Devin Coldewey
Writer & Photographer
The Latest from Devin Coldewey
Apple’s latest accessibility features are for those with limb and vocal differences
Apple announced a batch of accessibility features at WWDC 2021 that cover a wide variety of needs, among them a few for people who can’t touch or speak to their devices in the ordinary way. With
Decades-old ASCII adventure NetHack may hint at the future of AI
Machine learning models have already mastered Chess, Go, Atari games and more, but in order for it to ascend to the next level, researchers at Facebook intend for AI to take on a different kind of ga
Osma’s high-tech instant cold brew could change summertime coffee forever
It’s rare that a truly new way to make coffee is invented, and nearly all of them have one thing in common: heat. After all, it’s hot water that quickly extracts flavor and body from groun
Tiny handheld Playdate preorders open next month for $179, with 24 charming monochrome games to start
Playdate, app and game designer Panic’s first shot at hardware, finally has a firm price and ship date, as well as a bunch of surprise features cooked up since its announcement in 2019. The tiny
ISEE brings autonomy to shipping hubs with self-driving yard trucks
Robotaxis may still be a few years out, but there are other industries that can be transformed by autonomous vehicles as they are today. MIT spin-off ISEE has identified one in the common shipping yar
Apple’s Live Text lets you interact with text in your photos
Apple has introduced a new feature to its camera system that automatically recognizes and transcribes text in your photos, from a phone number on a business card to a whiteboard full of notes. Live Te
Facebook will reconsider Trump’s ban in two years
The clock is ticking on former President Donald Trump’s ban from Facebook, formerly indefinite and now for a period of two years, the maximum penalty under a newly revealed set of rules for susp
White House expands investment ban on Chinese tech and telecom companies
The Biden administration has replaced and expanded Trump-era restrictions on investing in certain Chinese firms deemed supportive of that country’s surveillance and military apparatus. Major tec
Google shares its $2M Black Founders Fund among 30 European startups
Google has selected 30 startups to receive a share of its $2 million Black Founders Fund in Europe, providing these companies with a spot of cash, some valuable cloud services and a bit of good old-fa
Ganaz raises $7M A round to rethink how agriculture workers get hired and paid
The agriculture sector is ripe for technological improvements, but beyond satellite-based crop management and bees-as-a-service, the actual people who work in the fields should be benefiting as well.
OroraTech’s space-based early wildfire warnings spark $7M investment
With wildfires becoming an ever more devastating annual phenomenon, it is in the whole planet’s interest to spot them and respond as early as possible — and the best vantage point for that is
Molecule.one grows its drug synthesis AI platform with a $4.6M seed round
Polish computational chemistry outfit Molecule.one has raised $4.6 million to expand its quest to bring theoretical drug molecules to reality. Its machine learning systems predict the best ways to syn
Anthropic is the new AI research outfit from OpenAI’s Dario Amodei, and it has $124M to burn
As AI has grown from a menagerie of research projects to include a handful of titanic, industry-powering models like GPT-3, there is a need for the sector to evolve — or so thinks Dario Amodei, form
Zero-gravity space fridge could keep astronaut food fresh for years
Regular supply launches keep astronauts aboard the ISS supplied with relatively fresh food, but a flight to Mars won’t get deliveries. If we’re going to visit other planets, we’ll ne
Engine Biosciences expands its digital drug discovery pipeline with $43M round
Drug discovery is a large and growing field, encompassing both ambitious startups and billion-dollar Big Pharma incumbents. Engine Biosciences is one of the former, a Singaporean outfit with an expert
OpenAI’s $100M startup fund will make ‘big early bets’ with Microsoft as partner
OpenAI is launching a $100 million startup fund, which it calls the OpenAI Startup Fund, through which it and its partners will invest in early-stage AI companies tackling major problems (and producti
Florida’s ban on bans will test First Amendment rights of social media companies
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has signed into law a restriction on social media companies’ ability to ban candidates for state offices and news outlets, and in doing so offered a direct challeng
Deep Science: Robots, meet world
Research papers come out far too frequently for anyone to read them all. That’s especially true in the field of machine learning, which now affects (and produces papers in) practically every industr
Aurora Solar aims to power the growing solar industry with a $250M round C
Aurora Solar had one of those pitches that seemed obvious in retrospect. Instead of going to a house and measuring its roof manually for a solar panel installation, why not use aerial scans and imager
Tim Cook plays innocent in Epic v Apple’s culminating testimony
Apple CEO Tim Cook took his first turn in the witness chair this morning in what is probably the most anticipated testimony of the Epic v. Apple antitrust case. But rather than a fiery condemnation of