Nephew plc, Breg Inc., Mueller Sports Inc., Wright Medical Group NV, Medtronic Inc., RTI Surgical Holdings Inc., Performance Health International Limited, Karl Storz SE & Co. KG, Bauerfeind AG, MedShape Inc., Cramer Products Inc., RôG Sports Medicine, Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc., Mitek Sports Medicine, DonJoy Orthopedics, Össur public limited company, Otto Bock HealthCare GmbH, Bledsoe Brace Systems, Acumed LLC

Which Regions Offer the Highest Growth Potential in the Sports Medicine Devices Market?

North America was the largest region in the sports medicine market in 2024. The regions covered in the sports medicine market report are Asia-Pacific, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, South America, Middle East, Africa

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With over 15000+ reports from 27 industries covering 60+ geographies, The Business Research Company has built a reputation for offering comprehensive, data-rich research and insights. Armed with 1,500,000 datasets, the optimistic contribution of in-depth secondary research, and unique insights from industry leaders, you can get the information you need to stay ahead.

Our flagship product, the Global Market Model (GMM), is a premier market intelligence platform delivering comprehensive and updated forecasts to support informed decision-making.

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With over 15,000+ reports from 27 industries covering 60+ geographies, The Business Research Company has built a reputation for offering comprehensive, data-rich research and insights. Our flagship product, the Global Market Model delivers comprehensive and updated forecasts to support informed decision-making.

This release was published on openPR.





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How a GOP rift over tech regulation doomed a ban on state AI laws in Trump’s tax bill – East Bay Times

By ALI SWENSON, Associated Press NEW YORK  — A controversial bid to deter states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade seemed on its way to passing as the Republican tax cut and spending bill championed by President Donald Trump worked its way through the U.S. Senate. But as the bill neared a final vote, […]

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By ALI SWENSON, Associated Press

NEW YORK  — A controversial bid to deter states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade seemed on its way to passing as the Republican tax cut and spending bill championed by President Donald Trump worked its way through the U.S. Senate.

But as the bill neared a final vote, a relentless campaign against it by a constellation of conservatives — including Republican governors, lawmakers, think tanks and social groups — had been eroding support. One, conservative activist Mike Davis, appeared on the show of right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon, urging viewers to call their senators to reject this “AI amnesty” for “trillion-dollar Big Tech monopolists.”



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Here’s how Character.AI’s new CEO plans to address fears around kids’ use of chatbots – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports

New York (CNN) — When Karandeep Anand’s 5-year-old daughter gets home from school, they fire up the artificial intelligence chatbot platform Character.AI so she can chat about her day with her favorite characters, such as “Librarian Linda.” Anand’s experience using the product as a parent might be helpful now that he’s Character.AI’s new chief executive, a […]

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New York (CNN) — When Karandeep Anand’s 5-year-old daughter gets home from school, they fire up the artificial intelligence chatbot platform Character.AI so she can chat about her day with her favorite characters, such as “Librarian Linda.”

Anand’s experience using the product as a parent might be helpful now that he’s Character.AI’s new chief executive, a change the company announced last month.

He’s taken on the top job at a complicated moment for the company, which lets users talk to a variety of AI-generated personas. Character.AI faces fierce competition in an increasingly crowded space, as well as lawsuits from families who claim the service exposed their children to inappropriate content and failed to implement adequate safeguards.

Character.AI has also received tough questions about safety from lawmakers, and one advocacy group said earlier this year that AI companion apps should not be used by kids under 18. Even for adult users, experts have raised alarms about people forming potentially harmful attachments to AI characters.

Anand brings experience at some of the biggest tech companies to his new role leading Character.AI’s approximately 70-person team. He spent 15 years at Microsoft and six years at Meta, including as vice president and head of business products at the social media giant. He also served as a board advisor for Character.AI before joining as CEO.

And he told CNN he sees a bright future for the platform in interactive AI entertainment.

In other words, rather than people consuming “brain rot” on social media for entertainment, Anand wants them co-creating stories and conversations with Character.AI for fun.

“AI can power a very, very powerful personal entertainment experience unlike anything we’ve seen in the last 10 years in social media, and definitely nothing like what TV used to be,” Anand said in an interview.

Unlike multi-purpose AI tools like ChatGPT, Character.AI offers range of different chatbots that are often modeled after celebrities and fictional characters. Users can also create their own for conversations or role play. Another distinction is that Character.AI bots respond with human-like conversational cues, adding references to facial expressions or gestures into their replies.

The personas of AI characters on the app vary widely, from romantic partners to language tutors or Disney characters. It also features characters like “Friends hot mom,” which describes itself as “curvy, busty, kind, loving, shy, motherly, sensual”; and “Therapist,” which calls itself a “licensed CBT therapist,” although it features a disclaimer that it is not a real person or licensed professional.

“(We’re) doubling down on entertainment, doubling down on trust and safety,” Anand said. “And a lot of the work we want to do is enable an entirely new creator ecosystem around AI entertainment.”

Youth safety on Character.AI

Character.AI was first sued by a parent — a Florida mom who alleges her 14-year-old son died by suicide after developing an inappropriate relationship with chatbots on the platform — last October. Two months later, two more families filed a joint suit against the company, accusing it of providing sexual content to their children and encouraging self-harm and violence.

Since then, the company has implemented a range of new safety measures, including a pop-up that directs users who mention self-harm or suicide to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It also updated its AI model for users under the age of 18 to reduce the likelihood that they encounter sensitive or suggestive content, and gives parents the option to receive a weekly email about their teen’s activity on the platform.

Anand said he’s confident in the improvements Character.AI has made since last year, but that work to keep the platform safe, especially for young users, continues. Character.AI’s policies technically require users to be over the age of 13, although it does not ask for information to verify that users are signing up with the correct birthdate.

“The tech and the industry and the user base is constantly evolving (so) that we can never let the guard off. We have to constantly stay ahead of the curve,” Anand said.

He added that the company continues to test how people could misuse new features to prevent abuse, such as a video generator launched last month that lets users animate their bots. In the days following the tool’s arrival, users shared unsuccessful attempts to test its limits by creating fake videos of prominent figures like Elon Musk.

“We had to red team the product for such a long time to make sure you cannot use this for any negative use case like deepfakes or bullying,” Anand said.

Those efforts aside, Anand said in an introductory note to Character.AI users last month that one of his top priorities is to make the platform’s safety filter “less overbearing,” adding that “too often, the app filters things that are perfectly harmless.”

He told CNN that things like mentions of blood when users are engaging in “vampire fan fiction role play” — something he says he’s a fan of — might be censored under the current model, which he wants to update to better understand context while balancing the need for safety.

Leading in the competitive AI space

Among Anand’s other key objectives: encouraging more creators to join the platform to make new chatbot characters and upgrading the social feed where users can share content they’ve created with Character.AI chatbots.

The latter feature is similar to an app Meta launched this year that allows people to publicly share their prompts and AI-generated creations. Meta drew heat when apparently confused users shared conversations that contained embarrassing or personal details — a reminder of the privacy challenges that can come with AI tools.

But the social element could help further differentiate Character.AI from bigger competitors like ChatGPT, which users are also increasingly forming personal connections with.

Another challenge Anand will face as CEO is retaining and growing the company’s workforce, as an AI talent war heats up across the tech industry. In a sign of the competition for top talent, Meta has reportedly offered pay packages and bonuses worth hundreds of millions of dollars to grow its new superintelligence team. Character.AI co-founder and former CEO Noam Shazeer was also lured back to Google last year, where he’d previously built conversational AI technology.

“It is hard, I will not lie,” Anand said. “The good news for me as CEO is all the people we have here are very, very passionate and mission driven.”

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New Wearable Algorithm Improves Fitness Tracking in Obesity

A new algorithm enabled smartwatch fitness trackers to more accurately estimate energy expenditure by individuals with obesity. In two studies conducted in a total of 52 people for 1838 minutes in a lab and 14,045 minutes in a “free-living” situation, the algorithm performed mostly as well or better than 11 “gold-standard” algorithms designed by other […]

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A new algorithm enabled smartwatch fitness trackers to more accurately estimate energy expenditure by individuals with obesity.

In two studies conducted in a total of 52 people for 1838 minutes in a lab and 14,045 minutes in a “free-living” situation, the algorithm performed mostly as well or better than 11 “gold-standard” algorithms designed by other researchers using research-grade devices, achieving over 95% accuracy in people with obesity in real-world situations.

The algorithm bridges an important gap in fitness technology — that most wearable devices are using algorithms validated mainly in people without obesity, said Nabil Alshurafa, PhD, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, in Chicago.

Alshurafa was motivated to create the algorithm after attending an exercise class with his mother-in-law, who had obesity. His mother-in-law worked hard, but her effort barely showed on the leaderboard. He realized that most current fitness trackers use activity-monitoring algorithms developed for people without obesity.

“Commercial devices calibrate their accelerometer-to-calorie models using data mostly from people with normal BMI, using algorithms that rely on ‘average’ gait and metabolism,” he told Medscape Medical News. “But people with obesity are known to exhibit differences in walking gait, speed, resting energy expenditure, and physical function. When you feed ‘average’ motion to kcal [kilocalories] mappings for people with different gait patterns, the math does not always line up.”

This may be particularly true for people with obesity who wear fitness trackers throughout the day on their hip, rather than their wrist, because of differences in gait patterns and other body movements.

The study was published online in Scientific Reports. The anonymized dataset and code and documentation are publicly available for use by other researchers.

‘More Inclusive and Reliable’

Researchers in Alshurafa’s lab developed and tested the open-source, dominant-wrist algorithm specifically tuned for people with obesity. The algorithm estimated metabolic equivalent of task (MET) values per minute from commercial smartwatch sensor data and compared them to actigraphy-based energy estimates in people with obesity.

In an in-lab study, 27 participants performed activities of varying intensities while wearing a smartwatch and a metabolic cart — a mask that measures the volume of oxygen the wearer inhales and the volume of carbon dioxide the wearer exhales to calculate their energy burn in kcals and their resting metabolic rate.

The activities included, among others, typing on a computer, lying still on the floor doing nothing, walking slowly on a treadmill, doing pushups against a door, and following along with an aerobics video. Each activity was performed for 5 minutes, followed by 5 minutes of rest. The researchers compared the fitness tracker results against the metabolic cart results.

Another 25 participants wore a smartwatch and a body camera for 2 days in a free-living study. The body camera enabled the researchers to visually confirm when the algorithm over- or under-estimated kcals.

The in-lab analysis included 2189 minutes of data and the free-living analysis included 14,045 minutes of data.

Compared to the metabolic cart, the new algorithm achieved lower root mean square error across various sliding windows (analyses of continuous and overlapping data streams).

In the free-living study, the algorithm’s estimates fell within ±1.96 SDs of the best actigraphy-based estimates for 95.03% of minutes.

“Our proposed method accurately estimated METs compared to 11 algorithms primarily validated in nonobese populations, suggesting that commercial wrist-worn devices can provide more inclusive and reliable [energy expenditure] measures using our algorithm,” the authors wrote.

Challenges Ahead

More work needs to be done before apps for iOS and android driven by the new algorithm are available for use later this year, Alshurafa said. Because the model is tuned for users with obesity, “we need a reliable way to obtain BMI or body composition, and possibly ways of turning on and off the algorithm over time or perhaps modifying the algorithm as people’s fitness level changes.”

“Because we’ve optimized for the dominant hand, we’ll need clear user guidance, and possibly user-interface prompts, to drive this cultural shift in watch placement,” he said.

To ensure accuracy across diverse users, activities, and wear styles, the team will conduct field testing and pool anonymized data.

“Power, size, and regulatory requirements may force trade-offs, so we’ll work closely with device manufacturers on adaptive calibration routines and streamlined firmware,” Alshurafa said. “But the real priority is training and tailoring our systems on truly diverse data and being transparent about who’s represented in that data. Too many commercial devices skip this, leading users to assume they work universally when their models actually have limitations.”

For now, clinicians should be aware that the app has only been validated so far in individuals with obesity wearing their tracker on the dominant wrist and use outside that population or on the nondominant wrist may yield less accurate calorie estimates, he added. “Beyond those parameters, though, the algorithm is ready for deployment and offers a powerful new tool for personalized activity monitoring.”

Mir Ali, MD, a bariatric surgeon and medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California, agreed that an algorithm that more accurately reflects exercise and energy expenditure of patients with obesity would be helpful, and that “any improvements” would likely be beneficial for patients and clinicians.

That said, “a larger study comparing the new algorithm vs currently available devices would provide more validation,” Ali, who was not involved in the study, told Medscape Medical News.

In addition, “research elucidating exercise goals and calorie expenditure for obese patients could be helpful to better counsel patients on what is the optimal goal for weight loss,” he said.

Ali noted that “trackers for heart disease and pulmonary problems may be useful to help patients attain cardio-pulmonary improvement” — and indeed, Alshurafa’s team will be looking at ways to tailor fitness trackers for diabetes and hypertension going forward.

This study is based on work supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

Alshurafa and Ali declared no competing interests.

Marilynn Larkin, MA, is an award-winning medical writer and editor whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Medscape Medical News and its sister publication MDedge, The Lancet (where she was a contributing editor), and Reuters Health.



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