“In Q2 2024, the venture ecosystem showed modest signs of improvement, but not a drastic break, from Q1. …
The year got off to a slow start in Q1, but Q2’s positive movement along multiple metrics could mean that better days are coming for U.S.-based startups”
Investment in early-stage startups globally in the first-quarter actually grew, despite the overall funding dip, Crunchbase data shows.
Funding at this stage totaled around $29.5 billion, up 6% year over year, led by large Series B fundings in AI, electric vehicles and green energy.
https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/startup-funding-q1-2024-charts/
Introducing the ultimate solution for dogs with never-ending energy and pet parents who wish they could do more. This is the first system to provide smart games for smart dogs. With the perfect blend of machine learning (artificial intelligence) and positive reinforcement training, Companion goes beyond any other system available on the market. Get ready to enhance your dog's life with our cutting-edge technology that combines a camera, treat launcher, and state-of-the-art computing. Plus, you'll receive personalized video summaries of your dog's games, learned skills, and behavior insights after each session.
Welcome to our Ultimate Guide to the New FightCamp Console Upgrade! In this video, we'll dive deep into everything you need to know about FightCamp's latest console enhancement. Whether you're a seasoned FightCamp user or new to the platform, this guide will walk you through all the exciting new features and improvements designed to elevate your home fitness experience.
“CIOs say they feel pressure to shoehorn the tech into areas better served by other forms of predictive AI—or perhaps just a spreadsheet”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-clamor-for-generative-ai-even-if-something-else-works-better-d9bd0257?mod=tech_feat1_ai_pos1
Prices for batteries in China are plummeting, and the implications are just starting to ripple outward for the global automotive market.
Over the last year, the price for lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, battery cells in China has dropped 51% to an average of $53 per kilowatt-hour. The average global price of these batteries last year was $95/kWh.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-07-09/china-s-batteries-are-now-cheap-enough-to-power-huge-shifts
Major American brands like Apple, Starbucks and McDonald’s are rapidly losing market share in China to new domestic rivals. WSJ’s Jonathan Cheng explores how Chinese brands are squeezing out their U.S. rivals. Photo Illustration: Liting Yen
https://www.wsj.com/video/series/news-explainers/top-american-brands-like-mcdonalds-and-apple-are-losing-ground-in-china/FF0D734A-40BA-42D4-B08F-3E0581150693?mod=hp_trending_now_video_pos1
Kernel, a New York City startup from Chipotle Mexican Grill founder Steve Ells, uses a robotic arm to flip plant-based burger patties and a conveyor belt to move dishes along the assembly line. Humans put on the finishing touches and package the meals for customers to pick up.
https://www.wsj.com/business/hospitality/restaurant-robots-flippy-chippy-autocado-9de44eeb
The meeting-industrial complex has grown to the point that communications has eclipsed creativity as the central skill of modern work.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/white-collar-meetings-more-frequent/678941/
"Battery-News.de" presents a current overview of planned and already implemented projects in the field of the production of lithium-ion batteries. As usual, the corresponding data comes from official communications from the respective actors and from sources for battery production.
https://battery-news.de/batterieproduktion/
https://fortune.com/2024/07/08/chinese-self-driving-cars-us-roads-data-collection-surveillance-national-security-concerns-investigation/
Mapping software is incredible. Having instant access to every storefront, building, park, and transit stop on every street, almost anywhere in the world, has changed my life as much as any other single innovation of the cellphone age. But also, mapping software is a little weird. Seemingly random places show up as landmarks in my neighborhood: a Bitcoin ATM, a nearby hotel I’ll never stay at. And when I need directions, my app likes to tell me things that no one ever needs to know, such as when to merge onto the freeway from an on-ramp. Why is it so obtuse? Or perhaps the better question is: What makes the software think that I’m obtuse?
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/07/google-maps-apple-glitches/678904/
The Global Positioning System runs the modern world. But it is under daily attack. This year alone, researchers say, more than 60,000 commercial flights have been hit by bogus GPS signals, which can confuse pilots.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/02/world/gps-threats.html
“Today solar power is long past the toy phase. Panels now occupy an area around half that of Wales, and this year they will provide the world with about 6% of its electricity—which is almost three times as much electrical energy as America consumed back in 1954. Yet this historic growth is only the second-most-remarkable thing about the rise of solar power. The most remarkable is that it is nowhere near over.”
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/06/20/the-exponential-growth-of-solar-power-will-change-the-world
“Silicon Valley prides itself on disruption: Start-ups develop new technologies, upend existing markets and overtake incumbents. This cycle of creative destruction brought us the personal computer, the internet and the smartphone. But in recent years, a handful of incumbent tech companies have sustained their dominance. Why? We believe they have learned how to co-opt potentially disruptive start-ups before they can become competitive threats.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/13/opinion/big-tech-ftc-ai.html
“The robots are coming! In science fiction that is usually an ominous warning. In the real world, it is a prediction—and a welcome one. The field of robotics has made impressive progress in the past year, as researchers in universities and industry have applied advances in artificial intelligence (ai) to machines. The same technology that enables chatbots like Chatgpt to hold conversations, or systems like dall-e to create realistic-looking images from text descriptions, can give robots of all kinds a dramatic brain upgrade.”
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/06/06/three-reasons-why-its-good-news-that-robots-are-getting-smarter
“The number of Chinese websites is shrinking and posts are being removed and censored, stoking fears about what happens when history is erased.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/04/business/china-internet-censorship.html
“Hundreds of young climate companies like Material Evolution are burning through cash and racing to turn new technologies into big businesses. The transition period is called the “valley of death” because so few startups survive it.
The success of at least some of these startups is crucial to the world’s efforts to limit climate change. But companies in their early stages are often derailed by blown budgets, engineering failures and any number of unexpected hazards.
“Everybody says there’s a playbook,” said Liz Gilligan, chief executive of Material Evolution. “There’s no playbook.” Had she known how hard it would be to develop industrial technology, she would have started a software company, Gilligan jokes.”
https://www.wsj.com/business/climate-change-startups-investment-business-8f5c83be?mod=mhp
“Nvidia reported eye-popping revenue last week. Elon Musk just said human-level artificial intelligence is coming next year. Big tech can’t seem to buy enough AI-powering chips. It sure seems like the AI hype train is just leaving the station, and we should all hop aboard.
But significant disappointment may be on the horizon, both in terms of what AI can do, and the returns it will generate for investors.
The rate of improvement for AIs is slowing, and there appear to be fewer applications than originally imagined for even the most capable of them. It is wildly expensive to build and run AI. New, competing AI models are popping up constantly, but it takes a long time for them to have a meaningful impact on how most people actually work.”
https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/the-ai-revolution-is-already-losing-steam-a93478b1
“In 1926 an unusual vessel arrived in New York after crossing the Atlantic. This was a converted sailing ship renamed Baden-Baden. Its two masts had been torn down and a pair of 15-metre-high revolving cylinders were mounted on its deck instead. Known as Flettner rotors, after Anton Flettner, their German inventor, the rotors worked like sails. Not only were they extremely efficient, allowing the vessel to consume less than half the fuel an oil-powered ship of a similar size would use, they also let the craft tack closer to an oncoming wind than its original canvas rigging allowed. The rotors were hailed as a great achievement at the time (praised by Albert Einstein, among others) before cheap oil caused interest to wane.”
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