In the early hours on Monday, a Tesla Megapack battery caught fire at a key California power storage facility, the state’s largest utility said in a statement to TechCrunch. According to PG&E, the utility “became aware of a fire in one Tesla Megapack at its Elkhorn Battery Storage facility” at around 1:30 AM in Moss … Read more
SpinLaunch’s technique for sending payload to orbit, which uses centrifugal force to fling mass to space, has solicited its fair share of skeptics. But at least some of those skeptics are likely a little quieter today, as the company announced a notable new funding round to accelerate the commercialization of its kinetic launch system. The … Read more
Leoparda Electric, a São Paolo–based startup, wants to be the Gogoro of Latin America. In other words, it’s looking to build out a network of battery swapping stations that should help spread adoption of electric two-wheelers in the region. While LatAm is the second largest two-wheeler market after Southeast Asia, electrification in the region has … Read more
Earlier this summer, a Google exec admitted that TikTok was eating into its core Search business, particularly among younger users. But that’s not all TikTok is now being used for, a new Pew Research Center study indicates. According to the findings from a report that examined Americans’ use of social media for news consumption, 33% … Read more
In a sign that national security tech is a safe bet even during troubled economic times, defense- and security-focused VC firm Razor’s Edge Ventures today announced the closing of its third startup investment fund at just under $340 million. It exceeded the initial target of $250 million, the firm notes, and will target companies developing … Read more
About five months after raising $15 million, PassiveLogic, which provides a platform to autonomously control building systems, has secured an additional $15 million in an “off-round” strategic investment from Nvidia’s venture arm, nVentures. The new cash brings PassiveLogic’s total raised to over $80 million, and CEO Troy Harvey tells TechCrunch it’ll be put toward expanding … Read more
Facebook is introducing new Pages features that are designed to help creators get discovered and connect with their followers, the company announced on Tuesday. Most notably, the social network is rolling out a new setting for creators that makes content exclusively available to top fans and subscribers. Creators can select the option by going into … Read more
The venture and startup industries have long had a problem with transparency. Theranos could have likely saved itself from a future fraud trial if it was honest about the shortcomings of its blood testing device. Nikola founder Trevor Milton probably wouldn’t be on trial right now if he hadn’t allegedly lied to investors in a … Read more
You can’t cut what you can’t measure. For many companies, carbon emissions are something of a black box. Energy goes in, products and emissions come out. The first two are simple enough to monitor and understand, but without an expert on hand, the emissions profile is harder to pin down. “If people can’t access this … Read more
Tinder announced today that it is partnering with dog rescue shelters across the U.S. to celebrate National Dog Week and give Tinder users the ability to add a shelter dog to their profile photo. Unfortunately, this new addition is only around for a short time, however. National Dog Week is over on September 24, but … Read more
Eco-conscious vehicle renters can soon expect to see EVs from GM brands Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and even commercial delivery unit BrightDrop at Hertz rental locations. The car rental giant said Tuesday it plans to order up to 175,000 electric vehicles from General Motors over the next five years, with first deliveries of Chevy Bolt … Read more
Its 2015 acquisition of Aldebaran didn’t go as smoothly as SoftBank hoped. At the time, the French robotics startup was best known for its Nao, which had become a fairly ubiquitous presence in research facilities across the globe. The small humanoid robot formed the foundation for the rebranded SoftBank Robotics’ best-known creation, Pepper. Nao mostly … Read more
As you can tell from the Mickey Mouse-shaped disco ball in the photo above, Season 31 of “Dancing with the Stars” (DWTS) premiered on Disney+ last night. This marked the first time the streaming service livestreamed a TV show. With instances of live TV apps crashing across the sports streaming space (looking at you DirecTV!), … Read more
Nvidia has announced its new generation of graphics cards, the RTX 4-series, including the $1599 flagship RTX 4090 and slightly more affordable 4080. The upgrade comes at an interesting time for PC users, who have been starved out of the GPU market by crypto miners for years, and now have their choice of their long-awaited … Read more
In addition to the groundbreaking news that YouTube would begin to monetize Shorts videos and revamp its Partner Program, the company today also announced a new offering for creators who leverage music to back their videos: Creator Music, now in beta testing. This new destination will introduce a large catalog of songs that creators can … Read more
Last week, we ran an article by Gaetano Crupi, a partner at VC firm Prime Movers Lab, identifying three pillars required to support a Series B data room: a strategy memo, a pitch deck and a forecast model. In a follow-up, he explains the next step: packaging this information for prospective investors to “create the … Read more
Yet more strikes against general and indiscriminate data retention in the EU: The bloc’s top court has issued a couple of rulings on joined cases today — one related to a German law on telecoms data retention which had been challenged by Deutsche Telekom and ISP SpaceNet; and another finding fault with the French state’s … Read more
Microsoft today announced that the next major version of Windows 11, the aptly-named Windows 11 2022 Update, has begun rolling out to the more than 190 countries where Windows is available. The highlights include updates to the Start menu and tabs in File Explorer, as well as new accessibility features including system-wide live captions, voice … Read more
No short form video platform has quite figured out how to share ad revenue yet, making it difficult for creators on apps like TikTok to make a living from their content alone. But today, YouTube announced major changes to its YouTube Partner Program, allowing creators to earn ad revenue on Shorts, its TikTok competitor. Now, … Read more
Nvidia is gearing up to deliver Drive Thor, its next-generation automotive-grade chip that the company claims will be able to unify a wide-range of in-car technology from automated driving features and driver monitoring systems to streaming Netflix in the back for the kiddos. Thor, which goes into production in 2025, is notable not just because it’s … Read more
Nintendo is ending support for account logins through Facebook and Twitter on October 25, the company announced on Tuesday. After that date, players won’t be able to sign in or create a new Nintendo Account using a Facebook or Twitter account. Nintendo says players will still be able to log on or create a new … Read more
As interest around large AI models — particularly large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-3 — grows, Nvidia is looking to cash in with new fully managed, cloud-powered services geared toward enterprise software developers. Today at the company’s fall 2022 GTC conference, Nvidia announced the NeMo LLM Service and BioNeMo LLM Service, which ostensibly make … Read more
Tesla is extending access to its advanced driver assistance system, Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta version 10.69.2.2, to 160,000 owners in the U.S. and Canada, according to a tweet Monday from Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Around 100,000 Tesla owners currently have access to the controversial driver assist system, which, for a price tag of $15,000, promises … Read more
There are about three million solar installations in the United States per year, but that process is costly and often lacks transparency. Pleasanton, Ca.-based Enact Systems wants to increase collaboration between installers and end-users with two-sided software. One side lets salespeople remotely design, price and sell solar systems, and the other enables their customers to … Read more
Amid the festivities at its fall 2022 GTC conference, Nvidia took the wraps off new robotics-related hardware and services aimed at companies developing and testing machines across industries like manufacturing. Isaac Sim, Nvidia’s robotics simulation platform, will soon be available in the cloud, the company said. And Nvidia’s Jetson lineup of system-on-modules is expanding with … Read more
LibreOffice, the popular open source document processing suite, has begun charging users who download the software through the Mac App Store a one-time fee of $8.99. First spotted by The Register, it’s an unexpected step for The Document Foundation — the organization behind LibreOffice — which since its inception has made all versions of LibreOffice … Read more
The crypto industry seemed to age several decades over the past bull run, maturing in some places while barreling ahead in ambitious new pursuits, including DeFi, NFTs and web3. And while scams continued to proliferate and hacker heists became a weekly occurrence, the space onboarded an onslaught of retail investors and fostered feverish excitement among … Read more
Kristen Corpion Contributor Share on Twitter Kristen Corpion is the founder of CORPlaw, a Miami-based law firm serving fast-growing technology companies and entrepreneurs as fractional general counsel. More posts by this contributor All my apes gone: Legal disputes at the intersection of IP and NFTs When should an early-stage startup hire a full-time lawyer? As … Read more
Meet Nilos, a startup that wants to bridge the gap between crypto wallets and traditional business bank accounts. The company provides a dashboard that displays all your transactions — whether those are fiat transactions or crypto payments. From this platform, you can initiate payments and reconcile operations across multiple accounts. The startup raised a $5.2 … Read more
Orbital Reef, the in-progress private space station headed by Blue Origin and Sierra Space, is coming to the big screen. The companies announced today that the space station will be featured in a forthcoming film, HELIOS, in a deal with production company Centerboro Productions. The film, which will be set in 2030, will be the … Read more