All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. It's a good time to be Oura, the world's most prominent smart ring company . The company debuted the Oura Ring 4 in late 2024 with an updated design, slimmer sensors, and software updates. It was an unmitigated success--out of 5.5 million Oura rings sold since its inception in 2013, nearly half of them were sold in the past year.

Google DeepMind has just revealed Genie 2, a world-modelling AI capable of creating 3D worlds and sustaining those environments for significantly longer. It's a diffusion model that generates images as the player (either a human being or another AI agent) moves through the world the software is simulating. All it needs to start is a single image prompt either generated by AI or from a real-world photo. There are limitations: DeepMind says the model can generate "consistent" worlds for up to 60 seconds, with the majority of the examples the company shared on Wednesday running for significantly less time -- most videos are between 10 to 20 seconds long. Image quality also softens and comes undone the longer Genie 2 needs to maintain the illusion of a consistent world.

Oura's next-gen ring appears to be an upgrade in every way. It features a sleeker design, longer battery life and smarter sensors to offer deeper insights for wearers. Oura says Ring 4 has 18 signal pathways, up from eight in the Gen3, which is paired with its new Smart Sensing algorithm. New features include automatic heart rate and activity detection for up to 40 activities. All bar the Stealth is made of titanium. Oura Ring 4 is available to pre-order today, with shipping expected to begin on October 15, 2024.

After complaints that Google's image generator built into its Gemini AI was (ugh) woke, Google explained why it may have overcorrected for diversity. Prabhakar Raghavan, the company's senior vice president for knowledge and information, said Google's efforts to ensure a wide range of people generated in images "failed to account for cases that should clearly not show a range." Users criticized Google for depicting specific white figures or historically white groups of people as racially diverse individuals. In Engadget's tests, asking Gemini to create illustrations of the Founding Fathers resulted in images of white men with a single person of color or woman among them. When we asked the chatbot to generate images of popes through the ages, we got photos depicting Black women and Native Americans as the leader of the Catholic Church.

Amazon's barrage of new hardware included something many of you might have been waiting for: a Kindle e-reader with stylus support. Yes, the Kindle Scribe comes with a magnetic stylus and a 10.2-inch, 300ppi display. You won't need to charge or sync the Scribe's stylus, and you can use it for jotting notes, journaling and annotating any books you're reading. Starting next year, you'll also be able to send Microsoft Word documents to Kindle Scribe. Kindle Scribe will start at $340 and arrives November 30th.

Researchers have successfully used AI to analyse data from Oura's wearable rings and predict COVID-19 symptoms three days early. The researchers, from WVU Medicine and the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, first announced the potentially groundbreaking project in April. At the time, the researchers found they could predict COVID-19 symptoms – including fever, cough, and fatigue – up to 24 hours before their onset. "The holistic and integrated neuroscience platform developed by the RNI continuously monitors the human operating system, which allows for the accurate prediction of the onset of viral infection symptoms associated with COVID-19," said Ali Rezai, M.D., executive chair of the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute. "We feel this platform will be integral to protecting our healthcare workers, first responders, and communities as we adjust to life in the COVID-19 era."

Oura, a Finnish startup that creates a smart activity- and sleep-tracking ring, has raised $28 million in a series B round of funding from Google's Gradient Ventures, Jack Dorsey's Square, and Forerunner Ventures. Founded out of Oulu, Finland, in 2013 Oura monitors the user's pulse, movement, and temperature to deliver a "holistic picture" of their health. And unlike many other health-trackers on the market, the Oura is not worn on a person's wrist -- it slides firmly onto their finger instead. The titanium ring features infrared LEDs, NTC temperature sensors, an accelerometer, and a gyroscope, and can last up to one week on a single charge. Each day, the user can view their data inside the Oura mobile app, with three scores allocated based on their sleep and activity.