Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Peloton, the pandemic’s breakout fitness darling, is betting big on an AI-fueled reboot. New CEO Peter Stern is pushing personalized wellness with smarter bikes and treadmills to reverse sagging sales.

But with rivals like Meta charging into immersive workouts, can Peloton muscle its way back to the top, or was its golden era a lockdown fluke?

In today’s tech rundown:

• Peloton gets an AI overhaul

• Apple revives blood oxygen tracking

• HTC debuts Meta-like smart glasses

• Amazon launches fresh same-day delivery

• Quick hits on other major tech news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

PELOTON

🚴🏻‍♂️ Peloton gets an AI overhaul

Image source: Peloton

The Rundown: In a make-or-break move, Peloton is betting on AI, rolling out a new line of smart at-home bikes and treadmills to revive slumping sales and claw back its crown in connected fitness, Bloomberg reports.

The details:

• Peloton is launching a next-gen stationary bike and treadmill in October, with a comprehensive hardware refresh aimed at reinvigorating its core lineup.

• Insiders hint at on-device intelligence that adapts workouts on the fly and new ways to compete and measure performance beyond the classic output metrics.

• Peloton also plans to release branded add-ons, such as smart weights, new sensors, and potentially other connected strength equipment.

• In fiscal 2025, Peloton slashed expenses by 25% across sales, marketing, R&D, and administration, while closing 24 of its 37 retail showrooms.

Why it matters: Following years of sinking sales and staff cuts, Peloton is going toe-to-toe with Apple, Lululemon, and even Meta, all betting on an AI-powered fitness future. With machine learning baked into its bikes and platform, the company is chasing hyper-personalized workouts to win riders back before the clock runs out.

APPLE

🍏 Apple revives blood oxygen tracking

Image source: Apple

The Rundown: In a clever legal sidestep, Apple is reviving blood oxygen monitoring for select U.S.-based Apple Watch users after a months-long patent standoff with medical tech company Masimo that forced the feature’s removal last year.

The details:

• Owners of newer Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Ultra 2 models can reclaim a workaround to the functionality via updates to iOS 18.6.1 and watchOS 11.6.1.

• The watch’s sensors will gather oxygen data, but all measurements and calculations will happen on the paired iPhone, not on the Watch itself.

• Blood oxygen results will also appear only in the Respiratory section of the Health app on iPhone; you can’t check readings directly on your Apple Watch.

• Apple received a green light from U.S. Customs for this “redesigned” feature, signaling legal compliance and enabling immediate rollout.

Why it matters: This software reboot is Apple’s response to a U.S. International Trade Commission ban that knocked the blood oxygen app off the shelves for 18 months. By shifting the calculations off the wrist and onto the phone, Apple delivers a partial win to U.S. users. No more on-wrist readings, but it’s better than nothing for fitness fans.

HTC

👓 HTC debuts Meta-like smart glasses

Image source: HTC

The Rundown: Taiwanese tech giant HTC launched the Vive Eagle, its first AI-powered smart glasses, unveiled in Taipei with a sleek design that echoes Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

The details:

• The Vive Eagle features a lightweight, fashion-forward design (49 g) in a palette of translucent finishes and is engineered for everyday, discreet wear.

• Its core hardware includes a 12MP ultra-wide camera, Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip, 4GB RAM, and 32GB onboard storage.

• Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 enable easy phone pairing (Android 10+ or iOS 17.6+) using the Vive Connect app; open-ear stereo speakers are also built in.

• The device includes HTC’s proprietary Vive AI assistant, compatible with both ChatGPT and Gemini.

Why it matters: The new AI glasses offer real-time translation in 13 languages, process data locally, and employ military-grade AES-256 encryption — so privacy is key here. Priced at NT$15,600 ($520), the specs look to take on Meta and Oakley smart glasses, but for now, they are hitting the shelves exclusively in Taiwan.

AMAZON

🛒 Amazon launches fresh same-day delivery

Image source: Amazon

The Rundown: Amazon just upped its quick-commerce game, launching Same-Day Delivery for fresh, perishable groceries — from milk to eggs to fresh salmon — in more than 1K U.S. cities as it takes direct aim at rivals like Instacart and Walmart+.

The details:

• Customers can bundle fresh food with any other Amazon items — electronics, cleaning supplies, books — in a single order, all delivered within hours.

• For Prime members, same-day grocery delivery is free on orders over $25; non-Prime customers pay a flat $12.99 fee per order.

• Temperature-controlled fulfillment centers and insulated packaging ensure perishables arrive fresh, passing a six-point quality check before shipment.

• Amazon also said it plans to more than double its coverage to over 2.3K locations in the coming months.

Why it matters: For Amazon, it’s about owning the anytime‑everything basket, collapsing the line between grocery store and e‑commerce checkout. For consumers, it’s all about convenience: a few taps, one cart, and within hours, dinner and everything else you need for the week show up in a single knock.

QUICK HITS

Apple accidentally leaked software code revealing that its next Vision Pro headset will use an M5 chip, the new iPad Mini will get an A19 Pro chip, among other chip upgrades.

Donald Trump signed an executive order that seeks to largely exempt commercial space launches from environmental review, a win for Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

Anthropic has acqui-hired the co-founders and core team of Humanloop, a London-based startup specializing in prompt management, LLM tooling, and AI observability.

Google pledged $9B over the next two years to expand its AI and cloud infrastructure in Oklahoma.

AI startup Cohere raised $500M in new funding at a $6.8B valuation, hiring former Meta and Uber executives.

Whoop is defying an FDA warning that its new blood pressure tracking tool reclassifies the Whoop 5.0 as a medical device requiring regulatory clearance.

Sam Altman is in early talks to co-found Merge Labs, a brain-computer interface startup that could rival Neuralink, aiming for an $850M valuation.

The U.S. Department of Energy chose 11 advanced reactor projects for Trump’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program, aiming to fast-track construction and operation.

Tony Robbins and Peter Diamandis’ Fountain Life raised $18M in new funding to expand its network of AI-driven preventive health centers across the U.S.

Lovable, the fast‑growing “vibe coding” startup, is targeting $1B in annualized sales by next year.

COMMUNITY

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See you soon,

Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team