Category: Emerging-Technologies
Africa Roundup: DHL invests in MallforAfrica, Zipline launches in US, Novastar raises $200M
Events in May offered support to the thesis that Africa can incubate tech with global application. Two startups that developed their business models on the continent — MallforAfrica and Zipline — were tapped by international interests. DHL acquired a minority stake in Link Commerce, a turn-key e-commerce company that grew…
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Zipline begins US medical delivery with UAV program honed in Africa
Drones are being deployed in the fight to curb COVID-19 in the U.S. Novant Health and California based UAV delivery startup Zipline have launched distribution of personal protective gear and medical equipment in North Carolina. Novant is a non-profit healthcare provider with a network in the Southeastern United States. Through…
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Scale AI releases free lidar dataset to power self-driving car development
High quality data is the fuel that powers AI algorithms. Without a continual flow of labeled data, bottlenecks can occur and the algorithm will slowly get worse and add risk to the system. It’s why labeled data is so critical for companies like Zoox, Cruise and Waymo, which use it…
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Emerging from stealth, Octant is bringing the tools of synthetic biology to large scale drug discovery
Octant, a company backed by Andreessen Horowitz just now unveiling itself publicly to the world, is using the tools of synthetic biology to buck the latest trends in drug discovery. As the pharmaceuticals industry turns its attention to precision medicine — the search for ever more tailored treatments for specific…
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Microsoft’s quantum computing platform is now in limited preview
Microsoft today announced that Azure Quantum, its partner-centric quantum computing platform for developers who want to get started with quantum computing, is now in limited preview. First announced at Microsoft Ignite 2019, Azure Quantum brings together the hardware from IonQ, Honeywell, QCI and Microsoft, services from the likes of 1QBit,…
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Waymo expands first external investment round to $3 billion
Waymo has added an additional $800 million to the $2.25 billion funding round that it first announced in March, bringing the total size of the financing (its first from investors outside of Alphabet) to $3 billion. The extension comes from new investors including those managed by T. Rowe Price, Perry…
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