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STAT earpiece in a person’s ear.

Courtesy: STAT

Digital health startup STAT Health has designed a device to help people better understand why they’re experiencing symptoms like dizziness, fainting and brain fog. 

STAT Health on Tuesday announced its new in-ear wearable, the STAT, which measures blood flow to the head. When users stand up, the earpiece automatically tracks changes in their heart rate, blood pressure and blood flow, which are useful insights for patients who commonly experience dizziness and fainting spells as a result of illnesses like long Covid and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), among others. 

Users can track their metrics in an app on their cellphone and glean insights into how their lifestyle choices affect their symptoms. The STAT earpiece has also proven to predict fainting minutes before it happens, according to peer-reviewed findings published in Journal of the American College of Cardiology this year. 

STAT Health CEO Daniel Lee said the wearable is not diagnostic and it is not a form of treatment but that it can serve as a resource for a patient population who are often told their symptoms are not real. 

“This population, a lot of doctors actually can’t measure that anything is necessarily wrong with them,” Lee told CNBC in an interview. “They’re told it’s just in their head because there’s not a way to measure it. But there is a way to validate that there’s something wrong and their experiences are legit.”

Lee said the STAT will help give patients access to real-time insights to help them decide when they can push themselves, and when they should take it easy.

STAT Health co-founders hold the earpiece.

Courtesy: STAT

Lee co-founded STAT Health in 2020 with Paul Jin, with whom he previously ran Bose’s Health Product Innovation Group. Lee said he set out to build the company after his father, who faints regularly due to heart problems, passed out and broke six ribs. 

“He just pushes through it and he ends up not being able to predict when it happens, that’s why he keeps hurting himself pretty badly,” Lee said. “So that’s where we started, that’s what inspired us to say, ‘Let’s try to see if we can measure something.'” 

The Boston-based startup has grown to around a dozen employees, and the company has raised $5.1 million in seed funding to date, in addition to separate grant funding it received from the U.S. Air Force. 

The STAT wearable is small and sits in the upper nook of the ear. Its placement means it is compatible with most other devices like headphones or glasses that sit in or around the ear. Lee said the device is meant to be comfortable, and users can leave it on while they are in the shower or sleeping. 

The earpiece is made up of an optical sensor, an accelerometer, a pressure sensor and temperature sensors. The battery life lasts over three days, but it is also fitted with a small solar panel, which means some users might not even need to take it off to charge.  

“It’s just supposed to be comfortable, stable, get good signal quality in the midst of your normal daily activities,” Lee said. 

STAT Health said it is targeting a $50 a month subscription for its device, and it will aim to decrease the cost over time for long-term subscribers. Pricing is still subject to change, but the company is taking preorder reservation deposits of $1 for the earpiece starting Tuesday. The deposits will save a spot in line for earlier access.

Lee said he thinks the STAT device will ultimately help patients learn about their bodies and what works best for them. “The goal is, give them a tool to measure what matters so that they can live a normal life more of the time,” he said. 

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Perplexity AI wrapping talks to raise $500 million at $14 billion valuation

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Perplexity AI wrapping talks to raise 0 million at  billion valuation

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Perplexity AI is in late-stage talks to raise $500 million at a $14 billion valuation, a source familiar with the situation confirmed to CNBC Monday.

Accel, the Palo Alto-based venture capital firm, will lead the round, according to the source, who spoke anonymously because the round is not yet finalized. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the late-stage numbers.

The funding is on the lower end of Perplexity’s planned raise, which CNBC reported in March. During those early-stage talks, Perplexity was looking to raise between $500 million and $1 billion in funding at an $18 billion post-money valuation, per a source familiar.

The artificial intelligence search engine company competes against the likes of Google and Microsoft-backed OpenAI. Its valuation in December was $9 billion, triple its $3 billion valuation in June 2024.

Read more CNBC reporting on AI

Perplexity has just under $100 million in annual recurring revenue, or ARR, the source told CNBC in March.

Perplexity has been in the middle of the generative AI boom that began in late 2022 with the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and it’s betting big on its upcoming AI agent web browser, called Comet. But Perplexity faces increasing competition in the AI search market.

In March, Anthropic launched its web search product, allowing its chatbot Claude to display real-time search results to a subset of users.

Last fall, OpenAI launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positioned it to better compete with Perplexity, as well as leading search engines such as Google and Microsoft‘s Bing.

Google has released AI Overviews within its search product as well, though it sparked controversy over high-profile errors soon after its release.

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Trump says he talked to Apple CEO Tim Cook after China tariff rollback

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Trump says he talked to Apple CEO Tim Cook after China tariff rollback

Apple CEO Tim Cook, center, watches during the inauguration ceremonies for President Donald Trump, right, and Vice President JD Vance, left, in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.

Shawn Thew | Afp | Getty Images

President Donald Trump said Monday that he talked to Apple CEO Tim Cook after the U.S. and China agreed to suspend most tariffs for 90 days.

Wall Street and Apple investors cheered the pause on Chinese tariffs. Apple stock was up 6% in trading on Monday, versus 3% for the Nasdaq.

“I spoke to Tim Cook this morning, and he’s going to, I think, even up his numbers,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “$500 billion, he’s going to be building a lot of plants in the United States for Apple. And we look forward to that.”

Apple previously said in February it would spend $500 billion to expand many of its operations in the U.S., including assembling AI servers in Houston.

Any cooling of a U.S.-China trade war is expected to boost Apple, which does the majority of its device production in the country, and also counts the region as its third-largest by sales.

Read more CNBC tech news

Still, it’s not clear how much Monday’s announcement immediately helped Apple.

In April, most of Apple’s most important products, such as smartphones and computers, received exemptions on some of the highest 145% tariffs, but there are still 30% tariffs on Chinese imports even after Sunday’s deal. Apple still faces 10% tariffs in some of its secondary production locations, such as India and Vietnam.

The Trump administration wants Apple to bring device production, including iPhone manufacturing, to the United States, a move that many experts believe would be unlikely and expensive.

Earlier this month, Cook told investors about the company’s tariff strategy on an earnings call. He said that Apple is currently sourcing American-bound products from production locations in Vietnam and India, but didn’t want to speculate beyond June, calling the situation “difficult to predict.”

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment.

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U.S.-China breakthrough send tech and chip stocks soaring

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U.S.-China breakthrough send tech and chip stocks soaring

HANGZHOU, CHINA – JUNE 3, 2024 – The NVIDIA logo and the Apple logo are pictured in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province, China, June 6, 2024. On June 5, Eastern time, Nvidia’s stock market value exceeded $3 trillion, officially surpassing Apple’s market value and becoming the world’s second largest technology giant by market value. It is worth noting that in just over 3 months, Nvidia’s market value soared from $2 trillion to $3 trillion. (Photo credit should read CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Global technology and chip stocks rallied on Monday after the U.S. and China agreed to pause most tariffs on each other’s goods.

Technology stocks — such as semiconductor firms and smartphone makers — have been hit hard as trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies threatened to disrupt supply chains and hurt some of the biggest U.S. businesses.

But investors breathed a sigh of relief after talks between the U.S. and China over the weekend yielded a temporary pause in “reciprocal” tariffs.

In the U.S., Nvidia, which still faces a number of restrictions on the chips it is allowed to ship to China, was around 4% higher in premarket trade, while AMD was up 5%. Broadcom was also around 5% higher, along with Qualcomm.

Other companies in the semiconductor supply chain also jumped. Marvell, which last week postponed a previously scheduled investor day due to macroeconomic uncertainty, surged 7.5% in premarket trade.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s largest chipmaker, saw its U.S.-listed shares jump around 4% in the premarket. TSMC’s Taiwan-listed stock closed before the tariff announcement.

In Europe, ASML, a supplier of critical machinery required to manufacture the most advanced chips, rallied 4.5% in early trade. Infineon was also sharply higher.

Semiconductors and some electronics received an exemption from President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs last month, but the U.S. signaled the reprieve was temporary and that these products could still be in line for special duties.

Investors have been concerned about the impact on major tech stocks, especially those with exposure to China such as Apple and Amazon, whose shares have been under pressure this year.

Apple, which still makes 90% of its iPhones in China, said during its earnings report this month that it expects tariffs will add $900 million to its costs for the current quarter. Apple shares were more than 7% higher.

Amazon was up more than 8% in premarket trade Monday. Many sellers on Amazon rely on Chinese products.

U.S.-listed Chinese tech stocks also surged. Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com were higher, alongside internet firm Baidu.

“With US/China clearly on an accelerated path for a broader deal we believe new highs for the market and tech stocks are now on the table in 2025 as investors will likely focus on the next steps in these trade discussions which will happen over the coming months,” Daniel Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, said in a note on Monday.

“This morning is a huge win for the bulls and a best case scenario post this weekend in our view.”

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