Devin Coldewey
Writer & Photographer
The Latest from Devin Coldewey
R&D Roundup: Supercomputer COVID-19 insights, ionic spiderwebs, the whiteness of AI
I see far more research articles than I could possibly write up. This column collects the most interesting of those papers and advances, along with notes on why they may prove important in the world o
How to access ‘America’s Seed Fund,’ the $3 billion SBIR program
One of the best-kept secrets in the world of capital is that the federal government has billions of dollars it’s dying to give away to early-stage founders and inventors — and all you have to
LivingPackets hopes to nurture a circular economy with its smart parcels
More than ever before, people are getting life’s essentials delivered — good news for Amazon, but bad news for the environment, which must bear the consequences of the resulting waste. LivingP
YouTube bans thousands of Chinese accounts to combat ‘coordinated influence operations’
YouTube has banned a large number of Chinese accounts it said were engaging in “coordinated influence operations” on political issues, the company announced today; 2,596 accounts from Chin
Krisp snags $5M A round as demand grows for its voice-isolating algorithm
Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech, which silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls, arrived just in time. The company got out in front of the global shift to virtual presence,
FCC invites public comment on Trump’s attempt to nerf Section 230
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has decided to ask the public for its thoughts on an attempt initiated in Trump in May to water down certain protections that arguably led to the creation of the modern internet
Rocket Lab clear to launch again after first mission failure attributed to electrical fault
Rocket Lab has received clearance to launch from the FAA following the failure of its Electron rocket on July 4 and the loss of the half-dozen satellites on board. “This was a very, very sneaky
Secret documents from US antitrust probe reveal big tech’s plot to control or crush the competition
Nearly 500 pages of evidence were made public during the House Judiciary’s marathon hearing this week on potential anti-competitive actions by Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple . We’ve co
Rakuten is shuttering the online shop formerly known as Buy.com
Japanese conglomerate Rakuten has pulled the plug on its U.S. online retail store, originally known as Buy.com, and will wind down its operations over the next two months, the company confirmed to Tec
Coursera and Insitro founder Daphne Koller is coming to Disrupt 2020
Years after Daphne Koller left academia to pursue its reinvention with Coursera, circumstances have conspired to return her to a passion left by the wayside. Big data, machine learning and biology are
Zuckerberg unconvincingly feigns ignorance of data-sucking VPN scandal
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg appeared less than entirely truthful at today’s House Judiciary hearing, regarding last year’s major Onavo controversy, in which his company paid teenagers
Bezos ‘can’t guarantee’ no anti-competitive activity as Congress catches him flat-footed
At today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos bungled attempts to assuage concerns that the company poaches ideas from its competitors, taking sustained fire from Rep. Pram
As ADA turns 30, tech is just getting started helping people with disabilities
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 paved the way for decades of incremental changes to the way buildings, businesses and laws accommodate people with a wide variety of disabilities. At 30 yea
Space Force debuts official logo and motto, both reminding you that it’s ‘always above’
Earlier this year, the oft-mocked but actually pretty important new branch of the military, the Space Force, revealed an image that was suspiciously reminiscent of Star Trek. Now the Space Force has r
Twitter admits hackers accessed DMs of dozens of high-profile accounts
Last week’s hack of over 100 very high-profile Twitter accounts did in fact expose the direct messages of many of those accounts, the company admitted today — including those of an elected off
$75M in federal grants will fund a new trio of quantum institutes
Quantum science is just getting started, and although we’ve already hit some important milestones in both theory and practice, basic research is still needed in just about every nook and cranny
Mobalytics raises $11M and adds eye tracking metrics to its automated gaming coach
Back in 2016, Mobalytics wowed the judges at Disrupt SF with its data-based coach for the exploding competitive gaming world, winning the Startup Battlefield. The company is building on the success of
For Seattle’s cop-free protest zone, tech is both a revolutionary asset and disastrous liability
The police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were sparks that reignited smoldering fury against authorities across the globe. One of the most watched locations has been Seattle, where protes
Cloudflare DNS goes down, taking a large piece of the internet with it
Many major websites and services were unreachable for a period Friday afternoon due to issues at Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 DNS service. The outage seems to have started at about 2:15 Pacific time and