AR 1.0 is dead: Here’s what it got wrong
The first wave of AR startups offering smart glasses is now over, with a few exceptions. Google acquired North this week for an undisclosed sum. The Canadian company had raised… »
Category: Emerging-Technologies
Africa Roundup: DHL invests in MallforAfrica, Zipline launches in US, Novastar raises $200M
Events in May offered support to the thesis that Africa can incubate tech with global application. Two startups that developed their business models on the continent — MallforAfrica and Zipline… »
Zipline begins US medical delivery with UAV program honed in Africa
Drones are being deployed in the fight to curb COVID-19 in the U.S. Novant Health and California based UAV delivery startup Zipline have launched distribution of personal protective gear and… »
Scale AI releases free lidar dataset to power self-driving car development
High quality data is the fuel that powers AI algorithms. Without a continual flow of labeled data, bottlenecks can occur and the algorithm will slowly get worse and add risk… »
Emerging from stealth, Octant is bringing the tools of synthetic biology to large scale drug discovery
Octant, a company backed by Andreessen Horowitz just now unveiling itself publicly to the world, is using the tools of synthetic biology to buck the latest trends in drug discovery…. »
Manufacturing startup Divergent 3D reduces staff by one-third
Divergent, the Los Angeles-based startup aiming to revolutionize vehicle manufacturing, has cut about one-third of its staff amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has upended startups and major corporations alike. The… »
Voyage gets the green light to bring robotaxi service to California’s public roads
Voyage has cleared a regulatory hurdle that will allow the company to expand its self-driving service from the private roads of a retirement community in San Jose, Calif. to public… »
Chinese startup Rokid pitches COVID-19 detection glasses in U.S.
Thermal imaging wearables used in China to detect COVID-19 symptoms could soon be deployed in the U.S. Hangzhou based AI startup Rokid is in talks with several companies to sell… »
The Station: Starship expands, AutoX opens up shop, and a big moment for ebikes
Hi and welcome back to The Station, a weekly newsletter dedicated to the future (and present) of transportation. I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch . What… »
Starship Technologies is sending its autonomous robots to more cities as demand for contactless delivery rises
Starship Technologies has launched a robot food delivery service in Tempe, Ariz., as part of the autonomous delivery startup’s expansion plans following a $40 million funding round announced last August…. »
R&D Roundup: Ultrasound/AI medical imaging, assistive exoskeletons and neural weather modeling
In the time of COVID-19, much of what transpires from the science world to the general public relates to the virus, and understandably so. But other domains, even within medical… »
The space in between: The stratosphere
Tess Hatch Contributor Share on Twitter Tess Hatch hopes to travel to space, in the meantime she is a venture investor at Bessemer Venture Partners, investing in frontier tech. More… »
Self-driving car engineer Anthony Levandowski files motion to force Uber into arbitration
Anthony Levandowski, the star self-driving car engineer who was at the center of a trade secrets lawsuit, has filed a motion to compel Uber into arbitration in the hopes that… »
TuSimple partners with supplier ZF to mass produce self-driving truck tech
Self-driving truck startup TuSimple is partnering with automotive supplier ZF to develop and produce autonomous vehicle technology such as sensors on a commercial scale. The partnership, slated to begin in… »
Helm.ai raises $13M on its unsupervised learning approach to driverless car AI
Four years ago, mathematician Vlad Voroninski saw an opportunity to remove some of the bottlenecks in the development of autonomous vehicle technology thanks to breakthroughs in deep learning. Now, Helm.ai,… »
Waymo suspends all self-driving services in light of coronavirus pandemic
Waymo has extended the partial suspension of its autonomous vehicle service pilots to include fully driverless vehicle testing, the company confirmed on Friday. While Alphabet-owned Waymo had already stopped operation… »
Anthony Levandowski pleads guilty to one count of trade secrets theft under plea deal
Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer and serial entrepreneur who was at the center of a lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, has pleaded guilty to one count of stealing trade… »
Lyft ramps up self-driving program
A year ago, Lyft submitted a report to the California Department of Motor Vehicles that summed up its 2018 autonomous vehicle testing activity in a single, short paragraph. “Lyft Inc…. »
Network with CrunchMatch at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020
Got your sights set on attending TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 on May 14 in San Jose? Spend the day with 1,000 or more like-minded founders, makers and leaders across the… »
CrunchMatch simplifies networking @ TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020
With just about one month until go-time, TC Sessions: Robotics + AI 2020 (March 3 in Berkeley, Calif.) is going to be a true powerhouse event. Prepare to spend the… »
Uber issued permit to test self-driving vehicles on California public roads
Uber Advanced Technologies Group has been issued a permit that would allow the company to put its autonomous vehicles back on public roads in California nearly two years after the… »
Whatever happened to the Next Big Things?
In tech, this was the smartphone decade. In 2009, Symbian was still the dominant ‘smartphone’ OS, but 2010 saw the launch of the iPhone 4, the Samsung Galaxy S, and… »
Vayyar nabs $109M for its “4D” radar tech, which detects and tracks images while preserving privacy
The future of the connected home, connected car, and connected everything will have a lot of imaging technology at the center of it: sensors to track the movement of people… »
DJI launches new industrial drones for agriculture and new services for industry customers
DJI announced two new drones and a new initiative to support first responders during natural disasters and recovery missions with drone technologies as it moves to consolidate its position as… »
Voyage raises $31 million to bring driverless taxis to communities
Voyage, the autonomous vehicle startup that spun out of Udacity, announced Thursday it has raised $31 million in a round led by Franklin Templeton. Khosla Ventures, Jaguar Land-Rover’s InMotion Ventures,… »
Starship Technologies CEO Lex Bayer on focus and opportunity in autonomous delivery
Starship Technologies is fresh off a recent $40 million funding round, and the robotics startup finds itself in a much-changed market compared to when it got its start in 2014…. »
The risks of amoral A.I.
Kyle Dent Contributor Kyle Dent is a Research Area Manager for PARC, a Xerox Company, focused on the interplay between people and technology. He also leads the ethics review committee at PARC…. »
Why AWS is building tiny AI race cars to teach machine learning
The AWS DeepRacer is an almost toylike 1/18th scale race car. It comes with all of the sensors and software tools to help developers build machine learning models to drive… »
With Y Combinator’s seal of approval, MyPetrolPump raises $1.6 million for its car refueling business
Even before pitching onstage at Y Combinator, Indian car refueling startup MyPetrolPump has managed to snag $1.6 million in seed financing. The business, which is similar to startups in the… »
The road ahead for Waymo, AV engineering and mobility, with Waymo CTO Dmitri Dolgov
Earlier this month, TechCrunch held its annual Mobility Sessions event down in San Jose, where leading mobility-focused auto companies, startups, executives and thought leaders joined us to discuss all things… »
Dowden says beauty salons can reopen on Monday; theatres can put on outdoor shows from this weekend; repaying crisis debt will take ‘decades’ and higher taxes likely, says IFS Full… »
EQT Ventures, the Stockholm-headquartered venture capital firm that invests in Europe and the U.S., is losing founding partner Hjalmar Winbladh, TechCrunch has learned. Rumours that he was leaving the “multistage,… »
