~the-next-web | Bookmarks (152)

For nearly two decades, TNW Conference has been a launchpad for the next big things in tech. The likes of Slack, Wise, Bolt, and Trello all made their mark on our stage before becoming global brands. Visionary leaders from Google, Meta, and Reddit have joined them to share the strategies behind their success, while star speakers Edward Snowden, will.i.am, and Lila Ibrahim have explored...

When the modern-day internet began emerging in the early 2000s, finding hosting services and resources to run the new wave of dynamic web applications was hard. You needed a database to store application data. These were slow, expensive, and unreliable, regularly bringing applications to a grinding halt when a single instance failed. You needed a server to run interpreted languages like PHP, Python, or...

Renewed calls for Google to sell Chrome have reignited demands for the company to also divest Android. An executive at Murena, a French smartphone startup, said today that breaking up the businesses is the only way to end Google’s “cycle of domination”. The appeal follows a Friday court filing from the US Department of Justice (DOJ). The filing reaffirmed a proposal for Google to...

With their heavy battery packs, EVs are hardly known for being lightweight. That is, perhaps, until now.  British startup Longbow — founded by former Tesla, Lucid, and Polestar execs — emerged from stealth today with plans for two new ultralight EVs. The company bills the cars as “spiritual successors” to the iconic Lotus Elise and Jaguar E-Type. The first of the pair is Speedster, a...

French satellite operator Eutelsat was thrust into the spotlight last week as a potential replacement for Elon Musk’s Starlink in Ukraine — and potentially, broader Europe.  Eva Berneke, Eutelsat’s CEO, said the company was in advanced discussions with the EU about expanding its internet service in Ukraine. She also said Eutelsat was in “very positive talks” with Italy to provide an encrypted communications service...

Social media platform X was hit by a series of outages yesterday in what its owner Elon Musk has called a “massive cyberattack” stemming from Ukraine. Analysts believe the disruption was caused by botnets — but finding the culprits will be a tall order.   The outages began at around 14:00 CET and lasted for most of the afternoon, trailing off at around 18:00,...

EU governments are in talks with four European satellite firms about providing a back-up service for Starlink in Ukraine, as the region pushes to boost tech sovereignty amid mounting transatlantic tensions.  Starlink has provided a vital communications system to Ukraine’s military since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. It allows the armed forces to coordinate drone strikes, identify targets, and stream battlefield data to...

Edge Impulse, a TNW community member that produces an AI platform for developers, has been acquired by American chip giant Qualcomm for an undisclosed sum.  Qualcomm said it had bought Edge Impulse to boost its machine learning software capabilities, particularly for its Dragonwing line of AI-powered chips.  Nakul Duggal, Qualcomm’s head of IoT, said the acquisition would strengthen his firm’s “leadership in AI” and...

Elon Musk’s allegiance to Trump is once again stirring up controversy — this time over Starlink. The satellite internet provider, owned by Musk’s firm SpaceX, has become embroiled in a hot debate among Italian politicians, as Rome weighs its strategic alliances amid mounting tensions between Europe and the US. Italy’s right-wing League party is pushing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government to choose Starlink to...

AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or DeepSeek have radically disrupted the way we access and generate information. However, these systems are general — they are jacks of all trades but masters of none.  Increasingly, though, scientists are training AI to solve very specific problems and fast-track everything from creating new drugs to designing fusion reactors. One area where they’re gaining traction is enhanced material...

Interplanetary travel might be about to get a whole lot faster — and hotter.  UK startup Pulsar Fusion today unveiled “Sunbird,” a nuclear fusion-powered rocket concept that could halve the time it takes to travel across our solar system — and, maybe, beyond it.  Machine learning models show the rocket could potentially propel a spacecraft with a mass of about 1,000kg (2,200lb) to Pluto...

Europe’s space launch industry reopened for business today when the Ariane 6 heavy rocket lifted off at 17:24 CET from a spaceport in French Guiana. Originally scheduled for December, the Ariane 6 mission was delayed first to February 26 and subsequently to March 3 due to issues in transporting the satellite to the launchpad. However, just minutes before Monday’s launch, engineers identified an “anomaly” in...

As Elon Musk was saluting Donald Trump in the US Congress yesterday, the South African’s divisive politics were opening new doors to his business rivals in Europe. Musk’s role in the White House had already been linked to Tesla sales and stock tanking. Now, the repercussions appear to have spread to SpaceX. The fallout centres on the company’s Starlink satellite internet service. The network...

Hospitality scaleup Mews, based at TNW City in Amsterdam, has secured $75mn in its third major cash injection of the last year. The round follows a raise of $100M in credit financing in September and a $110mn equity round in March 2024 — when the startup became a unicorn. In total, Mews has bagged over $500mn to date, making it one of the Netherlands’...

Fintech startup Cino, a TNW community member, has secured €3.5mn for its shared payments app that lets friends and family pay together.  Cino is designed for tech-savvy Gen Z’ers, who expect to split bills instantly and effortlessly together without “financial awkwardness,” the company said. Unlike payment request apps like Tikkie — ubiquitous in the Netherlands — Cino splits bills in real-time, so you don’t have...

The obscure world of quantum computing is emerging from the lab and into the public domain — fuelled by Big Tech’s recent progress in quantum processors. In the past few months alone, Google launched a chip called Willow, Microsoft unveiled Majorana, and this week, Amazon revealed Ocelot.  While tech giants are making great strides, these companies are still working in dozens of qubits —...

Opera has previewed a new AI agent feature that promises to complete online tasks on your behalf, based on simple, written prompts.  Want to book a flight but don’t want to spend ages comparing prices? Tell the bot your preferred flight times, seats, and budget and it’ll get to work in the background, letting you carry on with whatever it was you were doing....

British autonomous driving startup Wayve is set to establish a testing and development hub in Germany as it prepares to deploy self-driving vehicles in Europe’s largest automotive market.  Wayve’s new hub will be built near Stuttgart, home to big name car brands including Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Audi. Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve, called it the “perfect place” for the company to accelerate...

Germany’s armed forces have commissioned Bremen-based startup Polaris to develop a two-stage, fully reusable hypersonic space plane — and given the team just three years to build it.  Dubbed Aurora, the 28-metre-long aircraft will be part rocket, part plane — designed to take off and land on a runway but also blast through the atmosphere and place payloads up to 1-ton in low-Earth orbit. ...

For decades, European tech insiders have looked across the Atlantic with a mix of admiration and frustration. Casting envious eyes on the deep-pocketed VCs, an enormous consumer market, and a pipeline of elite talent, they often view the US as a promised land for business growth. The sentiment fuels calls for Europe to replicate Silicon Valley’s model. But Vidya Peters, CEO of Dutch unicorn DataSnipper,...

Gene-edited pig livers, synthetic embryos, and 3D-printed tissue implants… the world of organ transplantation is becoming increasingly bizarre as scientists explore high-tech ways to keep people alive.  These experiments are birthing new business opportunities. One company cashing in is University of Oxford spinout OrganOx, which this week secured $142mn in funding to fuel its expansion in the US as it mulls a potential IPO.    ...

Most of us share and store huge amounts of personal data online, from our names and addresses to photos of our loved ones. In many ways, firms like Apple, Google, and Meta are the gatekeepers of this sensitive information. But what happens when the authorities come knocking? It appears that Silicon Valley often rolls over and complies.  Over the last 10 years, Apple, Google,...

German startup Proxima Fusion — whose team includes engineers from MIT, Google, SpaceX, and McLaren — has unveiled a fusion energy reactor design it believes offers the quickest route to commercially viable fusion power. Dubbed Stellaris, the machine is a quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellarator with high-temperature superconducting (HTS). This type of reactor uses complex, twisted magnetic fields to confine hot plasma, creating the conditions needed...

As the US and China pursue dominance in the global technology race, concerns are mounting among European founders that the region’s entrenched bureaucracy is impeding its capacity for innovation and growth. The EU is going “overboard on tech regulation,” said Job van der Voort, CEO and founder of Remote, an HR tech company valued at over $3bn. “It’s stifling innovation and it’s a massive...