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Andrew Hitz with the Zeus hand.

Courtesy of Aether Biomedical

In 2011, Jeremy Schroeder was driving a four-wheeler near Sherwood, Ohio, when he crashed into a stop sign he hadn’t seen as the stone path suddenly turned to asphalt. The sign left a deep gash in Schroeder’s arm; he was rapidly losing blood. 

Shroeder, who was 30 at the time, waited more than an hour for emergency medical services to arrive before he was finally airlifted to a nearby hospital.

When he woke up in a room across from his anxious wife, Schroeder was missing a hand. 

“She goes, ‘I got bad news,'” he told CNBC in an interview, recalling the conversation. 

Schroeder’s left arm was amputated around five inches below his elbow. He has four kids and manages a small farm where he drives tractors, harvests crops and cares for animals, so he was determined not to let his accident slow him down. 

Now, 12 years later, Schroeder wears a bionic hand designed by the startup Aether Biomedical, and it’s business as usual for him. Aether’s hand, called the Zeus, can lift up to 77 pounds and switch between 12 different customizable grip patterns in real time. Schroeder, who is now an ambassador for the company, said he uses it for “everything,” whether it’s carrying groceries, driving his truck or caring for his kids.  

Founded in 2018, Aether is based in Poland with U.S. headquarters in Chicago. Aether works with upper limb amputees, and anyone with an amputation level between the wrist and the shoulder can use its Zeus hand. Once patients are fitted with a prosthetic socket for their arm by a doctor, Aether’s device can fasten on the end.

More than 200 patients are using Aether’s Zeus hand, and like other bionic hands, it works by translating the electrical signals in the arm muscles. When a patient thinks of a grip like holding a bottle or pinching a needle, Aether’s sensors detect these electrical signals and its software converts them into actions. 

“Just about anything you can think, you can do,” Schroeder said. “It’s really neat what some people can do with it.”

Jeremy Schroeder with the Zeus hand.

Courtesy of Aether Biomedical

Aether CEO Dhruv Agrawal said the Zeus hand is the strongest bionic hand on the market, and it’s also the only hand that can be remotely configured through an app, which is a big selling point for users.

It’s common for patients to need adjustments to their bionic devices, especially as they are first learning to use them, and it usually requires an in-person visit to a doctor’s office. But patients who use Aether’s device can have their clinician log on to the company’s cloud-based platform and reconfigure grip patterns and make other adjustments remotely. 

Schroeder said this feature often saves him more than two hours of driving.

Aether also takes a unique approach to larger repairs. 

The Zeus hand is made up of seven modules that can be easily replaced at a doctor’s office, said Sarra Mullen, head of U.S. operations at Aether. She said other bionic hands have to be sent back to the manufacturers to be repaired, which can leave patients stuck without their devices for extended periods. 

“Imagine not having your hand for weeks, months at a time,” Mullen told CNBC in an interview. “We have this ability now to keep the device on the patient at all times, and that truly is remarkable.”

Aether’s Zeus hand is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and it’s covered by all major insurance payers. Aether said the cost of the Zeus hand will vary depending on the person. The company generates revenue, Mullen said, so its main focus is on scaling access to its technology.  

On Monday, Aether announced it closed a $5.8 million funding round led by J2 Ventures and Story Ventures. Agrawal said the funding will mainly be used to improve the company’s manufacturing process. Aether currently has a backlog of devices it needs to ship out, he added. 

In the U.S. alone, there are between 800,000 and 1 million estimated upper limb amputees, so there is plenty of room for Aether to grow. The challenge, Agrawal said, is winning over patients who have never wanted a bionic hand or who have been discouraged by past devices they’ve tried.    

“If you used a device many years ago and didn’t like it, that doesn’t mean that you have to give up on it today,” he told CNBC in an interview. “Technology is improving.” 

Given Aether’s presence in Poland, Agrawal said the company is also working to get its devices to people who have been injured because of the war in Ukraine. He said Aether is sending its first team to the region in a few weeks, and the company is expecting to fit between 300 to 500 people with the Zeus hand over the next year and a half.

Patients need to practice

The Zeus hand.

Courtesy of Aether Biomedical

If patients have never used a bionic hand before, Mullen said, it usually takes between four to six weeks to learn how to use Aether’s comfortably. She said patients first generally see a prosthetist, which is the kind of doctor that fits patients with artificial limbs. They get set up with the hand, and then go to occupational therapy to learn to use it.   

It takes time and practice to understand how to operate the different grip patterns, Mullen said. But Andrew Hitz, a 61-year-old who lives about 40 miles south of Dallas, mastered the Zeus hand in just 10 minutes. 

Hitz had an elective amputation below the elbow of his left arm in February of 2019 after suffering a serious accident on a side-by-side vehicle years earlier. He had tried to save his hand through a number of different procedures, and his surgeon eventually told him that he was out of options.  

“Actually, it was the best thing that I ever did,” Hitz told CNBC in an interview. “I wish I would have jumped to the conclusion of having it taken off years prior, saving me some of the agony and pain of all the surgeries that I went through.”

Hitz has used other bionic hands before, and he said many of them are sitting on his shelf and collecting dust. He happened to stumble across Aether at a trade show in Dallas this year where tried out the Zeus hand. He said using it for the first time was like a “ray of bright sunshine.”

“Literally in 10 minutes I was picking up little blocks that this previous hand that I had for almost a year and a half I just never mastered,” he said. 

Aether gave Hitz a hand for free, and he is now an ambassador for the company.

Like Schroeder, Hitz lives a very hands-on lifestyle and manages a small farm with his wife. He cares for chickens, sheep, goats, donkeys and more. He said the Zeus hand works great for holding rakes and shovels, driving his tractor, carrying feed and gathering hay.

Hitz said the Zeus hand also has a soft grip feature, which means he can use it to pick up eggs from his chicken coop. 

“If I would have tried that with my other two, it would have smushed all over the place, egg everywhere,” Hitz said. “So that just blew my mind when I went up to the chicken coop, and I did not crush that egg.” 

Out of Aether’s 50 employees, Agrawal said around 75% are dedicated to research and development, so the company is always looking ahead to what is next. He said Aether is already working on next generation devices, as well as better machine learning systems and digital training platforms. 

He said ultimately, Aether’s goal is to help make bionic devices more accessible and easier to use.

“The amount of mental taxation that a user has to put in to use these devices has decreased a lot with our product,” he said. “And I think that is really key to ensuring that these devices don’t sit in a boardroom, but are actually used by patients.”

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Etsy touts ‘shopping domestically’ as Trump tariffs threaten price increases for imports

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Etsy touts 'shopping domestically' as Trump tariffs threaten price increases for imports

An employee walks past a quilt displaying Etsy Inc. signage at the company’s headquarters in the Brooklyn.

Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Etsy is trying to make it easier for shoppers to purchase products from local merchants and avoid the extra cost of imports as President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs raise concerns about soaring prices.

In a post to Etsy’s website on Thursday, CEO Josh Silverman said the company is “surfacing new ways for buyers to discover businesses in their countries” via shopping pages and by featuring local sellers on its website and app.

“While we continue to nurture and enable cross-border trade on Etsy, we understand that people are increasingly interested in shopping domestically,” Silverman said.

Etsy operates an online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers with mostly artisanal and handcrafted goods. The site, which had 5.6 million active sellers as of the end of December, competes with e-commerce juggernaut Amazon, as well as newer entrants that have ties to China like Temu, Shein and TikTok Shop.

By highlighting local sellers, Etsy could relieve some shoppers from having to pay higher prices induced by President Trump’s widespread tariffs on trade partners. Trump has imposed tariffs on most foreign countries, with China facing a rate of 145%, and other nations facing 10% rates after he instituted a 90-day pause to allow for negotiations. Trump also signed an executive order that will end the de minimis provision, a loophole for low-value shipments often used by online businesses, on May 2.

Temu and Shein have already announced they plan to raise prices late next week in response to the tariffs. Sellers on Amazon’s third-party marketplace, many of whom source their products from China, have said they’re considering raising prices.

Silverman said Etsy has provided guidance for its sellers to help them “run their businesses with as little disruption as possible” in the wake of tariffs and changes to the de minimis exemption.

Before Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs took effect, Silverman said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call in late February that he expects Etsy to benefit from the tariffs and de minimis restrictions because it “has much less dependence on products coming in from China.”

“We’re doing whatever work we can do to anticipate and prepare for come what may,” Silverman said at the time. “In general, though, I think Etsy will be more resilient than many of our competitors in these situations.”

Still, American shoppers may face higher prices on Etsy as U.S. businesses that source their products or components from China pass some of those costs on to consumers.

Etsy shares are down 17% this year, slightly more than the Nasdaq.

WATCH: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says sellers will pass cost of tariffs on to consumers

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy: Sellers will pass increased tariff costs on to consumers

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Google hit with second antitrust blow, adding to concerns about future of ads business

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Google hit with second antitrust blow, adding to concerns about future of ads business

Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifies before the House Judiciary Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on December 11, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Alex Wong | Getty Images

Google’s antitrust woes are continuing to mount, just as the company tries to brace for a future dominated by artificial intelligence.

On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that Google held illegal monopolies in online advertising markets due to its position between ad buyers and sellers.

The ruling, which followed a September trial in Alexandria, Virginia, represents a second major antitrust blow for Google in under a year. In August, a judge determined the company has held a monopoly in its core market of internet search, the most-significant antitrust ruling in the tech industry since the case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. 

Google is in a particularly precarious spot as it tries to simultaneously defend its primary business in court while fending off an onslaught of new competition due to the emergence of generative AI, most notably OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which offers users alternative ways to search for information. Revenue growth has cooled in recent years, and Google also now faces the added potential of a slowdown in ad spending due to economic concerns from President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariffs.

Parent company Alphabet reports first-quarter results next week. Alphabet’s stock price dipped more than 1% on Thursday and is now down 20% this year.

Why Google's antitrust woes endangers its AI momentum

In Thursday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said Google’s anticompetitive practices “substantially harmed” publishers and users on the web. The trial featured 39 live witnesses, depositions from an additional 20 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits.

Judge Brinkema ruled that Google unlawfully controls two of the three parts of the advertising technology market: the publisher ad server market and ad exchange market. Brinkema dismissed the third part of the case, determining that tools used for general display advertising can’t clearly be defined as Google’s own market. In particular, the judge cited the purchases of DoubleClick and Admeld and said the government failed to show those “acquisitions were anticompetitive.”

“We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president or regulatory affairs, said in an emailed statement. “We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a press release from the DOJ that the ruling represents a “landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square.”

Potential ad disruption

If regulators force the company to divest parts of the ad-tech business, as the Justice Department has requested, it could open up opportunities for smaller players and other competitors to fill the void and snap up valuable market share. Amazon has been growing its ad business in recent years.

Meanwhile, Google is still defending itself against claims that its search has acted as a monopoly by creating strong barriers to entry and a feedback loop that sustained its dominance. Google said in August, immediately after the search case ruling, that it would appeal, meaning the matter can play out in court for years even after the remedies are determined.

The remedies trial, which will lay out the consequences, begins next week. The Justice Department is aiming for a break up of Google’s Chrome browser and eliminating exclusive agreements, like its deal with Apple for search on iPhones. The judge is expected to make the ruling by August.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai (L) and Apple CEO Tim Cook (R) listen as U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a roundtable with American and Indian business leaders in the East Room of the White House on June 23, 2023 in Washington, DC.

Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

After the ad market ruling on Thursday, Gartner’s Andrew Frank said Google’s “conflicts of interest” are apparent by how the market runs.

“The structure has been decades in the making,” Frank said, adding that “untangling that would be a significant challenge, particularly since lawyers don’t tend to be system architects.”

However, the uncertainty that comes with a potentially years-long appeals process means many publishers and advertisers will be waiting to see how things shake out before making any big decisions given how much they rely on Google’s technology.

“Google will have incentives to encourage more competition possibly by loosening certain restrictions on certain media it controls, YouTube being one of them,” Frank said. “Those kind of incentives may create opportunities for other publishers or ad tech players.”

A date for the remedies trial hasn’t been set.

Damian Rollison, senior director of market insights for marketing platform Soci, said the revenue hit from the ad market case could be more dramatic than the impact from the search case.

“The company stands to lose a lot more in material terms if its ad business, long its main source of revenue, is broken up,” Rollison said in an email. “Whereas divisions like Chrome are more strategically important.”

WATCH: U.S. judge finds Google holds illegal online ad-tech monopolies

U.S. judge finds Google holds illegal online ad tech monopolies

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Discord sued by New Jersey over child safety features

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Discord sued by New Jersey over child safety features

Jason Citron, CEO of Discord in Washington, DC, on January 31, 2024.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

The New Jersey attorney general sued Discord on Thursday, alleging that the company misled consumers about child safety features on the gaming-centric social messaging app.

The lawsuit, filed in the New Jersey Superior Court by Attorney General Matthew Platkin and the state’s division of consumer affairs, alleges that Discord violated the state’s consumer fraud laws.

Discord did so, the complaint said, by allegedly “misleading children and parents from New Jersey” about safety features, “obscuring” the risks children face on the platform and failing to enforce its minimum age requirement.

“Discord’s strategy of employing difficult to navigate and ambiguous safety settings to lull parents and children into a false sense of safety, when Discord knew well that children on the Application were being targeted and exploited, are unconscionable and/or abusive commercial acts or practices,” lawyers wrote in the legal filing.

They alleged that Discord’s acts and practices were “offensive to public policy.”

A Discord spokesperson said in a statement that the company disputes the allegations and that it is “proud of our continuous efforts and investments in features and tools that help make Discord safer.”

“Given our engagement with the Attorney General’s office, we are surprised by the announcement that New Jersey has filed an action against Discord today,” the spokesperson said.

One of the lawsuit’s allegations centers around Discord’s age-verification process, which the plaintiffs believe is flawed, writing that children under thirteen can easily lie about their age to bypass the app’s minimum age requirement.

The lawsuit also alleges that Discord misled parents to believe that its so-called Safe Direct Messaging feature “was designed to automatically scan and delete all private messages containing explicit media content.” The lawyers claim that Discord misrepresented the efficacy of that safety tool.

“By default, direct messages between ‘friends’ were not scanned at all,” the complaint stated. “But even when Safe Direct Messaging filters were enabled, children were still exposed to child sexual abuse material, videos depicting violence or terror, and other harmful content.”

The New Jersey attorney general is seeking unspecified civil penalties against Discord, according to the complaint.

The filing marks the latest lawsuit brought by various state attorneys general around the country against social media companies.

In 2023, a bipartisan coalition of over 40 state attorneys general sued Meta over allegations that the company knowingly implemented addictive features across apps like Facebook and Instagram that harm the mental well being of children and young adults.

The New Mexico attorney general sued Snap in Sep. 2024 over allegations that Snapchat’s design features have made it easy for predators to easily target children through sextortion schemes.

The following month, a bipartisan group of over a dozen state attorneys general filed lawsuits against TikTok over allegations that the app misleads consumers that its safe for children. In one particular lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia’s attorney general, lawyers allege that the ByteDance-owned app maintains a virtual currency that “substantially harms children” and a  livestreaming feature that “exploits them financially.”

In January 2024, executives from Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord and X were grilled by lawmakers during a senate hearing over allegations that the companies failed to protect children on their respective social media platforms.

WATCH: The FTC has an uphill battle in its antitrust case against Meta.

The FTC has an uphill battle in its antitrust case against Meta: Former Facebook general counsel

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