NASA injects $17M into four small companies with Artemis ambitions

NASA awards millions of dollars a year to small businesses through the SBIR program, but generally it’s a lot of small awards to hundreds of companies. Breaking with precedent, today the agency announced a new multi-million-dollar funding track and its four first recipients, addressing urgent needs for the Artemis program. The Small Business Innovation...

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Facebook and Instagram boot close Trump ally Roger Stone for network of fake accounts

Facebook released its latest report detailing disinformation campaigns operating on its massive social network Wednesday and this one came with a few surprises. In the new report, Facebook disclosed that it had removed a network accounts linked to close Trump ally and former campaign advisor Roger Stone for “inauthentic” activity and coordinated fake...

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Garry Kasparov on AI: ‘People always called me an optimist’

Garry Kasparov is a political activist who’s written books and articles on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and online privacy, but he’s best known for being the former World Chess Champion who took on the IBM computer known as Big Blue in the mid-1990s. I spoke to Kasparov before a speaking engagement at the Collision Conference last month...

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Strive School wants to increase the number of job-ready software engineers in Europe

College in the United States is expensive and, for many, comes with massive student debt. The price tag has led to the increase of coding bootcamps and alternative schooling options to help students gain employment, and a salary, without taking on millions of dollars in debt. In Europe, the picture looks vastly different: A majority of universities...

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Raising $22.5 million, Liftit looks to expand its logistics services in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Ecuador

The Colombian trucking and logistics services startup Liftit has raised $22.5 million in a new round of funding to capitalize on its newfound traction in markets across Latin America as responses to the COVID-19 epidemic bring changes to the industry across the region. “We’re focusing on the five countries that we’re already in,” says Liftit chief...

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Colvin raises $15M to rethink the flower supply chain

At first glance, Colvin — which recently announced that it has raised a $15 million Series B — might look like just another flower and plant delivery company, but co-founder and CEO Andres Cester said the startup has a much grander vision. “We were born with the ambition the company that would redesign global flower trade,” he said. Apparently, when...

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Mercedes opts for more screens and fewer buttons in the 2021 S-Class

Teaser images and leaked photos of the 2021 Mercedes-Benz S-Class suggested the automaker was moving towards a more digital-centric interior. That might have been an understatement. Mercedes-Benz revealed Monday its second-generation MBUX infotainment system and it is loaded with new technology, including touchscreens, augmented reality head-up display...

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In pandemic era, entrepreneurs turn to SPACs, crowdfunding and direct listings

If necessity is the mother of invention, then new business owners are getting very inventive in the ways in which they access cash. Relying on some long-tested and some new avenues to raise money, entrepreneurs are finding more ways to get public market cash faster than they would have in the past. Whether it’s from Reg A crowdfunding dollars, Special...

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PQShield raises $7M for quantum-ready cryptographic security solutions

A deep tech startup building cryptographic solutions to secure hardware, software, and communications systems for a future when quantum computers may render many current cybersecurity approaches useless is today emerging out of stealth mode with $7 million in funding and a mission to make cryptographic security something that cannot be hackable, even...

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Amazon U.S. sellers will have to display their name and address starting Sept. 1, 2020

Amazon on Wednesday informed its U.S. sellers they will soon have to display their business name and address on their Amazon.com seller profile page. For individual sellers, this will include the individual’s name and address. A similar system is already in place across Amazon’s stores in Europe, Japan, and Mexico, due to local laws. Amazon says it’s...

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