Valves play a critical role in the spacecraft’s architecture, regulating the flow of pressurents like helium and propellants.
“There’s a thousand different ways you can make a valve unhappy,” said Jake Teufert, CTO of Benchmark Space Systems, a Vermont-based startup developing propulsion systems for spacecraft.
Valves must also have ultra-low leakage requirements; Teufert said that some valves have allowable leakage rates equivalent to leaking only one gram of helium over the course of 200 years.
Engineers run spacecraft through a host of tests on the ground, but the flight environment can only be matched to an extent, Teufert explained.
But adding two valves (or any additional subcomponents) can create whole new failure modes that you would never have with one valve.
The race to perfect the humanoid form factor will be one of 2024’s defining tech stories.
1X is a name (well, a number and letter) that surprisingly doesn’t get as much column space as most of the above.
That underlying technology will almost certainly play an outsized role in shaping robotics’ future, and OpenAI has seemingly picked its horse.
The humanoid robot strikes a similar figure (so to speak) as some of the competition.
The logic (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) is that humanoids are the ideal form factor for navigating environments built by humanoids for humanoids.
In some parts of the world (read: Japan, primarily), eldercare has been an important robotics focus for decades.
In Tel Aviv, meanwhile, Intuition Robotics has been promoting a “companion” robot since 2016 or so.
The latest version of the robot features design tweaks, more powerful hardware and — of course — generative AI integration.
The company is exploring other avenues with generative AI, as well here.
“One example is the ability to paint or write poems together, activities that contribute to cognitive wellness and creativity,” Intuition notes.
ABL Space Systems is looking to raise up to $100 million in new funding, and has just closed over $40 million, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
It’s the first indication that ABL has raised venture funding since October 2021, when the launch company closed $200 million at a $2.4 billion valuation.
Together, they’re meant to provide a mobile, all-in-one launch system.
However, the overall launch site layer represents a weak link.”Unsurprisingly, they argue that GS0 is the solution to this vulnerability, offering both a launch mount and a site system in a “proliferated” architecture.
“It was not in our plans to have RS1 grounded for most of 2023,” O’Hanley wrote after the launch.
When reached by email, LoanDepot spokesperson Jonathan Fine reiterated the company’s statement, but declined to comment further or say whether the company has received a ransom demand from the hackers.
LoanDepot says it assists more than 27,000 customers monthly.
A November ransomware attack on Fidelity National Financial, one of the largest insurance providers in the United States, knocked the company offline for more than a week.
In December, mortgage and loan company Mr. Cooper said hackers had stolen the personal data on more than 14 million customers during an earlier October cyberattack.
You can contact Zack Whittaker on Signal and WhatsApp at +1 646-755-8849, or by email.
Bangladesh thanked a security researcher for citizen data leak discoveryWhen a security researcher found that a Bangladeshi government website was leaking the personal information of its citizens, clearly something was amiss.
TechCrunch verified that the Bangladeshi government website was leaking data, but efforts to alert the government department were initially met with silence.
The data was so sensitive, TechCrunch could not say which government department was leaking the data, as this might expose the data further.
Florida’s Lee County took the heavy-handed (and self-owning) position of threatening the security researcher with Florida’s anti-hacking laws.
Several state CISOs and officials responsible for court records systems across the U.S. saw the disclosure as an opportunity to inspect their own court record systems for vulnerabilities.
Defense tech startup Shield AI has expanded its latest funding round with another $300 million in equity and debt, bringing its total Series F to $500 million, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
This total amount reflects $200 million in equity closed in November, $100 million in new equity raised at the Series F price, and $200 million in debt.
Shield AI is building an “AI pilot” to turn aircraft into autonomous systems.
“AI pilots are becoming a strategic conventional deterrent in class with our aircraft carriers andguided missile submarines,” he said in a statement.
“Adopt AI pilots too slow, and we will fail.
Headquartered roughly 20 miles north of Atlanta, in suburban Roswell, Georgia, GreyOrange was founded in 2011 – the year before Amazon’s Kiva deal shook the industry.
GreyOrange announced a $140 million Series C in 2018 and today announced that it has closed out a $135 million growth financing Series D. Anthelion Capital led the round, which also featured returning investments from Mithril, 3State Ventures and Blume Ventures.
Over the years, it has been working to build a full stack solution for warehouse, fulfillment and 3PL needs.
That includes Kiva-like AMRs (autonomous mobile robots), forklifts and bin systems for picking, coupled with its own first-party (“hardware-agnostic”) fleet management software.
CEO Akash Gupta noted that this round will – in part – go toward delivering systems to customers.
As AI applications continue to proliferate across industries, they hold the promise of revolutionizing customer experience, optimizing operational efficiency, and streamlining business processes.
In recent years, concerns about ethical, fair, and responsible AI deployment have gained prominence, highlighting the necessity for strategic oversight throughout the AI life cycle.
The rising tide of AI applications and ethical concernsThe proliferation of AI and ML applications has been a hallmark of recent technological advancement.
AI governance has emerged as the cornerstone for responsible and trustworthy AI adoption.
Strong ethical and risk-management frameworks are essential for navigating the complex landscape of AI applications.
Database management giant MongoDB says it’s investigating a security incident that has resulted in the exposure of some information about customers.
In an update published on Sunday, MongoDB said does not believe hackers accessed any customer data stored in MongoDB Atlas, the company’s hosted database offering.
For one customer, this included system logs, MongoDB said.
System logs can include information about the running of a database or its underlying system.
MongoDB declined to say how many customers may be affected by the compromise of its corporate systems.
