Vocci throws its hat into the note-taking ring battle

Last year, we saw companies like former Meta employee Sandbar and Pebble announce rings designed to help users take notes. While those are more for personal note-taking, Vocci is showing off a ring this year at the Consumer Electronics Show that is more of a Plaud competitor.

Image Credits:Vocci

The company said the ring can take notes with up to five meters of range and eight hours of continuous recording time. The ring will also ship with a case that will charge it when you are not wearing it, giving it an extra battery boost. While the company hasn’t released the product publicly yet, it aims to open up preorders in the coming weeks and then start shipping after Q1 2026. The ring is expected to cost under $200, according to Vocci.

CES Day 3 is here

Morning all! CES 2026 is in its third day, traditionally when many of the high-profile execs have left the event — or are in the process of leaving. That doesn’t mean there isn’t action. Eureka Park, where thousands of startups are located, is busy as ever. The Las Vegas Convention Center is hopping and its various halls are still packed with people.

A quick recap of stuff we saw and wrote about yesterday. I interviewed Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson and Hirschbach Motor Lines president Richard Stocking onstage at CES yesterday, focusing on autonomous vehicle technology and, more specifically, self-driving trucks.

Then there was news from Ford about an AI assistant and upgrades to its advanced driver-assistance system, Caterpillar CEO Joe Creed held a keynote and talked about its relationship with Nvidia and plans to use AI, AMC previewed its new show focused on Silicon Valley, Waymo rebranded its Zeekr robotaxi, and Roku founder, chairman, and CEO gave an update on the company’s new streaming channel Howdy. Plus loads more.

Follow along with all of TechCrunch’s CES coverage here.

Gaming device maker Backbone is going beyond mobile controllers

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Backbone founder and CEO Maneet Khaira is at CES showing off his company’s newer device, the Backbone Pro, and talking to partners and developers. The company isn’t yet ready to share its plans, but we can confirm they’re going to be notable. This is going to be a big year for the gaming device maker as it moves toward the next phase of its business beyond selling its mobile controllers.

This new solid-state EV battery can fully charge in just 5 minutes

I stopped by the exhibit for Donut Lab, a startup out of Finland that specializes in electric mobility. The company (which gets its name from its flagship donut-shaped in-wheel EV vehicle motor) announced at CES the launch of what it calls the first solid-state battery for vehicle production.

Solid-state batteries differ from lithium-ion batteries (which are used by a majority of EVs) in that they use solid rather than liquid electrolytes. They are supposed to offer much greater energy density (more bang for your buck, so to speak) and better safety, and they degrade less than lithium ion batteries. On top of all that, Donut says its battery can fully charge in a lean five minutes.

Charging times obviously differ between vehicles and models but five minutes is, you know, pretty damn fast. Donut claims that, with the long-range version of its battery, a rider can get up to 600 kilometers on a single charge. The company also says that its battery quashes many of the causes of battery fires, as the SSB remains stable across extreme temperatures and includes no flammable liquid. As a result, it’s also supposed to operate better in cold environments (chilly weather has been known to reduce the range capacity of many EVs).

Donut is a subsidiary of Verge Motorcycles. Verge Motorcycle co-founder and former CTO Marko Lehtimaki is the co-founder and CEO of Donut Lab. Lehtimaki isn’t new to the startup scene. He has founded a number of companies, including no-code software startup AppGyver, which was acquired by SAP in 2021.

Donut’s new SSBs will be introduced to Verge’s motorcycles early this year, the companies said this week. The batteries will be incorporated into Verge’s Verge TS Pro and Verge TS Ultra. At its exhibit, the company showed off a number of other partner vehicles that will soon have the batteries incorporated into them.

Image Credits:kirsten korosec

Ford is getting into the AI assistant game too now

Ford didn’t have a big booth at CES 2026; no U.S. automaker did. But the company did make an announcement at a speaker session called “Great Minds” that was meant to “explore the intersection of technology and humanity.”

In short: The company is working on an AI assistant that will debut in the company’s smartphone app, before expanding to its vehicles in 2027. Ford also teased a next-generation of its BlueCruise advanced driver-assistance system that is both cheaper to make and more capable — ultimately leading to eyes-off driving in 2028, senior reporter Sean O’Kane wrote today.

Read the full story here.

Actor and startup founder Joseph Gordon-Levitt worries that AI’s biz model is ‘leading us down a dark path’

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt, an actor-turned-founder who sold his company HitRecord to MasterClass in 2022, has some sharp words for AI companies. In short, he’s worried that the current business models are leading us down a dark path.

Speaking at the Variety Entertainment Summit at CES, Gordon-Levitt said “it’s not necessarily so much about the tech itself, about the technology, but the business incentives, driving some of the biggest AI companies.”

He also stressed that AI companies should not be forgiven for the content theft driven by their models. He said LLMs were trained on everything humans have “put their time and energy and labor into” and that the companies should have to have consent and compensate for the data and content to train their models.

At several points, the audience clapped in agreement. Gordon-Levitt is directing a movie for Netflix about AI, which he says will be a thriller. The movie will star Rachel McAdams.

Fox exec details the media company’s approach to reach fans in the streaming age

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Fox Entertainment CMO Darren Schillace explained how the brand is embracing different streaming platforms to reach more viewers. At the Variety Entertainment Summit at CES, the exec pointed to the example of one of its top new shows, “Doc,” started on broadcast where it reached older viewers but was later added to streaming platforms like Netflix and Hulu to find a wider, and arguably younger, audience.

“We’re never going to drive the younger generations to watch on a network — on a broadcast network,” he said.

Instead, with “Doc,” Fox put the show on Hulu to get the fandom to go a little deeper. It also brought season 1 to Netflix, which he said “drove an insane amount of new fans.”

The company even formats some shows and puts them on YouTube. Of course, the Fox brand may get a little lost in the shuffle.

“The metric we use to measure is total viewers, the Gen Zs, Gen Alpha, their parents, their grandparents — I don’t care. I want you to watch.”

Driving the Infinite Machine scooters around Las Vegas

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Off the show floor, I finally had a chance to take these two scooters for a spin. They’re made by Brooklyn-based (and a16z-backed) Infinite Machine.

The scooters — especially the larger, more expensive P1 — have turned a lot of heads over the past two years thanks to their stark, Cybertruck-ish styling. But while flash usually dominates over substance at CES, these are competent and fun vehicles.

I’ll have more to say about each vehicle later this week. But considering CES was kind of a micromobility wasteland this year, I’m pleased this is the pair of scooters I got to test.

This battery-powered AI speaker can translate, transcribe, and more

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Viaim, the maker of wireless AI earbuds for live transcription and noise cancellation, is debuting a new device at CES 2026 designed for the conference room. The AI smart speaker will allow you to change the camera’s view with gestures, transcribe, translate, and more, and it runs on battery power.

Vizio exec explains why Walmart bought the TV maker for $2.3B

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Mike O’Donnell, VP of Vizio at Walmart, offered a simple explanation for why the retailer bought the television manufacturer for $2.3 billion in 2024.

The executive said the deal was for data — ACR data specifically. That’s the Automatic Content Recognition data collected by smart TVs that understands what you’re watching across cable, streaming, and more.

“We were recently acquired by Walmart, so we have the ability to take that viewership data — understanding what our viewers are watching — not just what they’re watching, but how they’re watching, how often they’re watching, [and] marry that with Walmart data that understands what people are buying or how they’re shopping, and create that full funnel attribution solution for the advertising community and create a better experience, ultimately, for our customers,” O’Donnell says.

So yes, your TVs are watching you back.

Motorola also has an AI pin now

While the Humane pin is dead, there are a few startups like Looki and Memories.ai already trying the camera and voice combination in an AI wearable. Lenovo is also entering this space through an experimental Motorola gadget under the Project Maxwell codename.

Image Credits:Motorola

The company said at CES that the assistant powering the gadget will hear and capture your surroundings continuously and provide you with recommendations and insights. Lenovo didn’t provide any details around privacy, but an ever-capturing device could attract a lot of scrutiny. The company noted the device is currently only in a concept stage, and there is no certainty around a commercial release.

Skylight’s Calendar 2 keeps your family organized

Consumer news editor Sarah Perez has been checking out a ton of tech at CES, including a new calendar product from Skylight. As she reported, Skylight may have started as a digital picture frame, but today the company is more focused on helping families stay organized with shared calendars, lists, meal-planning tools, and more.

At CES, the company debuted its latest product: the Skylight Calendar 2, which offers a sleeker design than the original 15-inch calendar but smaller than the 27-inch wall-mounted Calendar Max. Like its larger counterpart, the new digital calendar app and family organizer also lets you swap out the frame for different colors to better match your home’s decor.

Read her full story here.