Six years ago, I sat in the Google self-driving project’s Firefly vehicle — which I described, at the time, as a “little gumdrop on wheels” — and let it ferry me around a closed course in Mountain View, California. Little did I know that two of the people behind Firefly’s ability to see and perceive…
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Researchers at MIT and Caltech have created a nanoengineered material that could be tougher than the likes of kevlar or steel. Made of interconnected carbon “tetrakaidecahedrons,” the material absorbed the impact of microscopic bullets in spectacular fashion. The study, led by MIT’s Carlos Portela, aimed to find out whether nanoarchitected materials — that is, designed…
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The race among mobility startups to become profitable by controlling market share has produced a string of bad results for cities and the people living in the them. City officials and agencies learned from those early deployments of ride-hailing and shared scooter services and have since pushed back with new rules and tighter control over…
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There’s no doubt this past year has been a major watershed moment for the robotics industry. Warehouse and logistics have been a particular target for an automation push, as companies have worked to keep the lights on amidst stay at home orders and other labor shortages. MIT spinoff Pickle is one of the latest startups…
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A few weeks ago, we wrote about fintech Pilot raising a $100 million Series C that doubled the company’s valuation to $1.2 billion. Bezos Expeditions — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ personal investment fund — and Whale Rock Capital joined the round, adding $40 million to a $60 million raise led by Sequoia about one month…
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