Author: TechBrunch

Last year, the United States designated magnesium as one of the “electric 18” critical minerals essential to the energy transition. The metal is used in a variety of electronic devices and is lighter than aluminum, making it an attractive alternative for automakers. But like many other minerals, China has grown to dominate the market. And it's not because there's a shortage of magnesium. In fact, it's the eighth most abundant mineral in the Earth's crust and the third most abundant dissolved mineral in the world's oceans. But at least in the United States, there's only one company that produces virgin…

Amazon sellers now have access to an AI assistant designed to help grow their business by answering questions about their metrics, and in the future, may even directly solve problems that arise. Built on AWS Amazon Bedrock, the assistant is code-named Project Amelia and is initially available in beta to US sellers starting today. The retail giant said select US merchants will have immediate access, followed by a broader rollout across the U.S. Later this year, the feature will start coming to more countries in languages ​​other than English. According to Amazon, the goal of Project Amelia is to give…

When Elon Musk unveiled Tesla's first “master plan” in 2006, it seemed a bit far-fetched that batteries would transform the auto industry, much less global electricity production and consumption. But today, as electric vehicles continue to gain market share and giant batteries remove smoke-belching power plants from the power grid, the idea seems less far-fetched. This year, in the United States alone, developers plan to add 15 gigawatts of grid-scale battery capacity. But Michael Spencer believes the changes happening in the US, Europe, China and elsewhere are just the beginning: “There's a lot of room and potential for Tesla's master…

At many meetings these days, it can feel like there are more AI note-taking and transcription bots than humans. There seem to be dozens of options these days, but one I've started seeing more and more of is Fathom. The company was one of the early players, launching in 2020. Fathom then raised a $4.7 million seed round in early 2022 and today announced a $17 million Series A round led by partners at Telescope. Notably, $2 million of the $17 million was provided by Fathom users via crowdfunding on Wefunder. The company claims that over the past two years,…

Like many great startups, Harbor began with disappointment: Kevin Lavelle, co-founder and CEO of innovative clothing company Mizzen and Main, couldn't find a baby monitor that suited his needs. He and his wife, Jen, turned to Nanit, a popular product known for its AI smarts and breath detection. “We developed Harbor because we were frustrated with products that over-promised and under-delivered when it came to safety and ease of use,” Lavelle says, citing one instance in particular when Nanit's app crashed, after which he woke up the next morning to find that his monitor hadn't worked all night. Lovell founded…

Used by businesses ranging from breweries and food processing companies to chemical manufacturers and paper mills, industrial heat is one of the last bastions of fossil fuels. After all, if you need to heat something, nothing beats a flame. But recently, a number of startups have begun exploring ways to use electricity to create heat. Companies like Rondo, Antora, and Fourth Power are using cheap wind and solar power to heat special bricks to thousands of degrees, then storing the thermal energy for later use. Companies like Skyven Technologies are developing industrial-scale heat pumps that use a series of compressors…

Ever since the dawn of programming, there have been many ways to ensure that code works as intended. Recently, the whole testing process has rapidly evolved. As security breaches have become more sophisticated, software validation has become a more urgent and much more complex task. “Everyone has a different, evolving approach,” said Alter Memmis, CEO of Picus Security. “The ultimate goal is to create a connection between them.” Even if figuring out what the Holy Grail looks like is half the challenge of finding it, Picus believes he is well on his way to eternal happiness. The startup's platform runs…

With an explosion of weather and climate data that previous generations of tools can't process, is AI the future of prediction? Research certainly suggests that this is the case, and a newly funded startup called Brightband is taking on the challenge of turning machine learning predictive models into both a business and open source standard. Today's weather forecasting and climate monitoring technology is based on statistical and numerical models that are decades old. That doesn't mean they're bad or wrong, just that they're not particularly efficient. These physics-based models are the kind that take weeks to create on a supercomputer.…

The final report of the UN's High Level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence makes for surreal reading at times. Titled “AI Governance for Humanity”, the document highlights the paradoxical challenges of anchoring any control over a technology that is developing rapidly, being heavily invested in and being heavily promoted. On the one hand, the report points out a “lack of global governance on AI,” which is quite correct. On the other hand, the UN advisory body has “considered hundreds of [AI] “Guides, frameworks and principles are being adopted by governments, companies, consortia, regional and international organizations.” The report adds another…

When it comes to climate change, there are no “excuses,” but there may be a cheaper alternative: direct air capture. The technology, more like a community service than a pardon, promises to suck vast amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, making up for more than a century of illegal burning of fossil fuels. A scientifically sound idea, but commercially not. Currently, it costs about $600 to $1,000 to capture a tonne of carbon dioxide, far more than anyone would consider commercially viable, which has led to countless startups racing to reduce costs and capture a tonne of carbon…