July 4, 2025

The Download: India’s AI independence, and predicting future epidemics

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. Inside India’s scramble for AI independence Despite its status as a global tech hub, India lags far behind the likes of the US and China when it comes to homegrown AI. That gap…

BrightDrop signs Ryder as customer, starts first Zevo 600 deliveries

April 3, 2023

BrightDrop, the electric delivery van subsidiary of General Motors, has signed on supply chain logistics company Ryder as a new customer. Ryder plans to add 4,000 BrightDrop EVs to their rental and lease fleet through 2025. The nabbing of yet another big commercial customer comes as BrightDrop demonstrates its ability to deliver EVs at scale. […]

BrightDrop signs Ryder as customer, starts first Zevo 600 deliveries by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

AI might not steal your job, but it could change it

April 3, 2023
(This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review’s weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here.) Advances in artificial intelligence tend to be followed by anxieties around jobs. This latest wave of AI models, like ChatGPT and OpenAI’s new GPT-4, is…

This robot dog can play soccer on grass, mud and sand

April 3, 2023

Here’s a fun challenge: teaching a quadrupedal robot to successfully dribble a soccer ball. It is, in essence, a core component of RoboCup, the big international competition founded all the way back in 1996. Soccer is a great way to put a robot’s locomotion, agility and decision making to the test. Two key differences with […]

This robot dog can play soccer on grass, mud and sand by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

Sequoia backs startup making it easier for businesses to invest in US Treasury Bills

April 3, 2023

Amit Jain, former head of Uber’s Asia Pacific division, said on Monday that his new venture, Zamp Finance, has secured $21.7 million in seed funding. Zamp Finance simplifies the process for businesses to invest their excess capital in US Treasury bills, providing a hedge against bank failures and other uncertainties. The US-registered startup’s seed round […]

Sequoia backs startup making it easier for businesses to invest in US Treasury Bills by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Apple wins appeal over UK mobile market competition probe

April 3, 2023

Good news for Apple in the UK where a competition appeals court on Friday quashed a decision by the antitrust regulator to open an investigation of the iPhone makers’ mobile browser and cloud gaming service. The Competition Appeals Tribunal (CAT) ruled the regulator failed to stick to established statutory timeframes for such investigations — basically, […]

Apple wins appeal over UK mobile market competition probe by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

Inside the bitter campus privacy battle over smart building sensors

April 3, 2023
When computer science students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Software Research returned to campus in the summer of 2020, there was a lot to adjust to.  Beyond the inevitable strangeness of being around colleagues again after months of social distancing, the department was also moving into a brand-new building: the 90,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art…

Tencent backs Singapore’s Horizon Quantum Computing in $18M round

April 3, 2023

Quantum computers have the potential to carry out highly complicated calculations in minutes that would have taken classical computers thousands of years to work out. But much of the industry is still in its infancy, partly because of a lack of domain experts and software tools that match the progress of quantum hardware. Now companies […]

Tencent backs Singapore’s Horizon Quantum Computing in $18M round by Rita Liao originally published on TechCrunch

Twitter’s new label makes it hard to differentiate between legacy and paid verified accounts

April 3, 2023

Twitter was supposed to ceremoniously remove legacy verification checkmarks on April 1. While it appears to have put those plans on hold for now, the Elon Musk-led social network has revised the label attached to the check mark to make it virtually impossible to differentiate between those who earned it and all who paid for it. […]

Twitter’s new label makes it hard to differentiate between legacy and paid verified accounts by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

AI startup Fourthline locks down $54M to bring better ID checks and compliance tools to the finance sector

April 3, 2023

As digital financial services become more advanced, so too do the efforts of malicious hackers and fraudsters to crack into those valuable systems — and so too do the efforts of regulators to build better structures to avoid that abuse. To help the finance sector meet those demands, an Amsterdam-based startup called Fourthline has built […]

AI startup Fourthline locks down $54M to bring better ID checks and compliance tools to the finance sector by Ingrid Lunden originally published on TechCrunch