Highlight, now flush with $18M, helps CPG brands automate product testing
The company brings the entire product testing process under one umbrella and automates it so customers can set up their testing and get the product results they need quickly.
Producing tangible business benefits from modern iPaaS solutions
When a historic UK-based retailer set out to modernize its IT environment, it was wrestling with systems that had grown organically for more than 175 years. Prior digital transformation efforts had resulted in a patchwork of hundreds of integration flows spanning cloud, on-premises systems, and third-party vendors, all communicating across multiple protocols. The company needed…
Technology
Caden lands $15M to let users monetize their personal data
As consumers become more privacy aware, an increasing number of startups are emerging to — in line with the trend — enable people to monetize their data. Datacy, for example, lets users collect their browsing data, aggregate it with data from others and then sell it to the highest bidder. Pogo and Tapestri, similarly, grant […]
Meet Marqo, an open source vector search engine for AI applications
Vector databases are the unsung heroes of the modern AI movement, storing unstructured data such as images, videos and text to enable people and systems to search uncategorized content. They are particularly integral to large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 (which powers ChatGPT), owing in large part to the databases’ ability to power real-time […]
The Download: tech’s ethical congregation, and the Inflation Reduction Act’s anniversary
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. The rise of the tech ethics congregation Just before Christmas last year, a pastor preached a gospel of morals over money to several hundred members of his flock. But the leader in question…
Tracking the EV battery factory construction boom across North America
The onshoring of battery manufacturing for EVs started as a trickle during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now it’s a tsunami. In 2019, just two battery factories were operating in the United States with another two under construction. Today, there are about 30 battery factories either planned, under construction or operational in the country. U.S. President Joe […]
China’s car companies are turning into tech companies
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology developments in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. This year, car buyers in China are constantly bombarded with claims about how advanced Navigation on Autopilot (NOA) systems are coming to their city. These software systems are not quite fully…
How a half-trillion dollars is transforming climate technology
A half-trillion dollars is starting to work its way through the US economy, remaking climate technology along the way. One year ago, the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law, marking the most significant action on climate change to date from the federal government. The legislation set aside hundreds of billions of dollars to support…
Tech is broken—can collective action fix it?
For Silicon Valley venture capitalists and founders, any inconvenience big or small is a problem to be solved—even death itself. And a new genre of products and services known as “death tech,” intended to help the bereaved and comfort the suffering, shows that the tech industry will try to address literally anything with an app. …
Lindus Health, a U.K. clinical trials startup backed by Peter Thiel, raises $18M
Clinical trials are the cornerstone of modern medical research, serving the evidence required to prove (or disprove) the safety and efficacy of a new treatment. However, clinical trials are also costly, resource-intensive endeavors that can take many years to reach a stage where a drug or device is deemed ready for a wide-scale rollout. This is […]
Inside the messy ethics of making war with machines
In a near-future war—one that might begin tomorrow, for all we know—a soldier takes up a shooting position on an empty rooftop. His unit has been fighting through the city block by block. It feels as if enemies could be lying in silent wait behind every corner, ready to rain fire upon their marks the…