Lidar startup Ouster raises $60 million in production run-up

Ouster has raised $60 million as the San Francisco-based lidar startup opens a new facility that will have the capacity to assemble and ship several thousand sensors a month by the end of 2019. The new factory, which will have a grand opening ceremony March 28, currently produces hundreds of sensors per month. Ouster says […]

View More Lidar startup Ouster raises $60 million in production run-up

Lidar startup Ouster raises $60 million in production run-up

Ouster has raised $60 million as the San Francisco-based lidar startup opens a new facility that will have the capacity to assemble and ship several thousand sensors a month by the end of 2019. The new factory, which will have a grand opening ceremony March 28, currently produces hundreds of sensors per month. Ouster says […]

View More Lidar startup Ouster raises $60 million in production run-up

Transportation weekly: Nuro dreams of autonomous lattes, what is a metamaterial, Volvo takes the wheel

Welcome back to Transportation Weekly; I’m your host Kirsten Korosec, senior transportation reporter at TechCrunch. We love the reader feedback. Keep it coming. Never heard of TechCrunch’s Transportation Weekly? Read the first edition here.  As I’ve written before, consider this a soft launch. Follow me on Twitter @kirstenkorosec to ensure you see it each week. […]

View More Transportation weekly: Nuro dreams of autonomous lattes, what is a metamaterial, Volvo takes the wheel

Passbase is building a full stack identity engine with privacy baked in

Digital identity startup Passbase has bagged $600k in pre-seed funding led by a group of business angel investors from Alphabet, Stanford, Kleiner Perkins, EY; as well as seed fund investment from Chicago-based Upheaval Investments and Seedcamp. The 2018-founded Silicon Valley-based startup — whose co-founder we chatted to briefly on camera at Disrupt Berlin — is […]

View More Passbase is building a full stack identity engine with privacy baked in

Facebook’s ad team shoots itself in the foot by pulling Elizabeth Warren campaign ads

Facebook’s gang that couldn’t shoot straight advertising department has made another blunder, this time by pulling Elizabeth Warren campaign ads touting the Senator’s proposal to break up big tech. The offending ads were pulled, according to Politico, over their use of the Facebook brand in their copy. Meanwhile, other ads that the Senator’s Presidential campaign […]

View More Facebook’s ad team shoots itself in the foot by pulling Elizabeth Warren campaign ads

Elizabeth Warren wants to break up Google, Amazon and Facebook

The influential Massachusetts Senator and Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren has been a longtime critic of the consolidation of economic power by Amazon, Google, and Facebook. Now she’s making their break-up a key component of her Presidential platform. Warren has just released her plan for breaking up big tech, in what seems like a watershed moment […]

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YouTube under pressure to ban UK Far Right activist after livestreamed intimidation

The continued presence of a UK Far Right activist on YouTube’s platform has been raised by the deputy leader of the official opposition during ministerial questions in the House of Commons today. Labour’s Tom Watson put questions to the secretary of state for digital, Jeremy Wright, regarding Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s use of social media for targeted […]

View More YouTube under pressure to ban UK Far Right activist after livestreamed intimidation

Google employees can’t just walk away from ethical tradeoffs like Dragonfly

Let me blunt up front: I think Google should launch a censored search engine in China (albeit with careful organizational boundaries). And I think that Google employees who would undermine such a project need to step down and walk out the front door to opportunities more in line with their purported values. I am reacting […]

View More Google employees can’t just walk away from ethical tradeoffs like Dragonfly

Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos-backed fund invests in a global geothermal energy project developer

Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the investment firm financed by billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Jack Ma that invests in companies developing technologies to decarbonize society, is investing $12.5 million in a geothermal project development company called Baseload Capital. Baseload Capital is a project investment firm that provides capital to develop geothermal energy power plants […]

View More Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos-backed fund invests in a global geothermal energy project developer

Robotics, AR and VR are poised to reshape healthcare, starting in the operating room

About 20 years ago, a medical device startup called Intuitive Surgical debuted the da Vinci robot and changed surgical practices in operating rooms across the United States. The da Vinci ushered in the first age of robotic-assisted surgical procedures with a promise of greater accuracy and quicker recovery times for patients undergoing certain laparoscopic surgeries.  For […]

View More Robotics, AR and VR are poised to reshape healthcare, starting in the operating room

J&J spends $3.4 billion in cash for Auris Health’s lung cancer diagnostics and surgical robots

Johnson & Johnson’s robotic surgery and medical device division, Ethicon, is dropping $3.4 billion in cash to pick up Auris Health, a developer of robotic diagnostics and surgical devices initially focused on detecting and treating lung cancer. The healthcare giant said an additional $2.35 billion in payouts may be possible if Auris hits certain milestones. […]

View More J&J spends $3.4 billion in cash for Auris Health’s lung cancer diagnostics and surgical robots