AI

Google is announcing a handful of major updates to Google Maps today that range from bringing its Live View AR directions indoors to adding weather data to its maps, but the most tantalizing news — which in typical Google fashion doesn’t have an ETA just yet — is that Google plans

We’ve got the details on Boston Dynamics’ upcoming warehouse robot Stretch, Apple releases security patches and Cazoo is going public via SPAC. This is your Daily Crunch for March 29, 2021. The big story: Boston Dynamics shows off its next commercial robot Boston Robotic

Boston Dynamics' transition from a decades-long research robotics firm to a company that productizes and sells hardware has been a fascinating one to watch. There have been some tough lessons along the way, including the very real lesson that at the end of the day, most robots in the world will

One of the slower weeks for robotics investments I've seen since I started doing this roundup. This stuff ebbs and flows, though, and there's always bound to be a bit of a flurry at the beginning of the year. This week, most of the top news revolves around research, which, let's be hone

On the heels of Jumio announcing a $150 million injection this week to continue building out its AI-based ID verification and anti-money laundering platform, another startup in the space is levelling up. Feedzai, which provides banks, others in the financial sector, and any company managing payment

Soft robotics have long been one of the more exciting categories among emerging technologies. Of course, as with most new tech, the field has some drawbacks over more traditional models. While they improve flexibility and compliance over their more rigid counterparts, robots made of soft materials

Uber’s use of facial recognition technology for a driver identity system is being challenged in the U.K., where the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) and Worker Info Exchange (WIE) have called for Microsoft to suspend the ride-hailing giant’s use of B2B facial recognition after fi

Across the street from Suzhou North, a high-speed railway station in a historic city near Shanghai, a futuristic M-shaped building easily catches the eye of anyone passing by. It houses the headquarters of the five-year-old Chinese autonomous driving startup, Momenta. Like other major Chinese citie

Fort Robotics today announced a $13 million raise. Led by Prime Movers Lab, the round also features Prologis Ventures, Quiet Capital, Lemnos Labs, Creative Ventures, Ahoy Capital, Compound, FundersClub and Mark Cuban. The Philadelphia-based company was founded in 2018 by Samuel Reeves, who previous

Before we get too far into this week's roundup, I want to kick things off with an interview we haven't published anywhere else. Earlier this week, we noted that Ford will be deploying some 100 researchers and engineers to the new $75 million facility at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

In a recent LinkedIn survey, I asked product and software developers if and how they were making their software smarter. A surprising 57% cited A/B testing, while another 50% reported they were still swinging from decision trees. Why are developers still solving everyday pain points with these manu

OctoML, a Seattle-based startup that offers a machine learning acceleration platform built on top of the open-source Apache TVM compiler framework project, today announced that it has raised a $28 million Series B funding round led by Addition. Previous investors Madrona Venture Group and Amplify P

In recent years, the publicly traded observability service New Relic started adding more machine learning-based tools to its platform for AI-assisted incident response when things don’t quite go as planned. Today, it is expanding this feature set with the launch of a number of new capabilitie

Data is a gold mine for a company. If managed well, it provides the clarity and insights that lead to better decision-making at scale, in addition to an important tool to hold everyone accountable. However, most companies are stuck in Data 1.0, which means they are leveraging data a