Menu

Blog

Page 3552

Jan 8, 2023

Burned: ‘Not everybody is walking away with a year’s worth of runway in their pocket’

Posted by in category: employment

Tech isn’t as collegial.


Tech isn’t as collegial as it used to be. Rocket ships are being unveiled as sputtering messes, mission-driven startups don’t feel so mission oriented when responding to investor pressure, and widespread layoffs offer a loud reminder that jobs are breakable contracts not sacrosanct vows.

Over the past few months, thousands of employees from Meta, Twitter, Stripe, Amazon, DoorDash and countless other companies that don’t have the privilege of being household names are back on the job market. A job market that includes hiring freezes, salary cuts and a general malaise that industry experts warn won’t be over this year.

Continue reading “Burned: ‘Not everybody is walking away with a year’s worth of runway in their pocket’” »

Jan 8, 2023

Mojo Vision puts contact lens production ‘on hold’ as it lays off 75% of staff

Posted by in categories: augmented reality, biotech/medical, computing, economics

We’ve met with Mojo Vision for several CESes, watching the startup’s AR contact lenses develop, year by year. These sorts of things take a lot of time and money, of course — and these days it seems increasingly difficult to find either. Today, the California-based firm announced that it is “decelerating” work on the Mojo Lens, citing, “significant challenges in raising capital.”

In an announcement posted to it site, CEO Drew Perkins blames insurmountable headwinds, including the bad economy and the “yet-to-be proven market potential for advanced AR products” in its ability to raise the necessary funding required to keep the project afloat.

“Although we haven’t had the chance yet to see it ship and to reach its full potential in the marketplace, we have proven that what was once considered science fiction can be developed into a technical reality,” Perkins writes. “Even though the pursuit of our vision for Invisible Computing is on hold for now, we strongly believe that there will be a future market for Mojo Lens and expect to accelerate it when the time is right.”

Jan 8, 2023

Ex-Apple team creates BlenderCap, a delightfully over-engineered portable blender

Posted by in category: futurism

Packing battery tech nobody uses in consumer devices and a half-horsepower motor, BlenderCap is one of the most ludicrously over-engineered products we’ve seen in a hot minute. At CES in Las Vegas, we took a closer look at talked with the team behind the product to find out more.

Let’s start with, er, why do we need a portable blender in the first place?

“We originally invented this just for personal use for making smoothies after the gym. I was going to CrossFit, and I wanted a protein shake after that. I made myself a shake, and it just got sort of melted and lumpy after you have worked out for an hour or two,” says Dakota Adams, co-founder at the company. “Then the idea came along to put a blender onto these Hydroflask-style bottles. Matthew [Moore] and I became friends and began working on how to pack that technology into a tiny little cap.”

Jan 8, 2023

ELON MUSK’s must-read science fiction

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, space

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ-6Q8pHQE0

Today I’m looking at Elon Musk’s must read science fiction books. Thanks for watching.

Intro — 0:00
The Foundation Saga — 1:09
Atlas Shrugged — 2:22
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — 3:38
The Dune Chronicles — 4:27
Stranger in a Strange Land — 5:38
The Culture series — 6:24
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress — 8:01
Daemon series — 8:43
The Machine Stops — 9:47

Continue reading “ELON MUSK’s must-read science fiction” »

Jan 8, 2023

FTX attempting to recover millions donated to charities

Posted by in category: law

When you donate someone else’s money.


Some charities have voluntarily agreed to return the funds, some have already spent the money, while others are awaiting legal clarity.

Jan 8, 2023

Unistellar’s telescope turns your smartphone into a stargazer

Posted by in categories: mobile phones, space

Humans are eternally curious about the night sky, but figuring out how to use a telescope is non-trivial. At CES in Las Vegas, Unistellar believes it has the perfect solution with its Equinox 2 Smart Telescope.

“When I was a young teenager, I had a telescope that I used during the long summer nights. Fast forward to being an adult – I didn’t have any more time to do astronomy. With a friend of mine, we started to think about what we can do to bring astronomy back to our busy daily lives,” says Laurent Marfisi, co-founder and CEO of Unistellar in an interview with TechCrunch. “We thought up a telescope that is easy to use, that is powerful enough to see through the light pollution, and that has the possibility to reveal galaxies and nebulae, all those things that we could not see even when we were teenagers. The aim is to bring a lot of the power that professionals have in astronomy into the daily lives of consumers who just want to have fun, spend good quality time with their children and their friends around astronomy.”

Jan 8, 2023

SpaceX Setting a Pace to Achieve Its Founder’s Goal of Making Launches a Daily or Even Hourly Event

Posted by in category: space travel

SpaceX makes 1,000 flights per year the goal for its next-generation Starship.


In 2022 SpaceX set a record for rocket launches achieving 61. But the company’s long-term goal is to get to 1,000 per year in a decade.

Jan 8, 2023

Electrochemistry converts carbon to useful molecules

Posted by in categories: chemistry, innovation

A chemistry collaboration has led to a creative way to put carbon dioxide to good—and even healthy—use: by incorporating it, via electrosynthesis, into a series of organic molecules that are vital to pharmaceutical development.

In the process, the research team made an innovative discovery. By changing the type of electrochemical reactor, they could produce two completely different products, both of which are useful in .

The team’s paper, “Electrochemical Reactor Dictates Site Selectivity in N-Heteroarene Carboxylations,” published Jan 5 in Nature. The paper’s co-lead authors are postdoctoral researchers Peng Yu and Wen Zhang, and Guo-Quan Sun of Sichuan University in China.

Jan 8, 2023

Controlled, localized delivery of blood thinner may improve blood clot treatment

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, engineering

Heparin has long been used as a blood thinner, or anticoagulant, for patients with blood clotting disorders or after surgery to prevent complications. But the medication remains difficult to dose correctly, potentially leading to overdosing or underdosing.

A team of Penn State researchers combined with a , peptide, to slow down the release of the drug and convey the directly to the site of a clot. They published their findings in the journal Small.

“We wanted to develop a material that can gradually deliver heparin over time rather than the current iteration that gets cleared from the body in a couple of hours,” said corresponding author Scott Medina, Penn State associate professor of biomedical engineering. “We also wanted to deliver the drug through the skin instead of through an IV.”

Jan 8, 2023

Auto industry races into metaverse at CES

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, transportation

Allowing the driver of an autonomous vehicle to watch a movie, a dealer to sell automobiles from a “virtual” car lot, or an engineer to simulate how a new part fits: the auto industry is getting a tantalizing taste of the metaverse at the huge CES technology show.

One gadget on display in Las Vegas is an in-car television system, developed by French parts maker Valeo, that needs no remote.

To change the channel, drivers or passengers wearing a headset make a simple swipe in the air with their hand, and sensors in the car detect the movement.