PsiQuantum Inc. today said that it has nabbed a $450 million late-stage funding round led by investment firm BlackRock Inc. to finance its efforts to build a reliable quantum computer with more than a million qubits. Qubits are the quantum equivalent of the bits in regular computers. What sets a qubit apart is that it…
Avi Loeb’s Galileo Project Will Search for Evidence of Alien Visitation
What exactly is Harvard theoretical astrophysicist Avi Loeb doing co-founding a $1.755 million academic effort to look for UFOs? Yesterday, Loeb revealed the Galileo Project, which aims to develop an artificial-intelligence-powered network of telescopes that can search for evidence of technological alien civilizations on or near Earth. The project has received mixed criticism from outside…
Google Parent Alphabet Launches A New Company To Build Software For Industrial Robots Called Intrinsic
Google’s parent-company Alphabet has a birth to announce: a new company called Intrinsic which will focus on building software for industrial robots. The subsidiary will be one of Alphabet’s “other bets” — relatively speculative firms focusing on new technology like Waymo (self-driving cars), Wing (delivery drones), and Verily (healthcare and biotech). Details on what exactly…
Alphabet’s DeepMind Puts The Entire Human Proteome Online, As Folded By AlphaFold
DeepMind and several research partners have released a database containing the 3D structures of nearly every protein in the human body, as computationally determined by the breakthrough protein folding system demonstrated last year, AlphaFold. The freely available database represents an enormous advance and convenience for scientists across hundreds of disciplines and domains, and may very…
Deep Genomics Scores $180M To Deliver AI Programmed RNA Therapies
With COVID-19 vaccines making RNA-based medicines a household name, Deep Genomics is reaping some of the buzz—as well as $180 million in new funding for its efforts to develop “programmable” therapies. The artificial intelligence firm’s series C round more than quadruples its previous $40 million fundraising from early January 2020, and will help advance at…
Intel’s Mobileye Takes Its Autonomous Vehicle Testing Program To New York City
Mobileye, a subsidiary of Intel, has expanded its autonomous vehicle testing program to New York City as part of its strategy to develop and deploy the technology. New York City joins a number of other cities, including Detroit, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo, where Mobileye has either launched testing or plans to this year. Mobileye launched…
NCR Buys Cryptocurrency ATM Firm LibertyX To Offer Complete Crypto Solution
NCR Corp, a leading enterprise technology provider, announced Monday “a definitive agreement to acquire Libertyx, a leading cryptocurrency software provider.” Libertyx claims to be “America’s first and largest network of bitcoin ATMs, cashiers, and kiosks.” Its software runs on ATMs, kiosks, and point-of-sale (POS) systems, allowing customers to buy BTC at more than 20K retail…
Google Pixel 6, Ultra High End Phone To Sport Tensor SoC Chip
GoogleGoogle is announcing the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro today, though it might be better to call it a preview or a tease. Rather than releasing all the details on its new Android phones, Google is instead putting the focus on the new system on a chip (SoC) that will be inside the new…
Coldquanta Uses Cold Atoms To Build A Qauntum Computer
There are multiple ways of building a quantum computer, from superconducting and photonics to topological and ion trap, many backed by such big names as IBM, Google, Microsoft and Honeywell. However, ColdQuanta is betting that a modality that its founders and engineers have been working on for 15 years – cold atom – will establish…
Prime Medicine, The Next Gen Gene Editing Startup Raises $315 Million
Prime Medicine, a biotech startup working on a new approach to gene editing, has officially pulled back the curtain on the progress it has made since beginning operations last summer. The company “launched” on Tuesday, revealing it’s raised $315 million in short order from a large group of well-known biotech backers, including Arch Venture Partners,…
Toyota Backed Pony.Ai’s Launches Self Driving Cars Robotaxi Service In Shanghai
As the self driving car industry works towards commercializing the autonomous vehicle technology, Pony.ai has plans to mass-produce its Level 4 self-driving system by 2023. The intent was shared by the company on its public WeChat account in Shanghai during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) held recently. SAE International, the US engineering standards group,…
Facebook AI Introduces Habitat 2.0: Next-Generation Simulation Platform
Facebook recently announced Habitat 2.0, a next-generation simulation platform that lets AI researchers teach machines to navigate through photo-realistic 3D virtual environments and interact with objects just as they would in an actual kitchen or other commonly used space. With these tools at their disposal and without the need for expensive physical prototypes, future innovations…
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