Time and again, leading scientists, technologists, and philosophers have made spectacularly terrible guesses about the direction of innovation. Even Einstein was not immune, claiming, “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable,” just ten years before Enrico Fermi completed construction of the first fission reactor...

Cyber attackers battered Poland after the country’s change of government late last year. DDoS attacks at the end of 2023 were nearly quadruple the country’s average, according to cybersecurity firm NetScout’s observations. The surge began when the Law and Justice party (PiS) lost its majority in last year’s Polish general election. PiS had ruled the...

Demand for industrial robots is rising in Europe, especially driven by the benefits of automation. However, there are ongoing challenges in ensuring seamless collaboration with humans while maintaining safety. To address this issue, a consortium of European universities, technology accelerators, and private research labs is launching the RoboSAPIENs...

A British startup today unveiled new AI humans that blur the line between the virtual and the real. Synthesia calls the digital beings “Expressive Avatars.” They promise the most realistic emotional expressions on the market.  Generated by an AI model that’s trained on footage of real actors, the avatars are built for video creation. Users simply enter...

Dutch car-sharing platform SnappCar, which claims to be the largest of its kind in the Netherlands, has been fully acquired by AutoBinck Group — a shareholder in the scaleup since its founding in 2011. The ownership change also sees the return of SnappCar’s founder, Victor van Tol, in the role of the CEO. Van Told told local newspaper mt/sprout that...

A startup promising “universal AI compute” has joined France’s thriving artificial intelligence sector. Paris-based FlexAI emerged from stealth today with a €28.5mn war chest and an ambitious plan to “unlock the future of machine intelligence.” To pick that lock, FlexAI is rearchitecting compute infrastructure. The plan’s centrepiece is an on-demand...