timef 04/14/2025

Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, successfully launched its New Shepard rocket at around 9:30 a.m. ET on Monday, as it seeks to challenge Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the space tourism industry.  What stands out most about this mission is that it featured the first all-female space crew since 1963, when Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova […]

Chipolo, the maker of AirTag-like devices, on Monday introduced the latest version of its product. Now, instead of offering models that only work with either Apple or Google’s lost-item finding technology, the new Chipolo POP devices work with both companies’ finding networks out of the box. By combining these different functionalities into one device, Chipolo […]

Meta announced on Monday that it’s going to train its AI models on public content, such as posts and comments on Facebook and Instagram, in the EU after previously pausing its plans to do so in response to regulatory pressure due to to data privacy concerns. The company will start training its AI on users’ […]

AI dev platform Hugging Face has acquired Pollen Robotics, a robotics startup based in France, for an undisclosed amount. Wired reports that Hugging Face plans to sell Pollen’s humanoid robot, Reachy 2, and let developers download and suggest improvements to its code. Pollen Robotics, which aims to bring affordable humanoid robots to the home, was […]

Self-driving truck startup Kodiak Robotics plans to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company Ares Acquisition Corporation II. The transaction values Kodiak, which has raised around $243 million to date, at about $2.5 billion pre-money. New and existing Kodiak institutional investors, like Soros Fund Management, ARK Investments, and Ares, have funded or […]

The crosswalk buttons, which include audio alerts, were hacked over the weekend.

Nvidia says it has commissioned more than a million square feet of manufacturing space to build and test AI chips in Arizona and Texas as part of an effort to move a portion of production to the U.S. The chipmaker says that Nvidia Blackwell chips have started production at TSMC’s chip plants in Phoenix, Arizona, […]

A handful of engineers who worked at Lucid Motors and on Apple’s electric car project have launched a new startup that puts a fresh spin on electric hub motors. The new startup, called Conifer, has developed its motor to be free of rare earth elements by using more abundant ferrite magnets, which the company says […]

Intel on Monday announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to sell 51% of its Altera semiconductor business to Silver Lake, a private equity firm. The deal, which values Altera at $8.75 billion, will make Altera “operationally independent,” Intel said in a press release. Intel will retain 49% ownership in Altera, which will […]

Demand for solar energy in power-starved Nigeria has soared in the last decade thanks to worsening grid reliability and rising fuel costs. That’s drawn investor interest to Arnergy, a cleantech startup meeting that need. The company just raised a $15 million Series B extension (on top of a $3 million B1 round last year), bringing […]

According to Dealroom data cited by the Financial Times, British start-ups raised just £16.2 billion last year, far less than the more than £65 billion raised by their counterparts in Silicon Valley during the same period. In fact, the U.S. appears to be pulling further ahead each year. In 2024, 57% of global venture capital […]

OpenAI may soon require organizations to complete an ID verification process in order to access certain future AI models, according to a support page published to the company’s website last week. The verification process, called Verified Organization, is “a new way for developers to unlock access to the most advanced models and capabilities on the […]

Apple isn’t giving up on its mixed reality headset the Vision Pro, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The company has been debating the best direction forward for the product after disappointing sales, Gurman says, but is now moving forward with two different models. One would address probably the two biggest complaints about the initial product […]

The tech industry may not be safe from new tariffs, according to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The Trump administration announced Friday evening that consumer electronics such as laptops and smartphones would be exempt from the tariffs it unveiled earlier this month. (While Trump delayed many of those tariffs this week, he left a 10% […]