MIT’s soft robotic system is designed to pack groceries

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 …...Read More

AI-powered scams and what you can do about them

AI is here to help, whether you’re drafting an email, making some concept art, or running a scam on vulnerable folks by making them think you’re a friend or relative in distress. AI is so versatile! But since some people would rather not be scammed, let’s talk a little about …...Read More

Identity.vc is bringing capital and community to Europe's LGBTQ+ venture ecosystem

When Til Klein and Jochen Beutgen came across Gaingels, the U.S.-based syndicate of angel investors backing LGBTQ+ founders, they wondered why there wasn’t a firm looking to do the same for the European LGBTQ+ startup community. Five years later, when a firm like that still didn’t exist, Klein and Beutgen …...Read More

Robot cats, dogs and birds are being deployed amid an 'epidemic of loneliness'

In the early 1990s, a researcher at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology began work on what would become Paro. More than 30 years after its development, the doe-eyed seal pup remains the best-known example of a therapeutic robot for older adults. In 2011, the robot reached …...Read More

Apple reportedly working to bring AI to the Vision Pro

Apple’s AI plans go beyond the previously announced Apple Intelligence launches on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the company is also working to bring these features to its Vision Pro headsets. It’s not the most surprising move — if Apple Intelligence (a whole suite of …...Read More

ServiceNow's generative AI solutions are taking advantage of the data on its own platform

If data is truly the fuel for generative AI, and one of the keys to a successful implementation is access to data meaningful to running the business, it would seem that certain SaaS vendors have a built-in advantage where the data is concerned. Executing is another matter, but if the …...Read More

Here are India's biggest AI startups based on how much money they've raised

India is very far from the “uncanny valley” of San Francisco, but it has a massive trove of engineering talent, and some of those people are hopping on the train and turning into founders and builders of AI startups. The story of the AI startup ecosystem in India today is …...Read More

Defense tech and 'resilience' get global funding sources: Here are some top funders

We live in a very different world since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. With global military expenditure reaching $2.4 trillion last year, startups are hoping to get a share of the pie, and formerly reluctant investors are keen to help them …...Read More

Gemini's data-analyzing abilities aren't as good as Google claims

One of the selling points of Google’s flagship generative AI models, Gemini 1.5 Pro and 1.5 Flash, is the amount of data they can supposedly process and analyze. In press briefings and demos, Google has repeatedly claimed that the models can accomplish previously impossible tasks thanks to their “long context,” …...Read More

The biggest data breaches in 2024: 1B stolen records and rising

We’re over halfway through 2024, and already this year we have seen some of the biggest, most damaging data breaches in recent history. And just when you think that some of these hacks can’t get any worse, they do. From huge stores of customers’ personal information getting scraped, stolen and …...Read More