Former Apple engineer raises $5M for a note-taking pendant that only records your voice | TechCrunch

Last day to exhibit your breakthrough to 10,000+ tech leaders at Disrupt is on Oct 2. Book Exhibit Table Now. Disrupt doors open Oct. 13. Get your pass and bring someone with you at 50% off. REGISTER NOW. Transcription and note-taking has emerged as one of the prime use cases for wearable gadgets as AI models advance voice-to-text tech. We’re even seeing some differentiation, with startups like Plaud and Pocket specializing on products that can record and summarize meetings. Others like Friend, Omi, and Amazon-owned Bee are exploring form factors like pendants and wristbands to give people a way to record interactions and their daily lives. There’s been a bit of controversy around that latter aspect, as people understandably don’t want to be recorded by someone without consent. A startup called Taya by former Apple design engineer Elena Wagenmans, is trying to address these privacy concerns with a device that records only the user’s voice. As a bonus, the device masquerades as jewelry: it’s designed to be worn as a nifty pendant. Priced at $89 for pre-orders, the Taya Necklace features a button that you can tap to start and stop recording; the mic is off by default. The startup als