Emblem, a relatively new European VC firm based in Paris, is announcing the final closing of its first fund. Eighteen months after the first closing, the Emblem team managed to secure €80 million in total (around $85 million at current exchange rates). This is no small feat in the current funding environment. According to Atomico’s […]

Modern product engineering requires the production of highly accurate digital simulations, allowing engineers to create prototypes and understand the real-world performance of materials. Currently, legacy software platforms from companies like IBM and Dassault are generally deployed, but now startups are joining the arena, powered by generative AI. One such is Trace.Space, coming out of Riga, […]

Every Sunday, NPR host Will Shortz, The New York Times’ crossword puzzle guru, gets to quiz thousands of listeners in a long-running segment called the Sunday Puzzle. While written to be solvable without too much foreknowledge, the brainteasers are usually challenging even for skilled contestants. That’s why some experts think they’re a promising way to […]

Boston Dynamics Wednesday announced a partnership designed to bring improved reinforcement learning to its electric Atlas humanoid robot. The tie-up is with the Robotics & AI Institute (RAI Institute), earlier known as The Boston Dynamics AI Institute. Both organizations were founded by Marc Raibert, a former MIT professor who served as Boston Dynamics’ CEO for […]

And it’s the latest in an ongoing saga over the company’s future ownership. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

AI researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington were able to train an AI “reasoning” model for under $50 in cloud compute credits, according to a new research paper released last Friday. The model known as s1 performs similarly to cutting-edge reasoning models, such as OpenAI’s o1 and DeepSeek’s R1, on tests measuring math […]

Scout Motors’ plan to eschew traditional dealerships and sell EVs directly to consumers is running into legal trouble. A group of Volkswagen and Audi dealers filed a lawsuit filed in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court in Miami-Dade County this week against Scout Motors, the EV that spun out of Volkswagen. The lawsuit, which was first […]

A clearer picture of Bench’s downfall is emerging thanks to new bankruptcy filings, which show the accounting startup burned $135 million before collapsing. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Sonos announced that it has laid off 200 people in a letter posted to its site Wednesday. The news follows a 100-person layoff in August. Both rounds arrive in the wake of a disastrously botched update to the Sonos app that alienated broad swaths of the premium audio hardware firm’s extremely loyal fanbase. The new […]

Google will no longer have diversity hiring targets and will review its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, according to an email sent to employees seen by the Wall Street Journal.  Google now joins other tech companies rolling back DEI practices, especially as DEI practices come under fire from conservative groups. Amazon and Meta have also […]