*By Bridgette Webb*
Fitness start-up Naked Labs has raised $14 million in Series A funding to produce the market's first at-home body scanner.
The device includes a scale with sensors, a computer, and a stationary mirror to collect data on body fat, lean muscle mass, and circumferences. It can complete a body scan in 15 seconds and also tracks progress over time by offering side-by-side body comparisons.
The machine costs $1,395, a lofty sum for a fitness tracker. Though Naked Labs co-founders Ed Sclater and Farhad Farahbakhshian are betting that the high quality of the device will be worth it.
"It's a premium product with premium materials, and a lot of tech packed in," said Sclater in an interview Wednesday with Cheddar.
"This is a first-to-world product, we are creating a new category," added Farahbakhshian. "When LCD TV's first came out, they were $2,300."
Farahbakhshian said Naked Labs is very mindful of how much personal data users would be sharing.
"We made a deliberate decision early on that we are not going to own the data of the user, the data belongs to them," he said. "At any time they can delete their account and information and it's gone from our cloud servers."
Naked Labs' founders said the product will enable users to see the impact that diet, exercise, and other daily decisions have on their bodies.
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/naked-labs-raises-14m-for-home-3d-body-scanners).
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
Climate change doesn’t just mean more extreme weather – it also leads to billions of dollars in lost productivity, tourism, and stresses infrastructure.
