Dyson puts AI in a $499 toothbrush

PLUS: Apple enters its John Ternus era

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Dyson’s latest reinvention of an everyday object is a toothbrush with a camera, AI, and a $499 price tag.

The CameraJet watches the inside of your mouth and brushes, flosses, and rinses in a single pass. Six years and 470K training images later, brushing your teeth apparently requires a tech stack.

Also today: Apple enters the John Ternus era, Instagram cracks down on AI people, and Big Pharma finds its next GLP-1-sized opportunity.

In today’s tech rundown:

  • The humble toothbrush gets an AI makeover

  • Tim Cook is out, Phil Schiller steps back

  • Instagram cracks down on AI personas

  • Big Pharma is coming for baldness

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

DYSON

Image source: Dyson

The Rundown: Dyson just entered oral care with the $499 CameraJet, a Wi-Fi-connected electric toothbrush that uses an AI-powered camera to find gaps between your teeth and blast them with a mouthrise while you brush.

The details:

  • A tiny 100K-pixel camera beneath the brush head analyzes 28 images per second, with a machine-learning system detecting gaps and triggering a jet spray.

  • Dyson says the system was trained on 470K dental images and runs on 16M lines of code, while its jet is designed to clear plaque away at low pressure.

  • Users can livestream the camera feed to the MyDyson app, see brushing coverage, and get technique feedback; Dyson says images aren’t recorded.

  • The $499 package includes a three-second refill/charging dock and launches today in blue and pink.

Why it matters: From vacuums to hair dryers, Dyson built its brand by turning household gadgets into engineering-heavy luxury, and now the toothbrush gets the same treatment. Whether consumers will buy into the ecosystem remains to be seen: its camera works best with low-foaming dental products, which Dyson also sells.

APPLE

Image source: Apple (John Ternus, Tim Cook)

The Rundown: Tim Cook’s final day as Apple CEO came with a second exit: Phil Schiller giving up the App Store and Apple events after more than a decade running both.

The details:

  • Cook, CEO since 2011, becomes executive chairman of the board, with John Ternus, SVP of hardware engineering since 2021, taking the job Sept.1.

  • Schiller’s App Store portfolio moves to Eddy Cue’s services division. Cue ran it until 2015, when it went to Schiller and marketing.

  • Schiller stays an Apple Fellow working on unspecified initiatives, but Bloomberg reports employees read the handoff as a step toward retirement.

  • Apple seems to be cycling through its old guard, including departures of former COO Jeff Williams, AI chief John Giannandrea, and policy chief Lisa Jackson.

Why it matters: Cook hands over a company worth around $4.6T, up from about $350B when he took the job in 2011 — Apple briefly became the second company ever to touch $5T on July 28, a day after passing Nvidia. Ternus’s first keynote is Sept. 9, covering new iPhone hardware and the redesigned Siri, built on Gemini models.

INSTAGRAM

Image source: Instagram

The Rundown: Instagram is now making AI personas identify themselves: accounts featuring an AI-generated human must toggle on a disclosure label, or they’ll stop showing up in Reels and Explore for anyone who doesn’t already follow them.

The details:

  • Instagram is renaming its existing “AI creator” tag to “AI-generated profile,” meant for accounts whose central persona was generated or mostly created with AI.

  • Accounts that should carry the label but don’t can have their reach limited, keeping their posts out of Explore and Reels recommendations for non-followers.

  • AI influencers that are properly disclosed won’t be penalized; Instagram is targeting the deception, not banning virtual personalities outright.

  • The move follows backlash over an Instagram AI tool that used people’s public photos to generate their likenesses without explicit opt-in; Meta later pulled it.

Why it matters: A Wired investigation this year found more than two dozen accounts featuring AI influencers promoting the dating app Goose, and the NYT counted hundreds of AI-generated wellness personalities pushing supplements in July. The disclosure rule follows Meta’s $18B settlement over social media harms to children.

BIOTECH

Image source: Images 2.0 / The Rundown

The Rundown: Hair loss is turning into a serious biotech race, with AbbVie, Lilly-backed Absci, Veradermics, and Cosmo advancing everything from immune-targeting pills to AI-designed antibodies after decades with little innovation.

The details:

  • AbbVie’s Rinvoq won EU approval for severe alopecia areata after Phase 3 trials found up to 55% of patients achieved at least 80% hair coverage in 24 weeks.

  • Cosmo is nearing the finish line with its topical clascoterone: a 1,465-patient Phase 3 program showed continued hair gains through 12 months.

  • Veradermics is taking another route with VDPHL01, an extended-release oral version of minoxidil now in Phase 3.

  • Then there’s Absci’s ABS-201, an AI-designed antibody targeting the prolactin receptor that could eventually require only a few injections every six months.

Why it matters: Hair-loss medicine has spent decades dominated by minoxidil, finasteride, and transplants, but now drugmakers are attacking the biology from multiple directions, from immune pathways and androgen receptors to long-acting antibodies. Wall Street sees similarities to the GLP-1 boom, Fortune reports.

QUICK HITS

Apple reportedly prototyped a stylus for its upcoming foldable iPhone, but concerns over damaging the delicate display make a launch “unlikely,” Bloomberg reports.

Airbnb is testing “direct booking” links that cut host fees from 16% to 6% or 10% when hosts bring in their own guests, as it tries to keep bookings from moving off-platform.

MapQuest says it won’t rename Lake Ontario “Lake America,” a move that sent downloads surging and pushed it to No. 1 among navigation apps in Apple’s App Store.

The FTC and 22 states sued Amazon, alleging it secretly padded ad-auction prices with hidden surcharges that extracted more than $20B from advertisers since 2019.

Florida ordered Flock Safety’s license-plate cameras off state highways, citing privacy and public-safety concerns.

Shein CEO’s fortune dropped more than $15B to about $8B as the fast-fashion giant heads for a Hong Kong IPO at barely a quarter of its $100B peak valuation.

China launched a 100-kW offshore solar platform built with bamboo composites, testing the material as a greener alternative to steel.

Bryan Johnson is turning his longevity obsession to dogs, planning to make his pet the “most measured dog in the world” with test diets and anti-aging therapies.

That's it for today's tech rundown!

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Rowan, Zach, Shubham, Jennifer, and Nate — The Rundown’s editorial team

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