Unlocking the power of sustainability

February 7, 2024
According to UN climate experts, 2023 was the warmest year on record. This puts the heat squarely on companies to accelerate their sustainability efforts. “It’s quite clear that the sense of urgency is increasing,” says Jonas Bohlin, chief product officer for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) platform provider Position Green. That pressure is coming from…

How virtual power plants are shaping tomorrow’s energy system

February 7, 2024
MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. For more than a century, the prevalent image of power plants has been characterized by towering smokestacks, endless coal trains, and loud spinning turbines. But the…

Simplify looks to AI to help with job searches and applications

February 7, 2024

Job searching is a drag by any measure. Entering the same information into applications over and over even more so. It feels like a process that is ripe for a digital update, and Simplify, an early stage startup is trying to do that by combining questionnaires, job scraping, job matching, auto filling applications and help […]

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Streamer Plex launches its long-promised movie rentals store

February 7, 2024

Fresh on the heels of its $40 million fundraise, streaming media company Plex is today announcing its expansion into a new business: a movie rentals storefront. The addition, which will initially be offered to U.S. customers, will give the streamer another means of generating revenue beyond its subscription products and ad-supported streaming — a diversification […]

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3D scanning app Polycam gets backing from YouTube co-founder

February 7, 2024

Polycam, an app that uses a smartphone’s sensors to capture 3D scans of objects, is raising cash from prominent investors including Adobe and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley. Polycam today announced that it closed an $18 million Series A round led by Left Lane Capital with participation from Adobe Ventures, Hurley and others. Chris Heinrich, Polycam’s […]

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Endpoint security startup NinjaOne lands $231.5M at $1.9B valuation

February 7, 2024

Just two years ago, VC funding to cybersecurity startups was on fire. $23 billion flooded the sector, per Crunchbase. But in 2023, cybersecurity upstarts only saw a third of that — the result of the exceptional surge in 2021, bloated valuations and investors wary of market instability. But there’s always some winners during down times. Yesterday, […]

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The Download: China’s chiplets, and OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 watermarking

February 7, 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. Why China is betting big on chiplets For the past couple of years, US sanctions have had the Chinese semiconductor industry locked in a stranglehold. Chinese companies can still manufacture chips for today’s…

Beamer buys Userflow to build a consolidated user experience platform

February 7, 2024

It’s M&A season in a tough tech jobs market. This morning, Beamer, a Boulder, Colorado-based company developing tools for businesses to reach users through their apps (e.g. via push notifications), announced that it’s acquiring Userflow, a user onboarding software startup, for $60 million. Beamer CEO Satya Ganni says that the purchase, which is being financially […]

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