Murena, a French startup that sells “de-Googled” smartphones replete with its own flavor of Android, is launching an own-brand mobile network as it throws its hat into the fast-growing mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) ring.
Murena Mobile, as the new service is called, is built atop T-Mobile and is available to U.S. customers only.
With Murena Mobile now thrown into the mix, it has another recurring revenue stream to lean on.
Additionally, customers can’t actually sign up for a Murena Mobile plan at the same time as buying one of its eSIM-supported devices — they have to complete that transaction separately.
“In the future, we could think about a complete package with phone, cloud plan and a mobile plan all combined in a monthly subscription.”
For the second week in a row, we have lunar lander news to report on.
Story of the weekHow could the story of the week be anything other than SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon), the Japanese lunar lander that touched down on the moon on Friday?
But even with the issue, the mission achieved a huge portion of its goal, which was to demonstrate a soft lunar landing using optical navigation technology.
Launch highlightsWe saw our first crewed mission this year – but even more notably, it was a completely private mission (as in not a NASA astronaut mission).
Axiom Space launched its third mission with launch partner SpaceX on Thursday, with the crew successfully docking with the International Space Station at 5:42 AM EST on Saturday, January 20.
Welcome, folks, to TechCrunch Week in Review (WiR), a digest of the past few days in tech happenings.
As I write this, snow’s gracing New York City — an increasingly rare treat thanks to our changing climate.
Notion launches a calendar app: Notion, the incredibly popular note-taking and project management service, has launched a stand-alone calendar service.
AnalysisCES chases off sex tech: Despite being an industry that caters to a universal human experience, sex tech has always had an uneasy association with CES, Haje writes.
And this year, the conference effectively managed to chase the sex tech industry off its show floors — for better or worse.
The ousted founder of bankrupt EV startup Lordstown Motors has launched a new company called LandX Motors, that prominently displays the same electric pickup truck he once promised would beat Tesla, Ford and General Motors to market.
While LandX Motors doesn’t explicitly refer to the trucks as the Endurance, a video on the website shows EV trucks that have the Lordstown badge.
A LandX Motors spokesperson responded to an email, but didn’t provide any further information and declined to answer questions.
He founded Lordstown Motors in 2019 after leaving a different struggling EV startup, Workhorse.
Of the 16 employees who list LandX Motors as their employer on LinkedIn, 13 of them used to work at Lordstown Motors.
Now it’s building out its suite of AI products with the launch of its AI assistant CoPilot.
PatSnap CEO and co-founder Jeffrey Tiong tells TechCrunch that PatSnap exists to remove friction in the innovation process for its customers, both within IP and R&D teams, and between them.
IP teams can use PatSnap’s AI tools to analyze their markets and protect inventions at scale, says Tiong.
What CoPilot does is build further onto PatSnap’s AI products.
It enables IP and R&D teams to find what they need more quickly within patents, non-patent literature and technical news.
D-Orbit, an Italian startup that provides an array of logistics services for companies operating satellites and other services in space, has raised €100 million ($110 million) in a Series C round of equity funding.
The Milan-based company said another $50 million will be added to the Series C in the first half of this year.
D-Orbit today provides last-mile satellite delivery and related logistics services, mission control as a service to manage already-launched spacecraft and hardware, and space waste management services, all aimed at launches that are orbiting the Earth.
Others in the area of space services include Planet Labs, Privateer, Zenno Astronautics, Astroscale, and a variety of others just getting started.
“D-Orbit represents an excellence that in these years has positioned itself as a category leader in the in-orbit transportation segment globally, becoming the first B-Corp certified space company in the world.”
Getty Images, the stock media company, announced a new service this week at CES 2024 that leverages AI models trained on Getty’s iStock stock photography and video libraries to generate new licensable images and artwork.
The launch of Generative AI by iStock — Getty’s second gen AI tool — comes as the copyright debate over AI heats up.
Some companies developing gen AI apps argue that they’re protected by fair use doctrine, at least in the U.S.
Generative AI by iStock has a policy along those lines, too — presumably as a last resort of sort.
Any licensed visual that a Generative AI by iStock customer generates comes with $10,000 in legal coverage, Getty says.
Today, the company unveiled its new generation of GPS device, Tack GPS Plus, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024.
The company claims Tack GPS Plus reduces search time in high-rise cities by offering vertical distance and geographical coordinates.
The Tack GPS Plus can be widely used by parents, caregivers, pet owners, and more.
Tack GPS Plus follows the company’s second product, a palm-sized autonomous flood-detection device called Tack EVO FloodFinder.
Tack GPS Plus is now available on the company’s official website and will then be sold on Amazon, Lazada, and Shopee around mid-January.
All eyes are on United Launch Alliance and Pittsburgh-based startup Astrobotic this week, with the two companies gearing up for inaugural missions with huge stakes.
The launch features two firsts: the first flight of ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket, and the first time Astrobotic is attempting to put hardware on the moon.
If Astrobotic is successful, it would be the first time a private company has put a spacecraft on the moon.
Countdown Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on hard tech industrial startups, will shut down by the end of March and return uninvested capital, firm founder and solo general partner Jai Malik said in an annual letter.
In addition to the ULA/Astrobotic launch mentioned above, this past week also saw the launch of the first six Starlink satellites equipped for direct-to-cell connectivity.
SpaceX launched its first batch of Starlink satellites that will be able to connect directly to cell phones ahead of planned testing later this year.
The company launched six Starlink satellites with this capability with a batch of 15 other Starlink birds aboard a Falcon 9 rocket late last night.
SpaceX obtained approval from U.S. regulators last month to test the satellites in partnership with T-Mobile.
SpaceX has a number of other partnerships with native telecom companies in countries including Australia, Canada and Japan.
SpaceX said the tests would eventually involve 840 satellites transmitting 4G connectivity to around 2,000 unmodified smartphones.
