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The best tech for plant lovers

Brian Heater — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0000

House plants are great. They can also be hard. All of those stress-reducing self-care qualities they promise tend to fade into the background when they suddenly turn brown for seemingly no reason. Unlike pets and human children, they can’t bug you when something is wrong. They just sort of wither. There’s a reason Reddit is […]

Consumer tech is bouncing back, and consumer founders like Brynn Putnam are bouncing back with it

Connie Loizos — Sun, 17 Nov 2024 01:14:09 +0000

When Brynn Putnam sold her last company, Mirror, to Lululemon for $500 million at the start of the pandemic, it looked to this editor like she’d sold the smart fitness company too soon. Instead, the timing proved brilliant. The home fitness craze crashed nearly as abruptly as it peaked during that first year of lockdowns. […]

Best gifts for frequent travelers

Brian Heater — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 18:00:00 +0000

What’s the best gift you can get someone? Why, the gift of travel, of course. The next best is something to enhance the travel experience. As fun and enlightening as seeing new places is, the whole part of getting there can detract from the overall experience, especially for those who find themselves traveling a lot […]

Botinkit’s robot wants to cook for you

Brian Heater — Sat, 16 Nov 2024 17:00:00 +0000

Warehouses aren’t the only places grappling with a labor crunch. Since the start of the pandemic, restaurants around the world have been grappling with staffing shortages. A number of startups have entered the picture with automation solutions, aimed at reducing the number of hands required to keep the lights on and the food warm. There […]

Drone manufacturer Skydio raises $170 million extension round

Margaux MacColl, Sean O'Kane — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 18:05:31 +0000

American drone manufacturer Skydio has raised an extension round of $170 million, adding onto the $230 million Series E it closed early last year.

Wing begins delivering blood samples via drone in London

Brian Heater — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 19:26:23 +0000

Alphabet X spinoff Wing on Wednesday confirmed that it has started delivering blood samples via drone. The program, announced in September, is shuttling samples between London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals. Wing is running up to 10 deliveries a day, Monday through Friday. Each run can contain several different samples and takes around three minutes. […]

Ever wanted to rent a food delivery robot? Now you can.

Brian Heater — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 17:32:02 +0000

Good news for anyone who’s ever wanted to rent a delivery robot. Kiwibot this week announced a new “rent a robot” offering, making it possible for companies to use its army of autonomous delivery systems for a finite amount of time. The robot-as-a-service (RaaS) approach follows the startup’s recent acquisition of advertising firm Nickelytics: Using […]

Fitbit’s kids’ smartwatch gets family group chats

Lauren Forristal — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Fitbit’s Ace LTE, the smartwatch designed for ages 7+, is introducing new features to help families stay connected and get active together. On Wednesday, Fitbit announced a slew of new features, including group chats, family quests, a new mini-game, and two new watch faces. There’s also a new direct message feature for siblings to text […]

Apple reportedly releasing a wall-mounted smart home tablet in 2025 — and yes, it does AI

Maxwell Zeff — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 23:53:38 +0000

Apple is gearing up to announce a new smart home hub, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. As early as March 2025, the iPhone maker could release a tablet that mounts to your wall, controls smart home appliances, does video calls, and of course features Apple Intelligence. The device reportedly has a 6-inch touchscreen, but it’s […]

Apple reportedly shipping a security camera in 2026

Brian Heater — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 18:42:01 +0000

Apple is set to expand its smart home presence, according to Ming-Chi Kuo. The well-sourced analyst reported on Tuesday that the iPhone maker is working on an IP (internet protocol) camera with an expected 2026 shipping date. The analyst notes that Chinese component maker, Goertek, is set to assemble the product, which Apple expects to […]

This USB-C mouthpiece turns your phone into a musical instrument

Lauren Forristal — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 15:00:00 +0000

Artinoise, the Italian startup behind re.corder — a smart device reimagining the traditional plastic recorder we all played in school — has introduced its latest product: Zefiro. The portable device, shaped like the mouthpiece of a recorder, can be plugged into any smartphone, tablet, or PC with a USB-C port, effectively transforming it into a […]

How two brothers went from growing up on a sailboat to making underwater military vehicles

Margaux MacColl — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Vatn Systems founders Nelson and Freddie Mills spent their childhood cruising over turquoise waters, doing their homework on a sailboat off the coast of Caribbean islands. While their surroundings were idyllic, their vessel of choice was decidedly not. “The first boat I remember, I think our parents bought it for like five, 10 grand,” Freddie […]

Quantune joins quest for the holy grail of non-invasive glucose monitoring

Marina Temkin — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 08:24:28 +0000

Berlin-based Quantune is trying to shrink laser spectrometers so that you can wear one on your wrist, and it just raised $9M to do it.

As demand for lithium explodes, battery recycling startup Tozero sprints to scale with $11.7M seed

Natasha Lomas — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Tozero, a Munich-based startup that recovers valuable raw materials from recycled lithium-ion batteries, is gearing up to scale. The startup just closed an oversubscribed €11 million seed round (around $11.7M) to step up production by building its first industrial deployment (A.K.A first-of-a-kind or FOAK) plant. Currently, Tozero’s pilot plant processes nine tonnes of lithium-ion battery […]

The best gadgets for new homeowners

Brian Heater — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 15:00:00 +0000

In August, I did something I never imagined myself doing: I bought a house. After spending most of my adult life in New York City, I moved a couple hours north to the Hudson Valley. It’s been every bit as major an adjustment as I’d expected. Along with your standard new homeowner surprises — like […]

Meta taps US, UK universities to test VR in education, creates digital twin ‘metaversities’ in Europe

Paul Sawers — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 14:33:43 +0000

As part of an ongoing effort to embed virtual reality (VR) in education, Meta has launched a new partnership with a slew of universities in the U.S. and U.K., designed to provide feedback on a new product that Meta hopes will finally make VR just a little more mainstream. The new Meta for Education beta […]

TSMC reportedly halts advanced chip shipments to Chinese companies

Anthony Ha — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 19:30:49 +0000

After a chip manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) was found inside a Huawei processor, the U.S. Department of Commerce has ordered the company to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers, according to a report in Reuters. Huawei faces significant trade restrictions from the U.S., so the pause on shipments is supposed […]

Boox Palma 2: A great little e-reader with bigger ambitions

Brian Heater — Sat, 09 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0000

The Palma is a strange product. It’s a small e-reader with far bigger gadget ambitions. On its site, Boox describes the product as a “distraction-free device that lets you reclaim your focus in the exact middle between tech and life.” In a lot of ways, the company’s ambitions appear to mirror those of Light Phone’s by […]

Apple 16-inch MacBook Pro (M4 Pro) review: A powerful desktop replacement

Brian Heater — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:05:51 +0000

On Monday, Bloomberg reported on Apple’s plans to fully overhaul its laptop line. That’s exactly the kind of rumor you don’t want to drop in the week between the announcement and launch of a new MacBook Pro. A deeper dive reveals that the planned revamp is coming at some point in 2026. It’s still very […]

iMac (M4) review: A mini upgrade to Apple’s entry-level all-in-one

Brian Heater — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 15:04:33 +0000

iMac is the rock of Apple’s desktop line. Over the past decade we’ve seen the iMac Pro come and go, Apple struggling to crack the Mac Pro, and largely forgetting the Mac Mini existed for more than a decade. With two years and two models under its belt, the jury is still out on the […]