Devin Coldewey
Writer & Photographer
The Latest from Devin Coldewey
Swarm prices out its orbital IoT network’s hardware and services
Swarm’s new network of satellites is intended to provide low-bandwidth, low-power connectivity to “Internet of Things” devices all over the world, and the company just announced how
Starlink puts towns devastated by wildfires online for disaster relief workers
SpaceX’s Starlink has showed its utility in connecting far-flung locations to the internet quickly and relatively simply in Washington, where like much of the west coast wildfires have caused en
XtalPi lands massive $319M SoftBank-led round C to continue its high-tech drug discovery
XtalPi, an American-Chinese biotech firm that focuses on AI-assisted drug discovery, has raised a $319 million round C from a slate of enthusiastic investors led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund. It jo
Deep Science: Robot perception, acoustic monitoring, using ML to detect arthritis
Research papers come out far too rapidly for anyone to read them all, especially in the field of machine learning, which now affects (and produces papers in) practically every industry and company. Th
NASA commissions report to show its economic impact: $64B and 312K jobs
Perhaps anticipating budget pushback from the federal government, NASA has released its first-ever agency-wide economic report, documenting the agency’s impact on the nation’s jobs and cas
Curly the curling robot throws stones like a pro
Robots have shown themselves to excel at any number of sports and activities, though they do best when they have a single task. Fortunately some sports, such as curling, consist mostly of one task, an
Teachers deserve two screens, and Two Screens for Teachers aims to get them just that
The pandemic has caused K-12 classrooms, chaotic at the best of times, to descend into Zoom call chaos. What’s more, thousands of teachers who must wrangle this new, weird system are doing so wi
WellSaid Labs research takes synthetic speech from seconds-long clips to hours
Millions of homes have voice-enabled devices, but when was the last time you heard a piece of synthesized speech longer than a handful of seconds? WellSaid Labs has pushed the field ahead with a voice
Pure Watercraft ramps up its electric outboard motors with a $23M series A
Electric power only started making sense for land vehicles about ten years ago, but now the technology is ready to make the jump into the water. Pure Watercraft hopes that its electric outboard motor
Boston Dynamics delivers plan for logistics robots as early as next year
Boston Dynamics is just months away from announcing their approach to logistics, the first real vertical it aims to enter, after proving their ability to build robots at scale with the quadrupedal Spo
Jennifer Doudna sees CRISPR gene-editing tech as a Swiss Army knife for COVID-19 and beyond
Jennifer Doudna, one of the pioneers of the gene-editing technique known as CRISPR, thinks the biotech tool could be an essential one for combating COVID-19 and future pandemics. Due to its capacity t
PlayVS is halfway to recruiting every state into its global esports community
Millions of high school kids play online multiplayer games, but they seldom have crosstown rivals in Fortnite or Valorant. PlayVS wants to make that happen with its platform for school-sponsored espor
TouchWood puts versatile, unobtrusive interfaces inside your desk, table and walls
Everything we do seems to have an associated app these days, and all day they vie for your attention, pinging and lighting up in their needy ways. TouchWood wants to tone down this exhausting non-stop
Four perspectives on Apple’s new service bundle
Apple’s hardware event yesterday wasn’t particularly eventful for its most popular devices, bringing only iterative changes to Apple Watch and the iPad. But the company tipped its hand as
This is the new iPad Air, with Touch ID built into the power button
At Apple’s (virtual) hardware event today, the company announced a significantly redesigned iPad Air with a new look and tiny bezels. In a move portentous for other Apple products, Touch ID has
N95 masks could soon be rechargeable instead of disposable
The pandemic has led to N95 masks quickly becoming one of the world’s most sought-after resources as essential workers burned through billions of them. New research could lead to an N95 that you
Leaked memo excoriates Facebook’s ‘slapdash and haphazard’ response to global political manipulation
A former Facebook data scientist dropped a detailed, damning memo on her last day there, calling the social network out for what she describes as an arbitrary, slow and generally inadequate response t
Satellite Vu aims to scope out the whole globe with thermal vision
Earth observation has grown from government-run missions to a crucial everyday business tool, but it still has room to grow. Specifically, into the thermal infrared spectrum, if startup Satellite Vu g
Graphic video of suicide spreads from Facebook to TikTok to YouTube as platforms fail moderation test
A graphic video of a man dying by suicide on Facebook Live has spread from there to TikTok, Twitter, Instagram and now YouTube, where his image ran alongside ads and attracted thousands more views. Do
$3M Breakthrough Prize goes to scientist designing molecules to fight COVID-19
The Breakthrough Prize Foundation announced $21.75 million in awards today for a variety of scientific achievements. One in particular is a tech/science crossover: A $3 million award to David Baker, w