Author: TechBrunch
The cruel reality is that only about 3% of the world's fresh water is available, and only a small portion of it is readily available. But as droughts intensify in the world's arid regions, more and more people are turning their attention to the remaining 97% that roam the oceans. Islands, cities, and water districts have used desalination to remove salt from seawater for more than a century, but it wasn't until the 1970s that the technology became more widespread. Producing water through reverse osmosis, the most widely used technology, requires approximately 1.5 kilowatt-hours of electricity for every 100 gallons.…
Data protection startup Cohesity has completed a merger with Veritas' enterprise data protection business, creating a single entity valued at $7 billion with 12,000 customers. The partnership was originally announced in February 2024, CRN reported. Cohesity valued Carlyle's Veritas' data protection business at $3 billion at the time, CRN reported. Cohesity declined to comment on pricing. The new company will have annual recurring revenue of $1.5 billion and will be led by an executive team drawn from Cohesity and Veritas in addition to outsiders. The deal was funded by a Series H round led by Haveli Investments with participation from…
Languages are usually taught by first practicing reading and writing, but native speakers always start learning a language by listening and speaking. Speak has built a language teaching platform that focuses on how native speakers learn. The startup uses AI to generate voice conversations and listen to user responses to improve language comprehension. Now, Speak is announcing milestone funding that further strengthens its progress. A Series C of $78 million would bump the valuation to $1 billion. The funding round is led by Accel, with participation from previous backers OpenAI (via Startup Fund), Khosla Ventures, and Y Combinator. This funding…
Regulations to strengthen the security of connected devices have come into force in the European Union. The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) imposes obligations on product manufacturers to provide security support to consumers, including updating software to fix security vulnerabilities. The deadline to comply with the law's main obligations is still three years away (December 11, 2027), but it gives device manufacturers time to comply. The bill was proposed a little more than two years ago to strengthen the security of devices such as smartwatches, internet-connected toys and app-controlled home appliances. The proliferation of connected devices has raised concerns about increased…
As data center power demand skyrockets, tech companies are looking for ways to reduce power usage wherever possible. Cooling can account for approximately 40% of a data center's energy consumption, according to McKinsey, so cooling is an obvious place to start. Most data centers are cooled by blowing cold air over the servers. The problem is that air is a fairly inefficient way to move heat. This is why companies like Amazon, which is investing heavily in power-hungry AI servers, are turning to liquid cooling. Nexalus, one of the Irish-based startups, claims that its hot water approach is not only…
Yelp is releasing several new features as part of its year-end release, including AI-powered review insights, a personalized home feed with new content types, and a redesigned inbox for business owners . In terms of features for users, the company is currently highlighting reviews in different categories such as food quality, service, and ambience. Each of these categories has a sentiment score from 1 to 100, which can be positive, neutral, or critical. Tapping on any of these categories in the list will highlight related reviews on the app. Yelp is now adding AI-powered insights for restaurant, food, and nightlife…
Security researchers are warning that hackers are actively exploiting another high-risk vulnerability in popular file transfer technology to carry out large-scale hacks. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-50623, affects software developed by Illinois-based enterprise software company Cleo, according to researchers at cybersecurity firm Huntress. The flaw was first disclosed by Cleo in a security advisory on October 30th, warning that exploitation could lead to remote code execution. This affects Cleo's LexiCom, VLTransfer, and Harmony tools that are commonly used by enterprises to manage file transfers. Cleo released a patch for the vulnerability in October, but Huntress warned in a blog post…
Aqemia, a French startup that combines “quantum-inspired physics” and machine learning to discover new drugs, has raised $38 million in a new funding round led by San Francisco-based VC firm Cathay Innovation. Procured. This is Aqemia's second round of funding this year, with the company announcing a €30 million (approximately $31.5 million) raise in January. This brings the company's total funding to over $100 million. Founded in Paris in 2019 by Maximilien Lévesque and Emmanuel Rolandmartiano (pictured above), Aqemia is one of countless startups applying AI to drug discovery. In 2024 alone, companies like Healx raised $47 million to tackle…
YouTube is experimenting with multiplayer minigames under a collection of lightweight free games called “Playables.” Currently, Ludo Club and Magic Tiles 3 support multiplayer mode. “We're starting to test new multiplayer features for a few select games on YouTube Playables. Multiplayer on Playables lets you play games in real time with other users. ” says the company. YouTube has been testing mini-games called “Playables” on its app and website for about a year, and after restricting access to premium users, opened up its free catalog of games to all users in May of this year. . The video streaming service…
LambdaTest, a cloud-based software testing platform, has raised $38 million in a Series D funding round, aiming to expand its presence in existing markets and improve its AI capabilities. The Series D was led by Avatar Ventures with participation from Qualcomm Ventures. This brings LambdaTest's total funding to $108 million. LambdaTest provides the infrastructure that allows enterprises to test applications on over 5,000 browser and operating system combinations. Instead of setting up and maintaining expensive test suites, companies can use LambdaTest's cloud platform to ensure that their software works as intended in a variety of environments. LambdaTest also maintains a…