Drive.ai is going to be operating some of its test fleet on Lyft’s open platform, which Lyft created to help carmakers and self-driving tech companies build and deploy autonomous vehicles in the real world, and to eventually serve as on-demand ride hailing vehicles. Drive.ai is a startup that has deep roots in Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, with an approach… Read More
Automated inspection company Avitas Systems, which is a GE Venture company, is using Nvidia’s DGX-1 and DGX Station to train its neural-network-based artificial intelligence to be able to quickly and consistently identify defects in industrial equipment. Avitas Systems uses a range of robotic equipment to monitor things like oil and gas pipelines, coolant towers and other crucial… Read More
Atlassian has long offered a team communications service in the form of HipChat. Over the last few years, Slack has had an outsize influence on this space. The Atlassian team decided to go back to the drawing board and see what its take on a Slack-like team workplace communication service would look like. The result is Stride, which is launching today. Read More
Reddit revealed today that it has teamed with Lucidworks to provide a long-needed, modern search tool for the immensely popular online discussion platform. When you face the kind of scale that Reddit does with 270 million monthly active users generating 5 million comments and a staggering 40 million searches every day across a more than a million communities, it’s a daunting task to find… Read More
India-based OYO, a startup that pioneered and popularized the concept of budget hotel networks, has closed $250 million in new funding led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund. The startup was founded in 2013 by Thiel Fellow Ritesh Agarwal, now aged 24, and the concept centers around standardizing the quality of India’s wildly-differentiated affordable hotels, and providing some structure… Read More
Hulu and Spotify announced a partnership today that will see the two companies working together to market entertainment bundles offering both services which will be jointly sold through a single subscription plan. Initially, this bundle will be targeted towards U.S. college students and will cost just $4.99 per month – the same as Spotify’s existing student plan. The bundle… Read More
Jaguar Land Rover is joining the rising chorus of automakers embracing electric and fusion powertrain options, revealing that all new vehicles in both the Jaguar and Land Rover range will offer an electric or hybrid option from 2020 on. Jaguar Land Rover announced the news on Thursday at its very first Tech Fest event, noting that this will include fully electric, plug-in hybrid and mild… Read More
Venture capital investors once again are getting charged up over new battery technologies. The quest to build a better battery has occupied venture investors for nearly a decade, since the initial clean technology investment bubble of the mid-2000s. Now, some of those same investors are returning to invest in battery businesses, drawn by the promise of novel chemistries and new materials that… Read More
Airobotics, a startup building autonomous drones for the enterprise sector that do not require humans to get involved in any aspect of operating them, has picked up $32.5 million in funding to expand its business into defense and homeland security, and to expand its business globally.
The Series C round was led by BlueRun Ventures China, with participation also from Microsoft Ventures… Read More
Innoviz, a company making LiDAR sensors to support the development and deployment of autonomous driving, has raised a new $65 million in Series B funding, from strategic partners and leading auto industry suppliers Delphi Automotive and Magna International, along with other investors. The vote of confidence from Magna and Delphi is especially noteworthy, however, because both stand ready to… Read More
European Union defense ministers have been taking part in a simulated cyber attack exercise today for the first time to practice strategic decision making and crisis-management under pressure of a (mock) cyber-attack against the bloc’s military structures. Read More
A lot of money is being poured into genomics lately, including the genomic information company WuXi NextCODE (WXNC), which just announced it has closed on $240 million in Series B financing, led by Sequoia.
We tend to hear very little about this company in the tech industry but Chinese tech billionaire Jack Ma is one of its many backers and WXNC is counted among the largest genetic database… Read More
Amazon has made a name for itself as a giant in e-commerce, logistics and cloud services both for businesses and consumers. Now it’s embarking on a big move to expand its corporate presence, too. Today the company announced that it is opening a search for a city in North America to make its second headquarters, envisioned as a “full equal” to Amazon’s existing home… Read More
If a ban initiated by China’s central bank this week marks an end to the first era of ICOs — the early gold rush before the regulators arrive — then Q2 2017 may turn out to be a peak quarter in the history of the industry. The total amount raised by startups via ICOs, which are known as token sales and involve the sale of newly minted crypto coins based on… Read More
VizEat, the European “social eating platform” that connects travellers and local hosts around authentic food experiences — such as dining in a local’s home, cooking classes, and food tours — has acquired EatWith, a similar startup headquartered in San Francisco. Read More
IBM and MIT came together today to sign a 10-year, $240 million partnership agreement that establishes the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab at the prestigious Cambridge, MA academic institution. The lab will be co-chaired by Dario Gil, IBM Research VP of AI and Anantha P. Chandrakasan, dean of MIT’s School of Engineering. Big Blue intends to invest $240 million into the lab where IBM researchers… Read More
There’s been a lot of questions about whether or not Square aspires to become a bank. Now that speculation can be laid to rest. Square will file an application to become an industrial loan company (also referred to as industrial banks) with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Read More
Apple has explained that an issue that briefly affected developer accounts today was caused by a bug and not a security breach as some had speculated.
Earlier today (Wednesday), handfuls of reports came in around an anomaly that changed some developers’ home addresses within Apple’s system to a location in Russia. Given recent history, including the hacking of Hilary… Read More
The popular language learning service Duolingo today announced that has launched support for Korean to its iOS and Android apps. This marks the company’s second foray into teaching an Asian language after it launched its Japanese course earlier this year. “Asian languages are the most requested new courses from Duolingo users and fans,” Duolingo software engineer and… Read More
