February 5, 2025

XOi raises $230M, acquires Specifx to expand its tech for field service technicians

Field service engineers may not be the first group of customers that come to mind when you think about lucrative opportunities in B2B technology. But that same blind spot speaks of the opportunity in the space for those who are stepping up and targeting “the job site.” One of the players in that space, XOi  […]

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Technology

Purple Elephant Ventures, Kenya’s tourism-focused startup studio, raises $1M pre-seed funding

October 7, 2022

A Kenya-based venture studio with a focus on tourism, Purple Elephant Ventures (PEV), has raised $1 million pre-seed funding to build the next generation of startups that use technology to modernize the tourism sector. Investors participating in this round include Klister Credit Corp., a Canadian investment firm, The Untours Foundation, and a number of angel […]

Purple Elephant Ventures, Kenya’s tourism-focused startup studio, raises $1M pre-seed funding by Annie Njanja originally published on TechCrunch

I Was There When: AI mastered chess

October 6, 2022
I Was There When is an oral history project that’s part of the In Machines We Trust podcast. It features stories of how breakthroughs and watershed moments in artificial intelligence and computing happened, as told by the people who witnessed them. In this episode we meet one of the world’s greatest chess players, Garry Kasparov.…

Michigan is becoming the center of US battery manufacturing

October 6, 2022

Michigan, long the automotive manufacturing capital of the United States, is now getting pumped with investment both publicly and privately to build out a series of battery manufacturing plants that will power the wave of electric vehicles coming to market. The demand for domestically produced batteries has reached new peaks after the passage of the […]

Michigan is becoming the center of US battery manufacturing by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

AI and data fuel innovation in clinical trials and beyond

October 6, 2022
The last five years have seen large innovations throughout drug development and clinical trial life cycles—from finding a target and designing the trial, to getting a drug approved and launching the drug itself. The recent use of mRNA vaccines to combat covid-19 is just one of many advances in biotech and drug development. Whether in…

What should you read next? Tertulia might hold the answer

October 6, 2022

The publishing industry is in a weird spot. On one hand, you see Stephen King testifying against the controversial merger between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, declaring that the looming deal would turn the publishing industry into an impenetrable monolith. On the other hand, TikTok’s community of book lovers — known as “BookTok” […]

What should you read next? Tertulia might hold the answer by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch

Google Assistant gets an upgrade on Pixel 7 with voice typing, calling, and transcription improvements

October 6, 2022

Alongside news of its brand-new Pixel 7 smartphone line and Pixel Watch, Google today also announced a number of ways it’s improving the technology running on its new devices, powered by Google Assistant. With a set of features that will be exclusive to the new Pixel at launch, Google is updating Assistant’s abilities to aid […]

Google Assistant gets an upgrade on Pixel 7 with voice typing, calling, and transcription improvements by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

Power beaming comes of age

October 6, 2022
Power beaming has long been a dream of engineers and innovators. Defined as the point-to-point transfer of electrical energy by a directed electromagnetic beam, the idea originated from Serbian-American physicist Nikola Tesla at the turn of the 20th century. After decades of alternating between optimism and abandonment, power beaming is finally becoming a reality, thanks…

Boston Dynamics, Agility and others pen letter condemning weaponized ‘general purpose’ robots

October 6, 2022

This morning, a group of prominent robotics firms issued an open letter condemning the weaponization of ‘general purpose’ robots. Signed by Boston Dynamics, Agility, ANYbotics, Clearpath Robotics, Open Robotics, the letter notes, in part, We believe that adding weapons to robots that are remotely or autonomously operated, widely available to the public, and capable of […]

Boston Dynamics, Agility and others pen letter condemning weaponized ‘general purpose’ robots by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

Moving money in a digital world

October 6, 2022
The rising adoption of digital financial services—mobile banking, online purchasing, and peer-to-peer payments—means that these days, money most often passes not through human hands but from computer to computer. No cash, no plastic cards, no paper bills or checks or envelopes or stamps. Digital is no longer just another way to move money. Every organization…

The Download: TikTok moral panics, and DeepMind’s record-breaking AI

October 6, 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. The porcelain challenge didn’t need to be real to get views Despite what you may have heard, teens are not stealing their family’s fine dinnerware, tossing it in a blender, and snorting the…