Blue Origin certifies second capsule for suborbital space tourism flights

Blue Origin has carried out a successful uncrewed certification mission of its second New Shepard ship on Wednesday, as the company looks to effectively double the number of tourists it can fly to suborbital space and back. The RSS Kármán Line capsule is named for the imaginary boundary at 100 k

Embattled Astra scores DOD contract to develop point-to-point cargo delivery from space

Don't count out Astra Space just yet. The company, which was taken private again earlier this year for a sliver of its former value, has landed a new contract with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to support the development of a next-gen launch system for time-sensitive space missions.  The

Lumen Orbit closed one of the biggest rounds from Y Combinator’s last cohort

Lumen Orbit has closed an oversubscribed, eight-figure seed round of more than $10 million, a source familiar with the details told technewss. That would make it one of the hottest deals, if not the hottest deal, of the most recent Y Combinator batch. The Redmond, Washington-based startup is purs

‘They wish this technology didn’t exist’: Perplexity responds to News Corp’s lawsuit

Perplexity shot back at media companies skeptical of AI’s benefits in a blog post Thursday, responding to News Corp’s lawsuit filed against the startup earlier this week. The lawsuit alleged Perplexity engaged in large-scale copyright violations against Dow Jones and the NY Post. Severa

UnitedHealth says Change Healthcare hack affects over 100 million, the largest-ever US healthcare data breach

More than 100 million individuals had their private health information stolen during the ransomware attack on Change Healthcare in February, a cyberattack that caused months of unprecedented outages and widespread disruption across the U.S. healthcare sector. This is the first time that UnitedHeal

Electric aircraft startup Lilium has run out of money

Electric aircraft startup Lilium is shutting down after failing to raise emergency money from the German government, according to a regulatory filing. The filing comes after a series of setbacks from the German company that was once a darling in the nascent industry of electric aircraft. Lilium,

Apple will pay security researchers up to $1 million to hack its private AI cloud

Ahead of the debut of Apple’s private AI cloud next week, dubbed Private Cloud Compute, the technology giant says it will pay security researchers up to $1 million to find vulnerabilities that can compromise the security of its private AI cloud. In a post on Apple’s security blog, the

Google adds new disclosures for AI photos, but it’s still not obvious at first glance

Starting next week, the Google Photos app will add a new disclosure for when a photo has been edited with one of its AI features, such as Magic Editor, Magic Eraser, and Zoom Enhance. When you click into a photo in Google Photos, there will now be a disclosure when you scroll to the bottom of the &

Tesla’s $25,000 EV flip-flop, explained

The idea of a $25,000 Tesla has persisted for years — in part, perhaps, because CEO Elon Musk said he was “very confident” the company could do it at an event in 2020. But on Wednesday night, during Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call, Musk said the idea of a $25,000 car with

Zero Motorcycles is raising $120 million

Electric motorcycle company Zero is in the process of closing a new funding round for a little bit more than $120 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing shows that Zero has sold around $100 million of the equity round so far from two undisclosed

Bluesky raises $15M Series A, plans to launch subscriptions

Decentralized social app Bluesky announced on Thursday that it has raised a $15 million Series A round, following its $8 million seed raise last year. This funding comes as Bluesky sees increased growth, in part from X users who are troubled by recent changes to the block feature, as well as the mo

Here is Notion’s email client

Notion, as my colleagues at technewss scooped earlier Thursday, is announcing an email client at its first “Make with Notion” user conference. For now, Notion Mail is in preview, and at least for the time being, it’s more of a Gmail client than a traditional email service. The id

Wayve takes to the streets of San Francisco, Elon Musk makes another robotaxi promise, and inside Pony.AI's IPO

Welcome back to technewss Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click technewss Mobility! Hey all, I'm back after a trip that mostly involved getting around on my own two feet. But one little, perhaps somewhat obvi

Native Union's clever little combo charger just earned a spot in my travel bag

I love a clever gadget almost as much as I love saving space in my carry on. Native Union's new Voyage charger handily ticks both boxes. It's an unassuming puck-shaped product that's easily stashed in a pocket or bag when folded shut. Image Credits:Brian Heater Open it up, and you get