With the rise of AI, energy and heat efficiency have once again become pressing concerns for companies that use and build chips. The skyrocketing demand for hardware to run AI models is dragging up energy bills, as these servers require vast numbers of chips and enormous cooling setups. Vaire Computing, based in London and Seattle, […]
The first self-checkout system was installed in 1986 in a Kroger grocery store just outside of Atlanta. It took several decades, but the technology has finally proliferated across the U.S. Given the automated direction grocery stores are heading, it seems that robotic bagging can’t be too far behind. MIT’s CSAIL department this week is showcasing
MIT’s soft robotic system is designed to pack groceries Read More »
When Ironspring Ventures launched in 2020 to back startups in industrial sectors like construction and manufacturing, it was one of very few early-stage venture firms paying attention to those capital-intensive sectors. Now, the firm is doubling down. The Austin, Texas-based firm raised $100 million for its second fund to focus on industrial startups. This is
Austin-based Ironspring Ventures raised $100M to invest in the industrial revolution Read More »
It wasn’t long ago that Apple products routinely raised the ire among repairability advocates. The iPhone maker has more fully embraced user repairability in recent years, owing, in part, to both sustainability concerns and the growing right to repair movement. Actions like parts pairing continue to rankle critics, including iFixit, which retroactively dropped the iPhone
Apple stresses device longevity, extends self-service repair to Europe Read More »
Smart ring makers Oura and Circular Tuesday announced a settlement in an ongoing patent suit. The agreed-upon terms find the French company entering into a multi-year agreement with Oura, wherein it will license the market leader’s intellectual property for devices sold in the U.S. Financial details of the agreement have been kept confidential. Oura has
Circular will pay competitor Oura royalties to sell its smart ring in the US Read More »
As generative AI touches a growing number of industries, the companies producing chips to run the models are benefitting enormously. Nvidia in particular, which commands an estimated 70% to 95% of the market for AI chips, wields massive influence. Cloud providers from Meta to Microsoft are spending billions of dollars on Nvidia GPUs, wary of
Etched is building an AI chip that only runs one type of model Read More »
C12 is announcing that it recently raised an €18 million funding round ($19.4 million at today’s exchange rate). Originally founded in 2020 as a spin-off from the Physics Laboratory of the École Normale Supérieure, the company has been working on a unique process to create quantum computers based on carbon nanotubes. While the concept of
XReal has largely flown under the radar here in the States. The Beijing firm’s Air 2 Pro AR glasses got a bit of review love late last year, but the product is seldomly mentioned among the Metas, Apples and HTCs of the world when discussing mixed reality. This week at the AWE (Augmented World Expo) conference
XReal introduces a $200 device that brings Android apps to its AR glasses Read More »
It’s WWDC 2024 keynote time! Each year Apple kicks off its Worldwide Developers Conference with a few hours of just straight announcements, like the long-awaited Apple Intelligence and a makeover for smart AI assistant, Siri. We expected much of them to revolve around the company’s artificial intelligence ambitions (and here), and Apple didn’t disappoint. We
A Finnish startup called Flow Computing is making one of the wildest claims ever heard in silicon engineering: by adding its proprietary companion chip, any CPU can instantly double its performance, increasing to as much as 100x with software tweaks. If it works, it could help the industry keep up with the insatiable compute demand
Flow claims it can 100x any CPU’s power with its companion chip and some elbow grease Read More »
