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European contributions might have been a little late to join the generative AI investment party, but that does not mean they will not end up rivalling some of the earlier North American frontrunners. According to people familiar with the matter, Mistral AI, the French genAI seed-funding sensation, is just about to conclude the raising of about €450mn from investors.  Unlike Germany’s Aleph Alpha who...

We have all seen the gloomy headlines over the past week. VC funding for European tech startups will have dropped by a whopping $45bn in 2023. However, some sectors, such as build world climate tech are faring… less horribly than others.  Specifically, a new report by sustainability investor A/O released today has found that despite the global downturn, climate tech is attracting as much...

In a hiring freeze that CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski attributes to the rise of AI, Swedish fintech unicorn Klarna is no longer recruiting staff beyond its engineering department. “There will be a shrinking of the company,” Siemiatkowski told the Telegraph. “We’re not currently hiring at all, apart from engineers.” The chief exec of the buy now, pay later app said that the productivity gains from...

With COP28 underway in Dubai making it again glaringly obvious just how little lawmakers are prepared to bend for the sake of future generations of Earthlings, the release of the first “green filter” generative AI search chatbot could not have been more timely.  Berlin-based Ecosia, the world’s largest not-for-profit search engine, hopes the launch of its new product will assist users in making better...

Renewable energies like wind and solar are clean, abundant, and cheap — but notoriously unpredictable. That’s why so much time and money has been pumped into scaling energy storage solutions: we need to keep the lights on even when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining. While lithium-ion batteries have received the bulk of this investment, there’s another kid on the block...

The eastern bluebird isn’t simply beautiful to look at. Its feathers also feature a unique structure that could revolutionise sustainable applications such as batteries and water filtration. Specifically, the brilliant blue of the bird’s wings isn’t the result of colour pigmentation. Instead, it’s due to a network of channels with a diameter of a few hundred nanometres, traversing the feathers. This network structure inspired...

The European Space Agency’s Ariane 6 rocket is scheduled for its debut launch in mid-2024, its director Josef Aschbacher announced yesterday. The news follows a successful hot-fire test on November 23 at Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana. The term ‘hot-fire’ refers to the fact that the engine is fired with its propellants, producing actual combustion and exhaust. The only difference from an actual launch...

TikTok has promised to invest €12bn as part of an ongoing push to appease European regulators, who have raised suspicions that the app’s user data is being monitored by the Chinese government. In response to repeated allegations of this nature, the short-form video app launched Project Clover in March. While it might sound like a secret military sting operation, the programme is pretty mundane. ...

A year has passed since OpenAI unleashed ChatGPT on the world and popularised terms like foundational model, LLM, and GenAI. However, the promised benefits of generative AI technology are still much more likely to be derived by those who speak English, over other languages.  There are over 7,000 languages in the world. Yet, most large language models (LLMs) work far more effectively in English....

From bringing ancient ruins to life through augmented reality (AR) to 3D-printing centuries-old artefacts, cultural heritage startups are transforming the landscape of heritage preservation and education. By leveraging technology to foster a deeper connection with our past, this breed of companies help safeguard some of the most defining elements of human history. TNW spoke with three innovative startups in the space to find out...

This article was originally published on .cult by Tharaka Romesh. .cult is a Berlin-based community platform for developers. We write about all things career-related, make original documentaries, and share heaps of other untold developer stories from around the world. Next.js is a flexible React framework that plays an exciting role in today’s fast-paced web development world. Its importance in the evolving landscape of web...

Starting early next year, commuters in London will be able to hail the capital’s iconic black cabs via Uber, the American ride-hailing giant has announced.   London’s black taxi drivers — famous for their uncanny knowledge of the city’s thousands of streets — have long been at odds with Uber, who they say threatens their livelihoods. Frustrated drivers even blocked London streets in 2014 in...

This article was originally published on .cult by Luis Minvielle. .cult is a Berlin-based community platform for developers. We write about all things career-related, make original documentaries, and share heaps of other untold developer stories from around the world. Developers who finally land a job doing what they love — coding — frequently face a brain-teaser: Coding for a living is fantastic, indeed, but...

Google DeepMind researchers have trained a deep learning model to predict the structure of over 2.2 million crystalline materials — 45 times more than the number discovered in the entire history of science. Of the two million-plus new materials, some 381,000 are thought to be stable, meaning they wouldn’t decompose — an essential characteristic for engineering purposes. These new materials have the potential to...

My ancient Samsung Galaxy is ready for retirement. Cracks expand across the screen, photos are hazy blurs, and the battery barely survives a day. It’s time to buy a replacement. The initial contenders for my cash were the usual mix: Androids and iPhones with old names, incremental upgrades, and eye-watering price tags. While mulling over the options, a serendipitous email arrived in my inbox....

A European spacecraft has revealed the secrets of a star system that has puzzled researchers for years. The rare six sextuplet of planets was found thanks to data collected by Cheops — the CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite. Cheops is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to study known exoplanets, which are any planets beyond our solar system. Its latest discovery emerged from confusion surrounding a...

In today’s job market, where highly skilled workers are scarce and specialized skills are in high demand, employers are facing the challenge of filling job positions. This situation has sparked intense competition — often referred to as the “war for talent” — among companies to attract and keep the best employees. To stand out in this battle for new talent, organizations have to appeal...

The world’s first transatlantic flight with 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has been attacked as “greenwashing” by critics. The Tuesday trip from London to New York on a Vrigin Atlantic 787 has been celebrated by airlines and politicians as a “milestone” in the journey to net zero. Scientists and climate campaigners, however, have poured scorn on these claims. Opinions are divided over the potential...

Hailing from South Africa, I like to think of myself as a bit of a barbecue virtuoso. Come rain or shine, most weekends I’ll be out in my backyard, tongs in hand, manning the grill like a meat-addicted maniac (guilty as charged).  So when someone suggested I try the world’s first plant-based ribs, adorned with edible vegan bones, you can imagine I was more...

European tech is starting to bounce back — and AI is turbocharging the recovery. The continent is now home to more highly skilled professionals in the field than the US, according to new research by Atomico, a VC firm headquartered in the UK. This overtaking follows a decade of rapid progress. Over the past 10 years, the number of people working in artificial intelligence...

Among the barriers European tech has to overcome, gender diversity is undoubtedly a pressing one. The numbers are telling. So far in 2023, female-founded startups have raised less than 2% of the total VC capital in Europe. A new study by global early-stage VC firm Antler shows that, unsurprisingly, female founders have to routinely deal with gender bias. Antler surveyed founders based in Germany,...

It has been nearly a year since OpenAI unleashed ChatGPT on the world, and it seems as if no one (at least in tech) has stopped talking about generative AI since. Meanwhile, the applications of GenAI go way beyond chatbots and copyright-grey-area image ‘artistry’.  For instance, Cradle, a biotech software startup out of Delft, Netherlands, is using it to help biologists engineer improved proteins,...

Finnish startup Varjo has unveiled a new XR headset range that promises mixed reality that’s “indistinguishable from natural sight.” Named the XR-4 series, the devices merge several features that mimic the function of the human eye. They include high-resolution displays, advanced LiDAR depth sensors, foveated capture streams, and camera sensors.  Varjo (pronounced “var-yo”) is squarely targeting the tech at enterprise customers. The company says its...

Say the application that has not been attributed to generative AI by now. Anything from your virtual boyfriend/girlfriend to vaccines and the energy transition will apparently be solved by the tech currently sweeping the globe. PhysicsX, a UK-based startup “on a mission to reimagine simulation for science and engineering using AI,” wants to add advanced tech superpowers to the list. The company, with a...