A former Thiel fellow’s startup just launched a drone it says can replace police helicopters

A former Thiel fellow’s startup just launched a drone it says can replace police helicopters

When I speak to Blake Resnick, he’s walking around his drone startup’s newest office space in Seattle—a cavernous 50,000-square-foot facility that, Resnick estimates, won’t be fully set up until later in the year—potentially November. Still, the big (and for now, largely empty) building offers the promise of a fast-growing company intent on conquering its particular…

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Chinese brain interface startup Gestala raises M just two months after launch

Chinese brain interface startup Gestala raises $21M just two months after launch

Elon Musk’s Neuralink and OpenAI-backed Merge Labs are pushing forward with brain–computer interface (BCI) technology in the U.S. Meanwhile, Chinese serial entrepreneur Phoenix Peng is building rival efforts through two startups: NeuroXess, which develops implantable BCI systems, and a second company, Gestala, developing non-invasive ultrasound-based BCIs. Gestala has raised $21.6 million (CN¥150 million) just two…

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These Gen Zers just raised .75M to put Africa’s defense back in the hands of Africans

These Gen Zers just raised $11.75M to put Africa’s defense back in the hands of Africans

After five years of building an edtech company, Nathan Nwachuku, 22, realized that Africa was at a crossroads. The continent is undergoing rapid industrialization, he told TechCrunch. There is money, opportunity, and a young, driven population. He figured, soon enough, the continent was on the “edge of an industrial revolution.”  “At the same time,” he…

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#Guidde taps AI to help create software training videos

#Guidde taps AI to help create software training videos

Creating corporate training videos for software is a time-consuming ordeal, especially if you’re an organization with a lot of software licenses. Training videos can help get employees up to speed, but they’re a big lift. They often take entire teams to produce. Tel Aviv-based entrepreneur Yoav Einav thought there might be an alternative, cheaper way…

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#Chinese AI company MiniMax releases new models it claims are competitive with the industry’s best

#Chinese AI company MiniMax releases new models it claims are competitive with the industry’s best

Chinese firms continue to release AI models that rival the capabilities of systems developed by OpenAI and other U.S.-based AI companies. This week, MiniMax, an Alibaba- and Tencent-backed startup that has raised around $850 million in venture capital and is valued at more than $2.5 billion, debuted three new models: MiniMax-Text-01, MiniMax-VL-01, and T2A-01-HD. MiniMax-Text-01…

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