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 of tech and startups. This week: supercomputers take on COVID-19, beetle backpacks, artificial spiderwebs, the “overwhelming whiteness” of AI and ...

Today, companies can capture intent data through conversational interfaces for proactive customer interactions and hyper-personalized experiences. ...

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, turning early niche traction has into real customers and attracting a shiny new $5 million series A funding round to expand and diversify ...

Microsoft’s venture capital fund, M12 Ventures has led a slew of strategic corporate investors backing a new chip developer out of Southern California called Syntiant, which makes semiconductors for voice recognition and speech-based applications. “We started out to build a new type of processor for machine learning, and voice is our first application,” says Syntiant ...

All AV all disengagement reports have one thing in common: their usefulness is ubiquitously criticized by those who have to submit them. ...

The UK government is suspending the use of an algorithm used to stream visa applications after concerns were raised the technology bakes in unconscious bias and racism. The tool had been the target of a legal challenge. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) and campaigning law firm Foxglove had asked a court ...

Few challenges have excited technologists more than building tools to help people who are blind or visually impaired. It was Silicon Valley legend Ray Kurzweil, for example, who in 1976 launched the first commercially available text-to-speech reading device. He unveiled the $50,000 Kurzweil Reading Machine, a boxy device that covered a tabletop, at a press ...

Remote-virtual-digital work is going to be a key part of the playbook forever, and the essential revenue software stack is the best way to set up your teams for success. ...

Magnetis, an automated wealth management solution for Brazilian investors, has raised $11 million in a new round of funding as it transforms itself into a full service brokerage for the nation’s investor class. Investors in the round included Redpoint eventures and Vostok Emerging Finance, the company said. “We’re quite happy with this vote of confidence from our ...

Register now to attend the event on 8/6 at 10 a.m. PDT. Registered attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions via Slido. Next in our series of talks with virtual event masterminds, we’ll be meeting with Johnny Boufarhat, founder of virtual events platform, Hopin, about the virtual venue we’re developing together for Disrupt.  Hopin ...