Automattic and others back Openvibe, an app that’s unifying the open social web

Openvibe’s clever app that integrates multiple open social networks, including Bluesky, Mastodon, Nostr, and Threads, just got a boost toward its future development. The company on Tuesday announced that it has received outside investment of $800,000 in a round led by Czech Founders VC, which

Ambi Robotics built a clever solution to automate pallet packing

UC Berkeley spinout Ambi Robotics announced Tuesday the arrival of AmbiStack, a novel system that automates pallet packing. The system features an industrial robotic arm mounted above a conveyer belt that moves along the X and Y axes and lifts boxes up via suction cups mounted to a gripper. Once l

Geek Ventures, a fund that specializes in backing immigrant founders, is raising a second fund

Geek Ventures is raising a Fund II, according to a recent SEC filing.  The firm, founded in 2021 by Ihar Mahaniok, focuses on investing in early-stage immigrant founders. Mahaniok immigrated to the U.S. from Belarus and spoke to technewss a few years ago about how hard the venture ecosystem can

Amazon’s Prime Air drone service is headed to this UK town

Amazon announced Monday it has picked the North England town of Darlington as the first site for its planned U.K. drone-delivery expansion. Amazon was expected to expand Prime Air to the U.K. and Italy in 2024. After missing that initial target, the company opted to not share a timeline for this l

Waymo begins testing robotaxis on LA freeways

Waymo robotaxis have become a common sight on Los Angeles surface streets. Now those driverless vehicles are heading to the city’s network of freeways. The Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle technology company said Tuesday it will begin testing its fleet of robotaxis on the Los Angeles freewa

This startup is selling for $1B, so why is its founder not proud of the outcome?

Welcome to technewss Fintech!  This week we're looking at the story behind the sale of Divvy Homes, Ramp's new product, some notable fundraising deals, and more! To get a roundup of technewss's biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every

Google Play adds a ‘Verified’ badge for trusted VPN apps

Google Play is rolling out “Verified” badges for select VPN apps to make it easier for users to find trust services. Apps with the badge prioritize user privacy and safety, Google said in a blog post on Tuesday. The badge indicates that the developers of an app have adhered to the Play

Reelo (now Spark) stands out among the apps building a ‘TikTok for Bluesky’

There are a number of projects now underway that are focused on developing a video-first app for the open source social network Bluesky. However, one stands out from the rest: An upcoming app called Reelo (which has since rebranded to Spark) isn’t building on top of the Bluesky social network

Boom’s XB-1 becomes first civil aircraft to go supersonic

Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 demonstrator plane just went supersonic in the skies over California’s Mojave Desert, making it the first civil aircraft to break the sound barrier. The American startup’s plane notched the historic achievement in its 12th test flight. It cleared Mach 1 and

Jetify launches Testpilot, its AI QA engineer

Jetify, the company formerly known as Jetpack.io, is launching its first AI agent product Tuesday. Dubbed Testpilot, the company’s first AI agent is meant to make the majority of the routine test-creation process a matter of simply letting Jetify create a test plan, execute it, and report bac

GM expects to save up to $1 billion on Cruise costs

General Motors expects to save up to $1 billion annually by ending its Cruise robotaxi development program, CEO and Chair Mary Barra said Tuesday during the company’s earnings call.  The estimate comes nearly two months after the automaker said it would no longer fund Cruise, its self-d

Quibim raises $50M to develop AI models for medical imaging

Quibim, a Spanish startup that’s developing foundational AI models for medical imaging spanning oncology, immunology, neurology, and metabolic disorders, has raised $50 million in a Series A round of funding. The cash injection comes as AI makes ever deeper inroads into healthcare, spanning

Apple fixes zero-day flaw affecting all devices

Apple released the latest updates for its iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems on Monday, which included switching on Apple Intelligence by default for newer devices.  As part of this batch of software updates, Apple also released several patches fixing security bugs, including a zero-day bug

Hugging Face makes it easier for devs to run AI models on third-party clouds

AI dev platform Hugging Face has partnered with third-party cloud vendors, including SambaNova, to launch Inference Providers, a feature designed to make it easier for devs on Hugging Face to run AI models using the infrastructure of their choice. Other partners involved with the new effort includ