The road to smart city infrastructure starts with research
In the United States, critical city, state and federal infrastructure is falling behind. While heavy investment, planning and development have gone into the U.S. infrastructure system, much of it is not keeping up with the pace of new technology, and some of it hasn’t had a proper update in d
Alphabet’s DeepMind achieves historic new milestone in AI-based protein structure prediction
DeepMind, the AI technology company that’s part of Google parent Alphabet, has achieved a significant breakthrough in AI-based protein structure prediction. The company announced today that its AlphaFold system has officially solved a protein folding grand challenge that has flummoxed the sci
As Slack acquisition rumors swirl, a look at Salesforce’s six biggest deals
The rumors ignited last Thursday that Salesforce had interest in Slack. This morning, CNBC is reporting the deal is all but done and will be announced tomorrow. Chances are this is going to a big number, but this won’t be Salesforce’s first big acquisition. We thought it would be useful
Materialize scores $40 million investment for SQL streaming database
Materialize, the SQL streaming database startup built on top of the open-source Timely Dataflow project, announced a $32 million Series B investment led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Lightspeed Ventures.
While it was at it, the company also announced a previously unannounced $8 millio
Nikola shares drop as GM pulls plug on investment deal
GM is backing away from an agreement to take a stake in electric automaker Nikola Corp., marking the collapse of a deal that has been problematic since it was announced just two months ago.
Nikola shares fell nearly 25% on Monday.
GM has instead signed a nonbinding memorandum of und
Raspberry Pi Foundation releases case fan to prevent overheating
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released a new product today. It's a tiny $5 fan combined with a small heatsink for the Raspberry Pi 4. It works with the official case, below the top cover. That accessory should prevent the Raspberry Pi from overheating.
If you're not familiar with the Rasp
EU lawmakers to push audio-visual sector on geoblocking
European Union lawmakers are considering whether current rules aimed at limiting the practice of geoblocking across the bloc should be extended to cover access to streaming audio-visual content.
Access to services like Netflix tends to be gated to individual EU Member States, meaning Europeans can
ServiceNow is acquiring Element AI, the Canadian startup building AI services for enterprises
ServiceNow, the cloud-based IT services company, is making a significant acquisition today to fill out its longer-term strategy to be a big player in the worlds of automation and artificial intelligence for enterprises. It is acquiring Element AI, a startup out of Canada.
Founded by AI pioneers and
Moderna claims 94% efficacy for COVID-19 vaccine, will ask FDA for emergency use authorization today
Drugmaker Moderna has completed its initial efficacy analysis of its COVID-19 vaccine from the drug’s Phase 3 clinical study, and determined that it was 94.1% effective in preventing people from contracting COVID-19 across 196 confirmed cases from among 30,000 participants in the study. Moder
UK shrinks timetable for telcos to stop installing 5G kit from Huawei
The U.K. government has squeezed the timetable for domestic telcos to stop installing 5G kit from Chinese suppliers, per the BBC, which reports that the deadline for installation of kit from so-called “high risk” vendors is now September.
It had already announced a ban on telcos buying
HungryPanda raises $70M for a food delivery app aimed at overseas Chinese consumers
Food delivery apps have been a big deal this year both for consumers stuck at home and unable (or unwilling) to go to restaurants or grocery stores, and for investors who are eyeing the opportunity to back rising stars to help them grow.
Today came the latest development in that story: HungryPanda,
Gartner: Q3 smartphone sales down 5.7% to 366M, slicing COVID-19 declines in Q1, Q2
We are now into the all-important holiday sales period, and new numbers from Gartner point to some recovery underway for the smartphone market as vendors roll out a raft of new 5G handsets.
Q3 smartphone figures from the analysts published today showed that smartphone unit sales were 366 million un
The Trump administration will add SMIC, China’s largest chipmaker, to its defense blacklist: report
SMIC, one of largest chip makers in the world, is among several companies that the Department of Defense plans to designate as being owned or controlled by the Chinese military, reports Reuters. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, set to go into effect on January 1
Primer, the fintech helping merchants consolidate the payments stack, raises £14M Series A
Primer, the U.K. fintech that wants to help merchants consolidate their payments stack and easily support new payment methods in the future, has raised £14 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Accel, who I understand were quite proactive in persuading Primer to take the VC firm’