~the-next-web | Bookmarks (170)

Spain-based Iberdola has secured an environmental license from the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) to build a photovoltaic plant in Santiago do Cacém in Portugal. The company claims that it’s set to be Europe’s biggest solar farm and the fifth largest in the world. The solar farm, named after the poet Fernando Pessoa, will start operation in 2025 and will have an installed capacity of...

An EV that cleans the air while driving might seem like a pipe dream , but a student team based at the Eindhoven University of Technology has made it reality. TU/ecomotive — as the team is called — has been creating inspiring, environmentally conscious concept cars for over a decade now. Among the concept vehicles presented by the students, last year’s Zem — which...

The Netherlands-based Eleo is on a mission to accelerate the transition to a fossil-free future. How? Well, by providing high-tech batteries to the machines and vehicles most difficult to electrify. These mainly include industrial, off-highway machines in the construction, agricultural, and forestry sectors — but also cover electric mobility, ranging from cargo and last-mile delivery vehicles to vessels. Eleo started out as a student...

A “metal sock” in the ground stuffed full of hydrogen. Vats of scorching sand. Huge weights moving very, very slowly up and down old mineshafts. Is this the future of energy? This menagerie of strange machines and heat-retaining vessels is poised to emerge across Europe as the continent seeks ways of storing the surplus energy produced by renewables. The UK, for example, wasted half...

Whether you suddenly find yourself out of a job, courtesy of the recent wave of tech layoffs sweeping through the sector, or feel like you’ve outgrown your current position and are looking for a new challenge, firing off a generic CV and hoping for the best isn’t going to cut it. In fact, according to online resume builder Zety, only 10% of job applications...

Tyre wear is a major contributor to polluting microplastics — small particles which don’t biodegrade and tend to accumulate in the environment, leaking harmful toxins into the air and our waterways. And although there’s no respective EU regulation yet, a London-based startup has developed a device that can capture these particles. The Tyre Collective started out as a master’s project by three former students...

This story is syndicated from the premium edition of PreSeed Now, a newsletter that digs into the product, market, and founder story of UK-founded startups so you can understand how they fit into what’s happening in the wider world and startup ecosystem. The reignited excitement around the potential of AI as we hurtle into 2023 brings with it concerns about how best to process...

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. Quiet quitting is a brand-new form of approaching the work-life balance. Contrary to what its name might suggest, quiet quitting doesn’t actually involve an official...

We might think that the conception of robots, AI, and automated machines is a modern phenomenon, but, in fact, the idea had already appeared in Western literature nearly 3,000 years ago. Long before Isaac Asimov conceived the Laws of Robotics (1942) and John McCarthy coined the term “Artificial Intelligence” (1995), Ancient Greeks myths were full of stories about intelligent humanoids. The fact that these...

Twitter has fallen out with yet another landlord: King Charles III. The Crown Estate, which manages the British monarch’s vast property portfolio, has sued Twitter over unpaid rent for office space in London. The complaint was filed last week at the High Court in Britain’s capital. The case joins a range of wranglings over rent engulfing Twitter. In December, the company had reportedly not...

French startup Eolink — in collaboration with 15 European energy partners — will install a 5MW floating offshore wind turbine in Bulgaria by 2025. This is part of the EU-backed Black Sea Floating Offshore Wind (BLOW) project, which aims to advance sustainable energy solutions. BLOW will use Eolink’s patented floating offshore wind turbine design, which the company claims solves existing industry issues by using...

By 2027, Europe has the potential to fully rely on domestic production of battery cells, meeting its EV and energy storage demands without any Chinese imports. That’s according to the latest forecast by Transport & Environment (T&E), a campaign group, which analyzed a range of manufacturer reports and press releases. The European NGO further estimates that, in 2030, the companies with the largest battery...

For tech startups, the most valuable assets are often invisible.  While businesses were traditionally built on physical resources, the contemporary economy is increasingly driven by intangibles. The chip firm Arm, for instance, earned a $40 billion valuation and a reputation as the UK’s leading tech company — despite never manufacturing a single chip. Instead, the company designs the processor architecture that’s used in countless...

Netherlands-based solar EV maker Lightyear has announced that it’s freezing production of its flagship model, the Lightyear 0 — less than three months after going into production. As part of a “strategic restructuring,” the company will now focus on making the Lightyear 2, priced at around €40,000. This is expected to go into production in late 2025. The company’s journey has been a long...

The road to TNW Conference 2023 has started! With only five months to go until Europe’s leading tech festival, TNW is touring several up-and-coming tech hubs across the Netherlands to uncover the best of Dutch tech ahead of its the flagship conference in June. First stop? Groningen. On Thursday, TNW’s event took place during the MXT 2023, in collaboration with Founded in Groningen and...

E-scooters in Paris have become a flashpoint for the industry in Europe and the city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, is going to put the question to the people. As reported by France 24, Hidalgo will allow Parisians to decide whether to allow e-scooter rentals to continue. The vote — expected to take place in April — means the three companies that operate in Paris will be...

Tech is notorious for its bountiful and fun perks: think nap pods, or free food including catered meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as open access to healthy snacks. On-site gyms too, are a frequent perk as are endless branded swag gifts—that Patagonia fleece vest being a strong contender among male finance and tech workers. Throw in some arcade games, ping-pong tables,...

Wolfspeed — a US-based silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor maker — is set to build a chip factory in Germany, Handelsblatt reports. That’s a significant step for both the country’s green mobility and Europe’s chip industry. According to the newspaper, the over €2 billion-worth facility will be located at a site in southwest Saarland. Series production is expected to begin in four years. German auto...

From steam power and electricity to computers and the internet, technological advancements have always disrupted labor markets, pushing out some careers while creating others. Artificial intelligence remains something of a misnomer — the smartest computer systems still don’t actually know anything — but the technology has reached an inflection point where it’s poised to affect new classes of jobs: artists and knowledge workers. Specifically,...

Threats of jail tech bosses over “harmful content” will endanger the UK’s tech sector and civil rights, campaigners have warned. The penalty has been added to the British government’s Online Safety Bill. Under new amendments to the legislation, senior managers at internet platforms could be jailed for failing to protect children from online harm. The revisions also mandate the removal of videos depicting illegal...

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, the EU Commission head Ursula von der Leyen stressed the bloc’s need to boost its clean tech industry and increase its competitiveness against the US and China– amidst increasing trade tensions with both nations. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the market for mass-manufactured clean energy tech will be worth around $650 billion a year by...

Picture this: a state-of-the-art community workspace within walking distance from home. A space you share with people not because you’re employed by the same company, but because of proximity. A professional atmosphere, but no office politics. Connection, wellness, and professional development are fostered through yoga classes, mentoring schemes and evening events, and an on-site daycare center supports parents of young children. The space is...

An Italian company has unveiled a novel method of measuring AI progress: analyzing improvements in machine translation. Translated, a provider of translation services, used the approach to predict when we will achieve singularity, a vague concept often defined as the point where machines become smarter than humans. The Rome-based business sets this milestone at the moment when AI provides “a perfect translation.” According to...

The EU-funded Smart European Shipbuilding (SEUS) project launched this month, aiming to improve the shipbuilding process via computational tools. The launch arrives as the maritime industry’s increasingly embraces digitization and automation, facilitated by rapid advancements in data science and software development. SEUS is backed by a consortium of eight organizations from five European countries, representing different technologies and parts of the design and shipbuilding...