Google Chat is rolling out instant voice meetings—similar to Slack’s Huddles—that let you quickly switch to a voice or video call from within a chat. Google is not giving the feature a new name, though, opting to call the feature “Huddles” as well. If you are in a Google Chat, you can quickly start a huddle by clicking on the drop-down menu next to the call icon and then selecting the “Start the huddle” option. The call will default to a voice call, but users can turn on video or share their screens, just like with Google Meet. The feature,…
Author: Olsi
Decarbonizing our economies in the race to fight climate change demands a wholesale overhauling of all sorts of production processes to make them as sustainable as possible. Greening chemicals, which are used as ingredients in all sorts of products, is where U.K. startup Deep Blue Biotech is putting its energies. The biotech startup founded in May 2023 is building a business around a photosynthesis-based form of biomanufacturing that will enable it to manufacture chemicals in a more environmentally friendly way than conventional production methods, such as refining fossil fuels. The startup also claims its method can achieve cost parity with…
Intentional phone usage is a tricky habit to develop. Operating systems like iOS and Android, along with social media networks like Instagram and TikTok, have built timers, nudges, and controls around the usage of the apps or the platform. But at times, you mindlessly unlock your phone as a force of habit to eventually do nothing or scroll timelines. To get rid of the habit, Ukrainian developer Yaroslav Neznaradko has built an Android app called Intenty, which nudges you to provide a reason or do an action like breathing or stretching every time you unlock the phone. Neznaradko started thinking about this problem in…
A venture capitalist, a recruiter from a big company, and a newly hired remote IT worker might not seem to have much in common, but all have been caught as imposters secretly working for the North Korean regime, according to security researchers. On Friday at Cyberwarcon, an annual conference in Washington, DC, focused on disruptive threats in cyberspace, security researchers offered their most up-to-date assessment of the threat from North Korea. The researchers warned of a sustained attempt by the country’s hackers to pose as prospective employees seeking work at multinational corporations, with the aim of earning money for the…
Want to keep up with what everyone’s talking about on alternative social media sites like Bluesky and Mastodon, but don’t have time to constantly scroll through their respective apps? A newly launched link aggregation service called Sill may be able to help. The service is similar to the older startup Nuzzel, which was ultimately acquired by Twitter as part of its deal for Scroll in 2021, then integrated into Twitter’s app. Popular with news junkies, Nuzzel helped users keep track of what everyone on Twitter was talking about, reading, and resharing that day. The feature lives on inside of Elon…
Rocket Lab set a new speed record for launch turnaround time, successfully executing two Electron missions in 24 hours. The company added in a statement that this is also the first time any launch operator has completed a mission from each hemisphere within that time frame. Rocket Lab, which was founded in New Zealand, maintains a launch pad there and at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in Virginia. The company has cited its ability to launch from pads in the U.S. and New Zealand as a competitive advantage; when the Virginia pad became operational in 2022, Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said…
Signaling strong investor confidence in the platform’s potential to revolutionize business commerce. The funding will enable Volta to enhance its technology and expand its market reach, positioning it as a key player in the evolving landscape of B2B e-commerce. Volta, a new startup with a team split between two headquarters in Milan and Paris, has secured a €6 million pre-seed round ($6.3 million) to develop a new vertical software-as-a-service platform focused on B2B sales. In more practical terms, the Volta team pitches its product as an equivalent to Shopify but focused on B2B transactions. While Shopify, the e-commerce giant that…
This funding will enable the company to enhance its platform, providing medical writers with advanced tools and resources to efficiently manage the increasing volume of documentation required for emerging treatments. By streamlining the writing process, Biolevate aims to improve the quality and speed of regulatory submissions in the pharmaceutical industry. Writing the documentation that must go alongside the development of new drugs is a highly labor-intensive process: not much software is used, and there’s a shortage of expert writers. Paris-based Biolevate helps medical writers go faster with a platform that uses NLP and visual document reading to assist in writing.…
This significant investment aims to bolster the semiconductor supply chain in the United States, enhancing both economic growth and national security. By increasing domestic production capabilities, the initiative seeks to reduce reliance on foreign manufacturers and ensure a more resilient technology sector.The U.S. Department of Commerce confirmed on Tuesday it has awarded $7.865 billion to chip giant Intel under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, a federal statute signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022 to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing. The funding will go toward manufacturing and advanced packaging (techniques to assemble and integrate multiple semiconductor chips into…
Google has announced it’s making more changes to how it displays search results in the European Union in response to continued complaints that it’s failing to comply with the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). This will include what it bills as a “short test” of plain “blue link” style search results for hotel queries in three EU markets (Belgium, Estonia, and Germany), which will be akin — the company suggests — to how its search engine originally displayed results. The EU’s flagship market contestability reform carries hefty penalties for noncompliance of up to 10% of global annual turnover (or more…
