Technology

This AI company wants to help you control your dreams

Published

2 years ago

October 4, 2023

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Prophetic AI

Courtesy: Prophetic AI

When Eric Wollberg and Wesley Berry met in March, Wollberg was chasing the idea of using lucid dreams to explore consciousness and Berry was working with the musician Grimes on translating neural signals into art. Both were fascinated by how brain-imaging tools could help paint a picture of someone’s thought patterns.

The two, ages 29 and 27, respectively, co-founded Prophetic that same month. It’s a tech startup building what the company calls the “world’s first wearable device for stabilizing lucid dreams.” It’s a headband-like device that issues focused ultrasound signals.

Lucid dreams occur when a person sleeping becomes aware they’re dreaming and may be able to control parts of the dream.

The startup has raised a previously unreported $1.1 million funding round with participation from a16z’s Scout Fund, and led by BoxGroup, the VC fund known for being first to invest in fintech company Plaid. To prototype the noninvasive device, dubbed the “Halo,” Prophetic has partnered with Card79 — the same company that designed and built hardware for Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company, Neuralink.

Prophetic’s hardware bet comes at a time when a handful of artificial intelligence companies are investing in devices or wearables. Humane AI, a company founded in 2017 by former Apple employees, debuted its wearable — the AI Pin — on the runway last week at Paris Fashion Week. And famed iPhone designer Jony Ive and OpenAI’s Sam Altman are also reportedly discussing an AI hardware project.

Wollberg and Berry, Prophetic’s CEO and chief technology officer, respectively, plan to showcase a semi-working prototype either later this month or in early November. But the full test of the prototype, they say, will have to wait until the third or fourth quarter of 2024, after the conclusion of a yearlong study on brain imaging conducted in partnership with the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, part of Radboud University in the Netherlands.

The co-founders have the type of lofty dreams typical of a modern-era tech startup, with Wollberg comparing the company to OpenAI. Its mission is to work “collectively towards understanding the nature of consciousness” and its LinkedIn page reads, “Prometheus stole fire from the gods, we will steal dreams from the prophets.”

But a year out from a fully working prototype, with plans to ship devices starting in spring 2025, Prophetic is still a ways away from delivering on its promises.

Lucid dreaming through a headset

Lucid dreaming has fascinated the public and the neuroscience community alike for decades, spawning references across pop culture, from films like “The Matrix” and “Inception,” to a Reddit community (r/LucidDreaming) with more than 500,000 members. Neuroscientific studies on the subject date back to the 1970s, according to research published in the National Library of Medicine, but interest has increased with the expansion of the cognitive neuroscience field.

Wollberg had his first lucid dream at age 12, and though he doesn’t remember exactly what he did, he called it “just about the most profound experience I’ve ever had.” In college, he started lucid dreaming twice a week and realized he wanted to create a way to use the practice to explore consciousness on a deeper level.

Meanwhile, co-founder Berry had a background in neurotech prototyping — specifically, feeding electroencephalogram, or EEG, data into a transformer neural network, an AI model pioneered by Google, to explore what people may be seeing in their minds. That’s the kind of work he had been doing with Grimes.

“Eric came to me and he told me what he was working on, and I didn’t think the technology was there at that time — we can’t induce dreams, let alone lucid ones, so how could this be possible?” Berry told CNBC. “The defining moment for me was when I realized that you’re not inducing the dream state itself — someone is already dreaming normally, which happens for most people multiple times a week. You’re simply activating the prefrontal cortex, and it turns lucid.”

Wollberg and Berry are counting on the results of the Donders Institute’s yearlong study to provide enough training data for their AI to work on the Halo device. The golden-ticket type of brain data they’re looking for via the study is gamma frequencies — the fastest measurable “band” of brain wave frequencies, which occur in states of deep focus and are a hallmark of an active prefrontal cortex, which is believed to be a defining characteristic of lucid dreams.

While today’s leading transformer models that underpin tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT deal in inputs and outputs of text, Berry is aiming to do something differently with Prophetic. His plan is to use a convolutional neural net to decode brain-imaging data into “tokens,” then feed those into the transformer model in a way it can understand them.

“You can create this closed loop where the model is learning and figuring out what sort of sequences of brain states need to occur, what sort of sequences of neuro-stimulation need to occur, in order to maximize the activation of the prefrontal cortex,” Berry said.

Prophetic’s goal with the prototype is to use focused ultrasounds to stimulate the user’s prefrontal cortexes while dreaming. Research suggests that focused ultrasound stimulation can improve working memory, and Berry compares that, in a way, to the idea of not knowing how you got somewhere while dreaming. It’s part of why he believes there’s a “really, really, really good shot that this works.”

“My conviction strongly comes from how it feels like a quantum leap … when you’re using this focused ultrasound,” Berry said. “It’s quite a bit better than everything else that’s been done.”

Technology

Nvidia CEO Huang says bringing Blackwell AI chip to China ‘is a real possibility’

Published

58 mins ago

August 27, 2025

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Nvidia CEO Huang says bringing Blackwell AI chip to China 'is a real possibility'

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang waves to a crowd as he leaves the China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) in Beijing on July 17, 2025.

Jade Gao | Afp | Getty Images

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said there’s a “real possibility” the company brings its advanced Blackwell processor to China as he urges the U.S. government to open up access for American chipmakers.

He also predicted the artificial intelligence market in the world’s second-biggest economy will grow 50% next year.

“The opportunity for us to bring Blackwell to the China market is a real possibility,” Huang said on Wednesday in a call for Nvidia’s latest quarterly results. “We just have to keep advocating the importance of American tech companies to be able to lead and win the AI race, and help make the American tech stack the global standard.”

Huang personally visited the White House in July and August to secure export licenses for Nvidia’s current-generation chip for Chinese AI, called the H20. In August, the White House announced that President Donald Trump and Huang had struck a deal in which Nvidia would receive export licenses in exchange for 15% of China sales of the H20 going to the U.S. government.

After the meeting, Trump said he was open to making a deal for Blackwell chips, which is Nvidia’s latest AI technology that currently comprises the majority of its data center revenue.

Huang has said that it is better for Chinese AI developers to use Nvidia’s chips rather than force them to use homegrown Chinese options by preventing exports, which could incentivize the Chinese tech industry to catch up.

If Nvidia were to release a Blackwell chip in China, it could spur a large amount of sales as Chinese AI developers opt for the most powerful chips available. Nvidia would have to modify its Blackwell chips for the U.S. market to make them slower in certain aspects in order to comply with U.S. export regulations.

“The Blackwell is super-duper advanced. I wouldn’t make a deal with that,” Trump said in August, before adding that it was possible to make a deal for a “somewhat enhanced in a negative way” version of Blackwell.

Huang’s bullish comments on Wednesday come after the company reported second-quarter year-over-year revenue growth of 56% to $54 billion, despite not selling a single H20 chip to China during the quarter. Nvidia said it released $180 million in H20 inventory to a customer outside of China, which accounted for $650 million in sales.

Nvidia said it is not counting on any H20 sales in the October quarter as part of its forecast for $54 billion in revenue, but that the company could sell between $2 billion and $5 billion in H20 chips, depending on the geopolitical environment.

“If we had more orders, we can build more,” Nvidia finance chief Colette Kress said on the call with analysts.

Nvidia said that while it had received some licenses after the meeting with Trump, the U.S. government has yet to publish official regulations outlining how its cut of sales will work.

“USG officials have expressed an expectation that the USG will receive 15% of the revenue generated from licensed H20 sales, but to date, the USG has not published a regulation codifying such requirement,” Kress said.

Huang told analysts that China is the second-largest AI market in the world.

“The China market I’ve estimated to be about $50 billion of opportunity for us this year, if we were able to address it with competitive products,” Huang said. “And if it’s $50 billion this year, you would expect it to grow, say, 50% per year.”

Recent reports have indicated that the Chinese government is encouraging AI developers to use homegrown chips over those from Nvidia.

“We’re still waiting on several of the geopolitical issues going back and forth between the governments and the companies trying to determine their purchases and what they want to do,” Kress said.

WATCH: Nvidia sales drop more than 4% as chipmaker says no Q2 H20 sales to China-based customers

Technology

Founder of IRL social media app charged with defrauding investors

Published

5 hours ago

August 27, 2025

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Founder of IRL social media app charged with defrauding investors

Boonchai Wedmakawand | Moment | Getty Images

The founder of the company behind the IRL social media app was charged with defrauding investors of $170 million in the company’s 2021 funding round, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.

A federal grand jury in Oakland federal court indicted Abraham Shafi, 38 of Hawaii, with wire fraud, securities fraud and obstruction in connection with the scheme, the DOJ said.

Shafi was the CEO of Get Together, the parent company of IRL. The company was valued at $1 billion after its 2021 Series C funding round. IRL, which shuttered in June 2023, was a platform for users to organize events and offline activities. It found some traction in 2018, ranking among Apple’s top social apps.

Shafi allegedly spent millions on incentive advertising to boost installs of the app leading up to the Series C while maintaining to investors that the company spent “very little” on getting new users, the DOJ said.

He then concealed the expense by invoicing it to another firm, the DOJ said.

The indictment also alleges that the CEO and his fiancée used investor funds for “luxury hotel stays, luxury clothing, purchases from home furnishing retailers, thousands of dollars for art classes, and hundreds of thousands of dollars for SHAFI’s wedding, including payments for wedding guests’ airfare and luxury hotels.”

YouTube-Fox standoff has high stakes as college football, NFL seasons kick off

Published

5 hours ago

August 27, 2025

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YouTube-Fox standoff has high stakes as college football, NFL seasons kick off

A news ticker outside Fox News headquarters reads: Grand jury votes to indict former President Donald Trump, at the News Corporation building in New York City, U.S., March 31, 2023.

Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

In less than three days, college football will be showcasing one of its most-highly anticipated week one matchups ever, with top-ranked Texas heading on the road to play reigning national champion and third-ranked Ohio State.

Fox is airing the much-hyped game. YouTube TV subscribers may be out of luck.

Google‘s YouTube said on Monday it may remove channels like Fox Broadcast Network, Fox News and Fox Sports if the company is unable to reach a new agreement with Fox Corp. by 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday. The two sides are still in a standoff, putting YouTube TV customers at risk of missing out on major sporting events and hefty ad dollars in limbo.

For Google, the issue is how much Fox is charging for its content.

“Fox is asking for payments that are far higher than what partners with comparable content offerings receive,” YouTube wrote in its Monday blog post.

YouTube TV has roughly 9.4 million subscribers. Most notably for sports fans, Fox is the home for many upcoming football games, both college and pro. The NFL season begins next week, with Fox set to air games starting on Sunday, Sept. 7

YouTube pays broadcasters like Fox to carry their channels.

In addition to football, Fox shows Major League Baseball games, and the MLB regular season is entering its final stretch. Fox will be airing some playoff games that follow, as well as the World Series, which is scheduled to start in late October.

Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, weighed in on Tuesday.

“Google removing Fox channels from YouTube TV would be a terrible outcome,” he said on X. “Millions of Americans are relying on YouTube to resolve this dispute so they can keep watching the news and sports they want — including this week’s Big Game: Texas @ Ohio State. Get a deal done Google!”

The Texas – Ohio State game has added intrigue as its Arch Manning’s first marquee start as quarterback for the top-ranked Longhorns.

The hefty roster of Fox programs may be enough for sports fans to turn off YouTube TV in favor of other options. One place subscribers could turn to is Fox One, Fox’s standalone streaming service, which just launched last week, ahead of the NFL season. Fox One costs $19.99 per month or $199.99 annually.

The base plan for YouTube TV costs $82.99 per month and includes over 100 live channels and unlimited cloud DVR. If Fox does go offline for an extended period of time, YouTube will give members a $10 credit, the Google company said.

YouTube recently overtook Netflix, which has a market cap of $518 billion, as the top streaming platform in terms of audience engagement.

While YouTube and Fox have set a deadline of Wednesday to reach a deal, it’s common for carriage disputes to result in a deadline extension that would give the parties more time to negotiate.

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