At RightsCon in Taipei, activists reckon with a US retreat from promoting digital rights 

March 4, 2025
Last week, I joined over 3,200 digital rights activists, tech policymakers, and researchers and a smattering of tech company representatives in Taipei at RightsCon, the world’s largest digital rights conference.  Human rights conferences can be sobering, to say the least. They highlight the David vs. Goliath situation of small civil society organizations fighting to center…

Cino cracks bill-splitting at the moment of payment, raises seed round

March 4, 2025

While Venmo or Splitwise are effectively ‘debt collector’ tools, which require one person to pay a full bill and then request funds from others, neither have cracked bill-splitting at the moment of payment. European startup Cino, which has come up with just such a product, has now raised €3.5m in a Seed funding round led […]

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Dutch startup QuantWare seeks to fast-track quantum computing

March 4, 2025

Big tech companies aren’t sleeping on quantum chips: Amazon Web Services introduced Ocelot; Microsoft, Majorana; and Google, Willow. But although all of these can be considered to be breakthroughs, quantum startups often focus on more practical advancements — and they are making progress. Founded in 2020, Dutch startup QuantWare is one of these, which claims […]

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Moonwatt secures $8.3M to dial up solar’s staying power with sodium-ion storage

March 4, 2025

The drive to decarbonize our economies through electrification and clean energy continues to generate momentum around battery technologies, as storage has a key role to play in enabling the green transition. While renewables are clean sources of energy compared to burning fossil fuels, their power output isn’t always consistent. In the case of solar — […]

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Trump Administration cuts may threaten AI research efforts

March 4, 2025

The Trump Administration has fired a number of National Science Foundation employees who had been handpicked for their expertise in AI, threatening the agency’s ability to sustain key AI research, Bloomberg reported. One of the affected departments inside NSF, called the Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships, was instrumental in funneling government grants focused on […]

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General Catalyst loses three top investors as the firm expands beyond venture, contemplates IPO

March 3, 2025

Three key investors have left General Catalyst amidst a series of recent changes at the firm, which now describes itself as an ‘investment and transformation company,’ TechCrunch has learned. The departed managing directors include Deep Nishar and Kyle Doherty, who co-led General Catalyst’s late-stage strategy known as Endurance, and Adam Valkin, one of the three […]

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You can now talk to Google Gemini from your iPhone’s lock screen

March 3, 2025

Google Gemini users can now access the AI chatbot directly from the iPhone’s lock screen, thanks to an update released on Monday first spotted by 9to5Google. Users can now call up Gemini Live, Google’s relatively real time voice feature for its AI chatbot, before they unlock their phone by adding a Gemini widget to their […]

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