The battle over gig worker status is heating up

The fight over whether gig workers are independent contractors or employees has been heating up this week on both state and federal levels. The stakes? A once disruptive business model could soon be disrupted itself. On the state level, this week has seen developments in the Proposition 22 saga as companies relying on gig workers … Read more

SBF’s handcuffs aren’t loosening up anytime soon

Welcome back to Chain Reaction. If you’re reading this, I’m willing to bet you probably weren’t arrested this week and are now sitting in a Bahamian jail. But, you know who was arrested and is sitting in a Bahamian jail right now? Yep, FTX’s former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. Seems like the majority of the headlines … Read more

Pitch Deck Teardown: MedCrypt’s $25M Series B deck

In September, the FBI warned that more than half of connected medical devices in hospitals had known critical security vulnerabilities, and these flaws are leading to a surge in attacks on the healthcare industry. As Carly Page reported, MedCrypt raised a $25 million round to help device manufacturers think security-by-design when creating the next generation … Read more

Investing in the future of robotics

A short one this week, as I’m taking some time off. I didn’t want to leave you hanging, so I’ve spoken with some leading names in the field to keep Actuator chugging along. Last week, we spoke to MassRobotics’ chief of operations, Joyce Sidopoulos. Next week, we’ll be talking to U.C. Berkeley’s Ken Goldberg. Right … Read more

Alphabet’s Intrinsic acquires DARPA-backed firm behind open source robotics software

Just a few months after buying fellow robotic software firm Vicarious, Alphabet-owned Intrinsic has acquired several divisions within Open Robotics, the company behind the widely-used robotics software packages Gazebo and Robotic Operating System (ROS). Specifically, Intrinsic is buying Open Source Robotics Corporation (OSRC), the for-profit arm of Open Robotics, and Open Source Robotics Corporation Singapore … Read more

Death Stranding is getting a film adaptation

Death Stranding | Image: Kojima Productions The Death Stranding cinematic universe is getting a little bigger. Not long after a sequel to the 2019 video game was announced, now comes news that a film is also in the works. The project will be a joint collaboration between developer Kojima Productions and Hammerstone Studios, led by … Read more

Can China’s venture capital market help it reignite growth?

As China looks to reignite growth, what role will its technology industry play? And is there enough capital flowing to support a new generation of tech startups that could keep China competitive? It’s not a secret that the Chinese economy slowed in recent quarters, thanks to global macroeconomic turbulence, geopolitical matters and the country’s now-fading … Read more

Here are the 13 shows leaving HBO Max (yes, ‘Westworld’ is one of them)

After reports circulated that “Westworld,” among other titles, would soon be pulled off HBO Max, the company sent out an announcement via email yesterday confirming the sad news. Westworld isn’t the only show to get the axe. More than a dozen shows will leave the streaming service in the coming days, including “The Nevers,” “Raised … Read more

LightOn Lyra-fr model is now available on Amazon SageMaker

We are thrilled to announce the availability of the LightOn Lyra-fr foundation model for customers using Amazon SageMaker. LightOn is a leader in building foundation models specializing in European languages. Lyra-fr is a state-of-the-art French language model that can be used to build conversational AI, copywriting tools, text classifiers, semantic search, and more. You can … Read more