Locus Robotics’ success is a tale of focusing on what works CEO Rick Faulk discusses the company’s new software, the state of the industry and the future of humanoids“We’re fundamentally a software company,” Locus CEO Rick Faulk says with a laugh.
We look like a robot company, but we’re actually a software company.”It’s a familiar refrain from companies whose most public-facing products are hardware.
That’s certainly the case with Locus, which produces the best-known AMRs (autonomous mobile robots) not made by Amazon.
Former executives from the robotics startup launched their own Locus competitor, 6 River Systems.
Asked whether Locus will be the company to bring that technology to the warehouse, Faulk responds, “We will.
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Stell, a two-year-old software startup, is focused on this latter part of the engineering ecosystem.
The company has developed a tool for requirements management that allows teams to track, verify and validate requirements on complex projects.
She founded Stell in 2022 with Anne Wen, a professional with experience in venture capital and getting space startups off the ground.
They imagined something different: a tool that was truly useful and user-friendly, that cut down on paperwork, and that engineers would actually want to use.
People might not have time to go to a two-week training on how to use a tool,” McLemore said.
With its recently launched AI assistant, Bearer also bet on generative AI to suggest code fixes and explain vulnerabilities.
As Cycode co-founder and CEO Lior Levy told me, this acquisition now provides the company with all of the capabilities it needs to become a full-fledged application security platform.
“The missing part was a SAST tool that can be fast and connected easily to the Cycode platform.
And the Bearer team invested a lot in the brain of the SAST engine — not only the rules and stuff like that — but the engine itself.
Together, we’re set to continue redefining the standards of the complete approach to application security posture management.”
Australian remote sensing startup Esper wants to capture hyperspectral imagery from space at a fraction of the price of its competitors.
Armed with just $1 million in pre-seed funding and assistance from the Australian government in their first mission, Esper is aiming to beat out its better-capitalized peers with lower-cost tech.
That’s what really separates us from all the other spectrometers and hyperspectral hardware that’s being put up there,” Esper CEO and co-founder Shoaib Iqbal said.
There’s a lot of software that really comes into play to make sure it works that way.
Esper is planning on launching a second demonstrator satellite with identical hardware later this spring with India’s ISRO.
It’s no surprise that after ten years, Parachute, the home lifestyle brand, stands as the dust settles from the direct-to-consumer boom.
Founded by Ariel Kaye in 2012, Parachute has developed a loyal customer base because of its high-quality bedding, towels, and robes.
Naturally, TechCrunch wanted to see what it has been like managing the DTC boom these past few years and brought Kaye onto our podcast Found to chat about it.
“From the moment we launched, we just kept hearing, ‘I’ve been waiting for a brand like this,” she told us.
She learned to manage logistics, hire a team, and find a network of other entrepreneurs who could support her during the highs and lows of — wait for it — being a solo founder.
If you hurry, you can get $40,000 off a 2023 Toyota Mirai, a fuel-cell vehicle which retails for $52,000.
Toyota’s discount comes on the heels of Shell’s announcement three weeks ago that it’s closing its hydrogen filling stations in California.
Of those that remain, about a quarter are offline, according to the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership.
So why are Toyota and Honda (and Hyundai and others) still so bullish on hydrogen?
If today’s hydrogen startups succeed, and if they’re able to build enough capacity to satiate industrial and shipping demand, then it might make sense to start selling fuel-cell vehicles to the masses.
The London-based phone company’s media push largely relies on trickling out information about devices bit by bit.
Nothing Phone (2a) certainly fits the bill.
While it’s actually the company’s third handset, it’s the aimed squarely at a different demographic than the flagship Phone (1) and Phone (2).
After various teases and a handful of official image releases, the Phone (2a) finally saw the light of day (well, the warm glow of a Barcelona night) at MWC 2024.
Phone (2a) keeps the Phone (2)’s dual-camera set up, though it’s been moved to the center.
Something I’ve always admired about Lenovo is the way the Chinese tech giant really lets its freak flag fly.
In fact, visiting the company’s booth nestled in the way, way back of Hall 3 has long been a highlight of MWC for me.
This year’s big scrum gatherer was Lenovo’s long-rumored transparent laptop.
Broadly speaking, it looks like a laptop, with a transparent pane where the screen should be.
Lenovo loves making weird tech for weird tech’s sake, and that’s totally fine.
Amba Kak is the executive director of the AI Now Institute, where she helps create policy recommendations to address AI concerns.
She was also a senior AI advisor at the Federal Trade Commission and previously worked as a global policy advisor at Mozilla and a legal advisor to India’s telecom regulator on net-netruality.
How do you navigate the challenges of the male-dominated tech industry and, by extension, the male-dominated AI industry?
The tech industry, and AI in particular, remains overwhelmingly white and male and geographically concentrated in very wealthy urban bubbles.
By exposing the power dynamics that the tech industry tries very hard to conceal.
