‘De-Googled’ smartphone company Murena launches own-brand mobile network

January 23, 2024

Murena, a French startup that sells “de-Googled” smartphones replete with its own flavor of Android, is launching an own-brand mobile network as it throws its hat into the fast-growing mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) ring. Murena Mobile, as the new service is called, is built atop T-Mobile and is available to U.S. customers only. Available […]

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French regulator fines Amazon $35 million over its surveillance system of warehouse workers

January 23, 2024

France’s data privacy watchdog, the CNIL, has fined Amazon’s logistics subsidiary in France €32 million, or $35 million at today’s exchange rate. The CNIL says that Amazon France Logistique has implemented a “surveillance system” that is “overly intrusive.” In particular, the CNIL is focusing on the warehouse barcode scanner and Amazon’s data gathering practices related […]

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Bluewhite rakes in $39M for robots-as-a-service that can be retrofitted to drive any tractor

January 23, 2024

Agriculture has a long heritage of being constantly disrupted by technology, an evolution that has continued to play out until today. In one of the latest developments, an Israeli startup called Bluewhite has picked up $39 million in funding to advance its own contribution to the field: autonomous robots that can be retrofitted to any […]

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Buy, Sell, or Hold These 3 Homebuilder Stocks?

January 23, 2024
The homebuilding industry is poised for substantial expansion, propelled by robust demand for housing properties. Given this backdrop, let’s assess the prospects of homebuilder stocks D.R. Horton (DHI), Hovnanian Enterprises…

How African startups raised funding in 2023

January 23, 2024

After defying the global funding slowdown of 2022, VC investments in African startups dropped considerably last year, mirroring the situation in other regions where capital taps were significantly turned off. The drop, however, was not unexpected as deals had become infrequent, and investors began to pull away in the months preceding the year. Data trackers […]

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What’s next for robotaxis in 2024

January 23, 2024
In 2023, it almost felt as if the promise of robotaxis was soon to be fulfilled. Hailing a robotaxi had briefly become the new trendy thing to do in San Francisco, as simple and everyday as ordering a delivery via app. However, that dream crashed and burned in October, when a fatal accident in downtown…

The Ins and Outs of Final Salary Pensions

January 23, 2024
How do you envision your golden years? For many, it means traveling or just relaxing on sun-kissed beaches, free of the daily grind. Financial security, however, is crucial to a…

Sequoia backs Coana to help companies prioritise vulnerabilities using ‘code aware’ software analysi

January 23, 2024

Silicon Valley venture capital (VC) juggernaut Sequoia is backing a fledgling Danish startup to build a next-gen software composition analysis (SCA) tool, one that promises to help companies filter through the noise and identify vulnerabilities that are a genuine threat. For context, most software contains at least some open source components, many of which are […]

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This town’s mining battle reveals the contentious path to a cleaner future

January 23, 2024
Minnesota’s Highway 210 threads through the tiny towns of Aitkin County, a poor and sparsely populated stretch of forests, lakes, and wetlands that reaches just into the northeastern corner of the state. A short drive off the highway, due south past the Tamarack Church, delivers you to Jackson’s Hole, the last remaining business in the…

Why does AI being good at math matter?

January 23, 2024
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Last week the AI world was buzzing over a new paper in Nature from Google DeepMind, in which the lab managed to create an AI system that can solve complex geometry problems.…