Portal Space Systems unveils Supernova, an ultra-mobile spacecraft

April 30, 2024

The era of stationary spacecraft may soon be over. Portal Space Systems, a company headed by propulsion expert Jeff Thornberg, is looking to help usher in a new renaissance in in-space transportation with its ultra-mobile Supernova satellite bus. Think of it as maneuverability-as-a-service — tech that could propel transfers from low Earth orbit to geostationary […]

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‘Wallet-as-a-service’ startup Ansa raises $14 million with female investors leading the way

April 30, 2024

Ansa, a startup that helps merchants develop and offer branded virtual wallets, has raised a $14 million Series A round of funding, the company has told TechCrunch exclusively. Renegade Partners led Ansa’s latest financing, which included participation from existing backers Bain Capital Ventures, BoxGroup and Wischoff Ventures and new investor B37 Ventures. With this latest […]

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Beehiiv attracts $32M to make its newsletter publishing platform more sticky

April 30, 2024

With the number of people using e-mail globally approaching 5 billion, newsletters delivered regularly into people’s inboxes continue to look like a sticky way of getting attention for whatever it is that you’re writing. Now, in a signal of the popularity of the medium, one of the startups building a platform for creating and distributing […]

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The Download: robotics’ data bottleneck, and our AI afterlives

April 30, 2024
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 robot race is fueling a fight for training data We’re interacting with AI tools more directly—and regularly—than ever before. Interacting with robots, by way of contrast, is still a rarity for most.…

The first-ever race between four self-driving cars and a Formula 1 driver just happened in Abu Dhabi

April 30, 2024

Wander the pits at any professional motorsports event, especially something like Formula 1, and you’ll see endless computer displays full of telemetry. Modern teams are awash in real-time digital feedback from the cars. I’ve been in many of these pits over the years and marveled at the streams of data, but never have I seen […]

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Bumble’s “Opening Move” feature takes the pressure off women to come up with a new message every time

April 30, 2024

As Bumble prepares for its app relaunch this summer, the women-first dating platform announced a series of product updates on Tuesday, including a new feature that lets women prepare questions to send to matches, additional dating intention preferences and prompts, and more. Allowing women to make the first move has been Bumble’s modus operandi ever […]

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