Firestorm Labs raises $82M to take drone factories into the field
A defense startup just raised $82 million to put drone factories inside shipping containers and bring manufacturing to the front lines.
Debates over AI consciousness are a trap
“Runaway” AI, “rogue” agents, and “autonomous” actors—the current rhetoric would have you believe that AI agents are not only awake and aware, but angry at their creators. Prominent tech leaders such as Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei, and Sam Altman push for regulation of these seemingly “superhuman” systems, while a separate faction, led by policy organizations…
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BMW i Ventures has a new $300M fund and AI is riding shotgun
BMW i Ventures is interested in startups working on agentic AI and physical AI, as well as industrial software, advanced materials, and manufacturing and supply chain technologies.
Meet Shapes, the app bringing humans and AI into the same group chats
Think Discord chats, but with AI characters in addition to humans.
Google Translate now lets you practice pronunciation
The feature is rolling out in the U.S. and India with support for English, Spanish, and Hindi.
The Download: storing nuclear waste and orchestrating agents
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. It’s time to make a plan for nuclear waste Today, nuclear energy enjoys rare support across the political spectrum. Public approval has spiked, and Big Tech is throwing money around to…
Jack Dorsey-backed Vine reboot Divine launches to the public
Divine, a Vine reboot backed by Jack Dorsey’s nonprofit, revives six-second looping videos.
Coby Adcock’s Scout AI raises $100 million to train its models for war. We visited its bootcamp.
We visited Scout AI’s training ground where it’s working on AI agents that give individual soldiers control of fleets of autonomous vehicles.
It’s time to make a plan for nuclear waste
Today, nuclear energy enjoys a rare moment of support across the political spectrum in the US. Interest from tech companies that are scrambling to meet demand for massive data centers has sparked a resurgence of money and attention in the industry. That newfound interest is exactly why it’s time to talk about an old problem:…
How one venture firm is investing in an increasingly fragmented world
Geopolitical turmoil has made venture investing challenging, leading Kompas VC to carve out a niche in startups focused on the physical world.
At his OpenAI trial, Musk relitigates an old friendship
It’s a story Musk has told before — in interviews and to author Walter Isaacson for his bestselling biography of Musk — but Tuesday was the first time he said it under oath.