Our news
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Blue Origin’s all-female crew, including Katy Perry, successfully launched
Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, successfully launched its New Shepard rocket at around 9:30 a.m. ET on Monday, as it seeks to challenge Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the space tourism industry. What stands out most about this mission is that it featured the first all-female space crew since 1963, when Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova…
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Chipolo’s newest AirTag competitor works with both Apple and Google’s finding networks
Chipolo, the maker of AirTag-like devices, on Monday introduced the latest version of its product. Now, instead of offering models that only work with either Apple or Google’s lost-item finding technology, the new Chipolo POP devices work with both companies’ finding networks out of the box. By combining these different functionalities into one device, Chipolo…
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Meta to start training its AI models on public content in the EU
Meta announced on Monday that it’s going to train its AI models on public content, such as posts and comments on Facebook and Instagram, in the EU after previously pausing its plans to do so in response to regulatory pressure due to to data privacy concerns. The company will start training its AI on users’…
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Hugging Face buys a humanoid robotics startup
AI dev platform Hugging Face has acquired Pollen Robotics, a robotics startup based in France, for an undisclosed amount. Wired reports that Hugging Face plans to sell Pollen’s humanoid robot, Reachy 2, and let developers download and suggest improvements to its code. Pollen Robotics, which aims to bring affordable humanoid robots to the home, was…
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Autonomous trucking startup Kodiak Robotics to go public via SPAC
Self-driving truck startup Kodiak Robotics plans to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company Ares Acquisition Corporation II. The transaction values Kodiak, which has raised around $243 million to date, at about $2.5 billion pre-money. New and existing Kodiak institutional investors, like Soros Fund Management, ARK Investments, and Ares, have funded or…
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Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons hacked to imitate Musk, Zuckerberg’s voices
The crosswalk buttons, which include audio alerts, were hacked over the weekend.
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Nvidia says it plans to manufacture some AI chips in the U.S.
Nvidia says it has commissioned more than a million square feet of manufacturing space to build and test AI chips in Arizona and Texas as part of an effort to move a portion of production to the U.S. The chipmaker says that Nvidia Blackwell chips have started production at TSMC’s chip plants in Phoenix, Arizona,…
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Conifer locks down $20M seed round for its ‘drop-in’ electric hub motor
A handful of engineers who worked at Lucid Motors and on Apple’s electric car project have launched a new startup that puts a fresh spin on electric hub motors. The new startup, called Conifer, has developed its motor to be free of rare earth elements by using more abundant ferrite magnets, which the company says…
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Intel agrees to sell controlling stake in Altera chip business
Intel on Monday announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell 51% of its Altera semiconductor business to Silver Lake, a private equity firm. The deal, which values Altera at $8.75 billion, will make Altera “operationally independent,” Intel said in a press release. Intel will retain 49% ownership in Altera, which will…
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Bill Gates-backed Arnergy to expand solar access in Nigeria with $18M as demand surges
Demand for solar energy in power-starved Nigeria has soared in the last decade thanks to worsening grid reliability and rising fuel costs. That’s drawn investor interest to Arnergy, a cleantech startup meeting that need. The company just raised a $15 million Series B extension (on top of a $3 million B1 round last year), bringing…