Enlarge / Xanadu’s quantum chip. (credit: Xanadu) Last month, physicists at Toronto-based startup Xanadu published a curious experiment in Nature in which they generated seemingly random numbers. During the pandemic, they built a tabletop machine named Borealis, consisting of lasers, mirrors, and over a kilometer of optical fiber. Within Borealis, 216 beams of infrared light…
Monthly Archives: July 2022
Octa-glove has suckers and sensors. Virginia Tech An octopus’s sucker-loaded arm is handy for a multitude of things, especially for a creature with no fingers or opposable thumbs. These arms, which also contain their own mini-nervous systems, allow the cephalopod to quickly grasp and release objects both above and in water. Researchers at Virginia Tech…
Today, Sony introduced a new loyalty program called PlayStation Stars that will give gamers loyalty points and rewards. The program is free to join and launches later this year, the company announced. PlayStation Stars members can redeem points for PSN wallet funds, the payment method for game purchases and select PlayStation Store items. With the…
We’re exactly a week out from TC Sessions: Robotics 2022. I’ve been sitting in on prep calls for the past month, and I feel confident in saying this is going to be the best and widest-ranging single-day robotics event. I’ve been helping plan events for various outlets for close to 15 years at this point,…
Forethought has been on our radar for a long time — the company won our 2018 Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt, and just a few weeks ago, CEO Deon Nicholas joined Vanessa Larco from NEA on TechCrunch Live to talk about pitching and pitch decks: Today, it’s my pleasure to tear down the company’s 23-slide…
Stripe is the latest high-profile fintech company to take a massive valuation cut as the market downturn begins to hit the sector especially hard. Last valued at $95 billion, the payments processor has cut the internal value of its shares by 28%, sources told the Wall Street Journal. The Journal reports that the valuation cut…
For many, drone delivery has understandably felt like a fool’s errand. It’s a category clouded by regulator and logistical concerns, and one that’s often felt — at best — a long ways down the road. Wing has been among the leading lights in a space that’s seen its share of setbacks — including its chief…
Nuro, the autonomous vehicle delivery startup that is valued at more than $8.6 billion, is closing down its Phoenix facility as it shifts its commercial strategy away from the desert metropolis and towards the San Francisco Bay Area and Houston. Nuro told employees that the Phoenix Depot location would be closed by October 1, according…
Image Credits: TechCrunch Everyone’s favorite 2020 meme stock is back in the news, and this time it’s flexing on crypto industry incumbent Coinbase. GameStop, which largely operates brick-and-mortar retail stores for video games, made a foray into the metaverse with its launch of an NFT marketplace this week. In just two days of being live,…
Vietnamese EV maker VinFast said Thursday it received $1.2 billion in incentives to build a factory in North Carolina. The incentive package represents the state’s largest-ever economic development project and its aspirations to build North Carolina into a hub for the clean energy economy. Construction on the 2,000-acre site at the Triangle Innovation Point in Chatham County,…