February 7, 2025

These documents are influencing the DOGE-sphere’s agenda

Reports from the US Government Accountability Office on improper federal payments in recent years are circulating on X and elsewhere online, and they seem to be a big influence on Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and its supporters as the group pursues cost-cutting measures across the federal government.  The payment reports have been…

Technology

Canoo sends its EV pickup truck to the US Army for testing

December 1, 2022

Canoo, the beleaguered EV startup-turned-SPAC, has delivered its first “Light Tactical Vehicle” to the U.S. Army for a demonstration project aimed at showing how its modular electric platform can support mission-specific configurations for less money. Canoo has landed orders for its customizable platforms with a variety of customers, ranging from NASA to Walmart. The U.S. Army, […]

Canoo sends its EV pickup truck to the US Army for testing by Jaclyn Trop originally published on TechCrunch

Explore accessibility via Amazon Alexa at Sight Tech Global 2022

December 1, 2022

A little-appreciated fact about Amazon’s Alexa is where the voice service’s public debut took place before it became widely available to customers. The venue was CSUN, the longstanding conference dedicated to assistive technology for people with disabilities, notably vision loss. No one had more to gain from a machine that could provide quick replies to […]

Explore accessibility via Amazon Alexa at Sight Tech Global 2022 by David Riggs originally published on TechCrunch

Biotech labs are using AI inspired by DALL-E to invent new drugs

December 1, 2022
The explosion in text-to-image AI models like OpenAI’s DALL-E 2—programs trained to generate pictures of almost anything you ask for—has sent ripples through the creative industries, from fashion to filmmaking, by providing weird and wonderful images on demand. The same technology behind these programs is also making a splash in biotech labs, which are increasingly…

Amazon announces Eventbridge Pipes, a simpler way to connect events from multiple services

December 1, 2022

As developers use multiple Amazon services to compose an application, they typically have to write glue code to communicate between the different services, which can be a time-consuming manual exercise. But today at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, the company announced an easier way to connect AWS services called Amazon Eventbridge Pipes. Werner Vogels, chief […]

Amazon announces Eventbridge Pipes, a simpler way to connect events from multiple services by Ron Miller originally published on TechCrunch

A tool for analyzing face-to-face sales pitches lands funding from UiPath co-founder

December 1, 2022

So much software is dedicated to helping businesses improve interactions online, whether it be aimed at sales, marketing or customer service. But despite the prevalence of the internet and an increase in digital commerce, the fact remains that over 85% of commerce still happens offline in the United States.  Enter Rillavoice, a new startup with […]

A tool for analyzing face-to-face sales pitches lands funding from UiPath co-founder by Mary Ann Azevedo originally published on TechCrunch

Mozilla acquires the team behind Pulse, an automated status updater for Slack

December 1, 2022

Firefox developer Mozilla is making a rare foray into the world of mergers and acquisitions, with news that it has snapped up recently-shuttered California-based productivity startup Pulse. Terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but the deal is tantamount to an “acqui-hire,” with Mozilla looking to deploy the Pulse team across an array of machine […]

Mozilla acquires the team behind Pulse, an automated status updater for Slack by Paul Sawers originally published on TechCrunch

Frore secures $100M, collabs with Intel to create a new way to cool processors

December 1, 2022

One of the top problems facing device manufacturers today is overheating hardware. The chips inside PCs generate heat, which — when allowed to build up — majorly hurts performance. Cooling is less of a challenge when space isn’t at a premium. But as the marketplace pushes for ever-thinner notebooks and so-called ultraportables, manufacturers are being […]

Frore secures $100M, collabs with Intel to create a new way to cool processors by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

The Download: Neuralink updates, and GPT-3 fixes

December 1, 2022
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. Elon Musk’s Neuralink hopes to test its brain implant in a human next year Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company Neuralink is planning to test a brain implant in humans in six months, the…

Shield, a communication compliance platform for financial institutions, raises $20M

December 1, 2022

Two months ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it had fined 16 Wall Street firms more than $1.1 billion for “widespread recordkeeping failures” regarding maintaining electronic communications, contravening federal securities laws. In addition, the SEC is now probing private equity firms on their employees’ use of messaging apps for work purposes, including WhatsApp, […]

Shield, a communication compliance platform for financial institutions, raises $20M by Kate Park originally published on TechCrunch

In defense of plastic (sort of)

December 1, 2022
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. I’m coming in with a hot take this week: plastics might just be the most useful inventions of the 20th century.  Before you get out the pitchforks, let me take you on a…