Two former SpaceX engineers use Sift to bring the software that helped launch rockets to the factory floor
A cry of “Atoms, not bits!” It’s a phrase that describes Silicon Valley’s growing obsession with physical manufacturing over digital products, culminating last week with Jeff Bezos saying he was raising $100 billion to ramp up and automate factories. But factory automation is not purely a hardware issue. Increasing reliance on sophisticated software and AI […]
Lucid Bots raises $20 million to meet demand for window cleaning drones
Andrew Ashur, founder and CEO of window cleaning robot startup Lucid Bots, likes to joke that his company is the antithesis of today’s robotics industry. While many companies are building humanoids or promoting demonstrations of robots dancing and somersaulting, Lucid Bots’ drones are out in the field doing traditionally unsexy and dangerous tasks like cleaning […]
Former Thiel researcher’s startup launches drone to replace police helicopters
When I spoke with Blake Resnick, he was walking around his drone startup’s state-of-the-art office space in Seattle. The cavernous 50,000-square-foot facility, Resnick says, won’t be fully ready until later this year, possibly in November. Still, this large (and so far mostly empty) building holds potential for a fast-growing company looking to conquer a specific […]
New Mexico just handed Meta its first loss in child safety court, and the rest of the country is taking notice.
A Santa Fe jury on Tuesday found that Meta misled consumers about the safety of its platform and the risks to children, and ordered it to pay $375 million in civil penalties. In a press release issued shortly after the ruling, New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres’ office called the ruling “a watershed moment for […]
OpenAI’s Sora was the creepiest app on your phone, but it’s now dead
OpenAI announced Tuesday that it is shutting down Sora, a TikTok-like social app that was released six months ago. OpenAI did not provide a reason for the closure or share information on when it would be officially retired. When Sora first opened as an invite-only social network, it seemed like everyone wanted an invite. But […]
Kentucky woman rejects $26 million offer to turn farm into data center
Ida Huddleston and her family have owned farms in northern Kentucky for generations. And they turned down at least one multi-million dollar offer to save it. Last year, a “major artificial intelligence company” offered $26 million to sell part of the farm for a proposed data center, according to a recent report from WKRC. Huddleston […]
Human gives Claude Code more control but keeps it on a leash
For developers working with AI, “vibe coding” at this point means babysitting every action or risking letting the model run unchecked. Anthropic says the latest updates to Claude aim to eliminate that option by allowing the AI to determine which actions are safe to perform on its own, albeit with some limitations. This move reflects […]
Spotify tests new tool to stop AI slops from being attributed to real artists
At a time when AI slop is flooding music streaming platforms, Spotify is beta testing a new “Artist Profile Protection” feature that will allow artists to review releases before making them public on their profiles. The idea behind this new tool is to give artists more control over which tracks are associated with their name […]
Databricks acquires two startups to power new AI security products
With a war chest full of $5 billion in funding that closed last month (not to mention billions in revenue), Databricks is making acquisitions. The company, best known for its cloud data analytics platform, announced Tuesday that it is launching a new security product called Lakewatch. Lakewatch leverages Databricks’ ability to store large amounts of […]
Arm releases first in-house chip in 35-year history
Renowned semiconductor and software company Arm Holdings is starting to manufacture its own chips after nearly 36 years of licensing its designs to companies like Nvidia and Apple. At an event in San Francisco on Tuesday, the company announced the Arm AGI CPU, a production-ready chip built to run inference in AI data centers. The […]