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Unigrid Aims to Reduce Cost and Enhance Safety of Batteries through Sodium Technology

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The most widespread type of battery, lithium-ion, still costs around $140 per kilowatt-hour for a pack. Instead, manufacturers have started to explore sodium-ion batteries, not as a replacement, but as a complement to lithium-ion. To deliver that many batteries, Unigrid isn’t going to be building its own factories. Small vehicles like these are popular in India and Southeast Asia, where the intense heat can make lithium-ion batteries prone to overheating. To get its sodium-ion batteries into production, Unigrid has raised a $12 million Series A.

Experience Apple’s Mesmerizing Kick-Off to WWDC 2024 – Live!

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Apple will kick off its weeklong Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2024) event today with the customary keynote at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. There’s a stream on YouTube as well, but that has a tendency to lag a bit. The latest reports have put a name to Apple’s AI efforts: Apple Intelligence, along with the caveat that not all recent Apple devices will be able to use the new system. And you can bet that many of iOS 18’s AI features will make their way to macOS 15, as well. TechCrunch will be reporting on the ground at Apple Park, bringing you the news as it happens.

Tune in for the Start of WWDC 2024: Apple Reignites Excitement on Your Screens

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Apple will kick off its weeklong Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2024) event with the customary keynote at 10 a.m. ET/7 a.m. PT on June 10. There’s a stream on YouTube as well, but that has a tendency to lag a bit. The latest reports have put a name to Apple’s AI efforts: Apple Intelligence, along with the caveat that not all recent Apple devices will be able to use the new system. And you can bet that many of iOS 18’s AI features will make their way to macOS 15, as well. TechCrunch will be reporting on the ground at Apple Park, bringing you the news as it happens.

Join the Excitement: Witness Apple’s Live Launch of WWDC 2024!

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Apple will kick off its weeklong Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2024) event with the customary keynote at 10 a.m. ET/7 a.m. PT on June 10. The presentation will focus on the company’s software offerings and the developers that power them, including the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS and watchOS. There’s a stream on YouTube as well, but that has a tendency to lag a bit. And you can bet that many of iOS 18’s AI features will make their way to macOS 15, as well. TechCrunch will be reporting on the ground at Apple Park, bringing you the news as it happens.

“Unleashing Creativity: Cartwheel’s Impressive 3D Animation Generation”

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Animating a 3D character from scratch is generally both laborious and expensive, requiring the use of complex software and motion capture tools. Cartwheel wants to make basic animations as simple as describing them, generating a basic movement with AI and letting creators focus on more expressive tasks. There’s a lot of value in just quickly getting it out of your head and moving. “There’s this notion of AI replacing creative work, and as someone who does creative work, it’s like… no! This leads to more animation, more motion, one person doing more,” said Jarvis.

Meta’s New Rule on Political Content Criticized by Numerous Creators in Signed Letter

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If you haven’t been seeing much political content on Instagram lately, there’s a reason for that. Since March, Instagram and Threads have instituted a new default setting that limits political content you see from people you’re not following. Hundreds of creators, convened by GLAAD and Accountable Tech, have signed an open letter demanding that Instagram make the political content limit an opt-in feature, rather than on by default. Instagram’s definition of political content leaves a lot of room for interpretation, which stokes further concern among these creators. “Removing political recommendations as a default setting, and consequently stopping people from seeing suggested political content poses a serious threat to political engagement, education, and activism,” the letter says.

Behold: Spotify introduces enhanced playlists with the power of AI

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Spotify is building on its AI DJ feature, adding a new AI-powered playlist feature. Spotify’s AI work nests into its other efforts to differentiate its service from rivals like Apple Music and offerings from Amazon. Starting in just a few countries, the new AI playlist feature will roll out to more markets over time. Some Spotify users have complained that the rollout of new products can take longer than they want to reach their home market, it’s worth noting. But for those of us who aren’t mega-ChatGPT users, AI can seem ever so slightly remote from our regular existence.

Is a Data Privacy Law Realistically Feasible to Pass in Congress?

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Hello, and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Monday show, where we dig into the weekend and take a peek at the week that is to come. Now that we are finally past Y Combinator’s demo day — though our Friday show is worth listening if you haven’t had a chance yet — we can dive into the latest news. So, this morning on Equity Monday we got into the chance that the United States might pass a real data privacy law. There’s movement to report, but we’re still very, very far from anything becoming law.

“Unlikely Collab: Speculations Surround Alphabet and HubSpot Merger”

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If such a deal were to happen, the cost would likely be pretty substantial, involving some significant premium over the current value. While Google/Alphabet has been extremely acquisitive over the years, the largest deal that it’s ever made was spending $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility in 2011. More recently the largest deal involved spending $5.4 billion for security intelligence platform Mandiant in 2022. Google usually stays under $3 billion, so a deal of this scope would be very much out of character for the company. Another issue the company could face in trying to buy HubSpot is a hostile regulatory environment for large deals.