Located in the subterranean depths of South Dakota’s Black Hills, there exists a bacteria with the capacity to efficiently convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into a solid mineral under very challenging circumstances. If scientists can harness these peculiar bacteria, they might provide a novel method for capturing greenhouse gases from exhausted …
Read More »Indian central bank tightens consumer loan curbs to hurt startups
Industry executives said India’s central bank has slowed consumer credit growth, hurting consumer spending and South Asian startups. The RBI increased risk weights on bank and NBFC unsecured personal loans, credit cards, and consumer durable loans by 25% to 125%. The RBI said the new measures exclude mortgages, auto, education, …
Read More »UK antitrust regulator investigates $19B Vodafone/Three mobile merger
In June, Vodafone and Hutchison-owned Three announced their plan to merge in a non-cash deal to create a $19B mega mobile operator. We predicted a significant regulatory hurdle. The country’s main antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, announced an investigation into the deal today. Today’s announcement invites competitors, companies, …
Read More »PureSpace removes ripening gas to preserve produce
One-third of all food is wasted before it decomposes in your fridge, according to the UN. That terrible statistic is one reason leading VCs and celebrities have invested in supply-chain food loss prevention companies. Apeel coats produce, Shelf Engine predicts order volume with AI, and Misfits Market sells “ugly” produce. …
Read More »The 1912 English “Missing Link” Fossils Piltdown Man Hoax
In 1912, a British amateur archaeologist announced a major discovery in Piltdown Village, Sussex. While exploring Pleistocene gravel beds, Charles Dawson found a human-like skull fragment and informed the Natural History Museum. Dawson and the museum’s geology keeper, Arthur Smith Woodward, returned to the gravel bed and found more skull …
Read More »LimeWire buys Midjourney competitor BlueWillow after relaunching as a creator studio
In the Wild West of generative AI, an unlikely cowboy arrives. After closing, LimeWire, once known for music piracy, moved into content creation last year under new owners. To expand, it acquired BlueWillow, a popular generative AI image creation platform that competes with Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. BlueWillow was founded …
Read More »Arm after the IPO
Arm EVP and Chief Commercial Officer Will Abbey told me this morning, minutes before the chip designer’s stock started trading on Nasdaq, that “AI, I believe, is the growth of Arm.” You may not think of AI when you hear about Arm, but Abbey immediately thought of it when I …
Read More »Chipmaker NXP confirms customer data breach
Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors informed customers of a personal data breach. Have I Been Pwned owner Troy Hunt tweeted a copy of NXP’s breach notification email to alert affected customers. Affected individuals have an online NXP account, which provides technical content and community support. “With account security features like two-step …
Read More »Will AI models always hallucinate?
Large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT all lie. The mistakes range from bizarre and harmless—claiming the Golden Gate Bridge was transported across Egypt in 2016—to dangerous and problematic. A mayor in Australia threatened to sue OpenAI after ChatGPT misrepresented his plea to a major bribery scandal. Researchers found that …
Read More »Indian Moon Rover Finds Rich Elements At Lunar South Pole
With its Pragyan rover analyzing the Moon’s surface composition near the south pole, India’s Chandrayan-3 lunar mission is a scientific and technical success. Because the area being studied is near future bases, the data returned is more valuable than from previous crewed and robotic missions. However, the mission has not …
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