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Watch Virgin Galactic’s first ever space tourist flight at 11am ET

Virgin Galactic might hit another milestone today in its quest to provide trips to suborbital space. If the weather cooperates and everything goes as planned for the company, its first private passenger flight will be taking off from its Spaceport America facility at 11AM EDT. Virgin Galactic’s inaugural commercial flight took place in late June, but that one carried Italian government workers, including two Air Force personnel, to space. This time, its three passengers are civilians, and one of them is even the company’s first paying customer. 

That distinction goes to Jon Goodwin, a British Olympian who competed in the 1972 games in Munich as a canoeist. According to the BBC, Goodwin paid $250,000 for his ticket way back in 2005 and had been worried that he couldn’t go through with the flight after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2014. The other two passengers are a mother-daughter tandem from the Caribbean, Keisha Schahaff and Anastatia Mayers. Schahaff won two seats in a fundraising draw for nonprofit organization Space for Humanity and had chosen her daughter, a physics student at Aberdeen University in the UK, to accompany her. 

The company’s VSS Unity spacecraft leaves the ground attached to a carrier aircraft dubbed VMS Eve. At an altitude of 50,000 feet, the mothership drops Unity, which then fires up its rocket motor to continue its journey to the edge of space. The spacecraft turns off its motor and glides across space before its descent, giving passengers three minutes to enjoy weightlessness in the cabin while looking at views of our planet through Unity’s 17 windows. That is, at least, what the passengers are supposed to experience. As for the rest of us, we can watch them take off via Virgin Galactic’s coverage of the launch livestreamed through its website.

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Aaron Carter’s twin sister Angel blames ‘fame and money’ for his battle with addiction

Aaron Carter’s twin sister Angel is speaking out about her brother’s devastating and sudden death.

She opened up about how Aaron “fought to the end” during his battle with addiction and how they grew up in a toxic family environment surrounded by alcohol.

“Fame and money took over our family,” Angel shared during an interview with People. “Aaron was already in a bad place, but it was like a domino effect.”

MUSICIAN AARON CARTER DEAD AT 34

Aaron Carter’s twin sister Angel detailed her brother’s drug addiction and how their toxic family dynamic led to his death. (Getty Images)

The singer died in November at the age of 34 after he drowned, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner.

The “effects of difluoroethane and alprazolam” were listed as contributing factors in his death. Difluoroethane is an aerosol propellant found in spray cans, and alprazolam is commonly referred to as Xanax.

Aaron publicly struggled with addiction throughout his life and previously admitted his sister Leslie, who died from an overdose in 2012, introduced him to huffing, the practice of inhaling fumes from household items.

Aaron Carter died in November at age 34. (Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images)

In August 2019, Aaron took to social media to post videos of himself with the guns he owned, which caused concern from his family, especially his twin sister. 

Aaron additionally shared videos of himself surrounded by weapons and inhaling gas canisters while telling his fans how he thought his family was going to kill him, according to the media outlet.

“I just kept waiting for him to snap out of it,” Angel explained. “But he never did.”

“He wanted so badly to be happy,” she added. “He really fought to the end, but he just had too many problems to be fixed. He’d become this person who we no longer recognized. I don’t even think he recognized himself.”

Aaron Carter and his mom Jane Carter in 2019. After Aaron’s death, Jane shared photos of the bathroom where his body was found on her Facebook page, which his sister says was an “invasion of privacy.” (Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for WE tv)

After Aaron’s death, their mother Jane shared disturbing photos of the bathroom where his body was found on her Facebook page. At the time, Jane insisted Aaron’s death be further investigated as a possible homicide.

AARON CARTER’S MOM DEMANDS POLICE INVESTIGATION, SHARES DISTURBING PHOTOS FROM HIS DEATH SCENE

The photos show the bathtub where Aaron was found, still filled with water tinged green, seemingly from the decomposition, as well as towels and clothes laid across a messy floor.

Aaron Carter was still performing months before his death and regularly played music for his fans while going live on social media platforms. (Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images)

“It was a true invasion of privacy and something that Aaron would’ve never wanted the public to see,” Angel, who hasn’t spoken to her mother since, explained. “Aaron dying was the worst possible outcome for all of us. My brother deserves to be here.”

Angel added that their childhood was “filled with emotional abuse, dysfunction and addiction.”

“I want Aaron’s legacy to be more than those final years of his life,” Angel said.

BACKSTREET BOYS HONOR AARON CARTER AT LONDON CONCERT; BROTHER NICK BREAKS DOWN AFTER EMOTIONAL TRIBUTE

Aaron Carter had a tumultuous relationship with fiancée Melanie Martin. He is survived by their son, Prince. (Gabe Ginsberg)

Aaron is survived by his 1-year-old son, Prince, with fiancée Melanie Martin. 

Carter, the younger brother of Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter, rose to fame at age 9 after releasing his self-titled debut album in 1997.  

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Aaron Carter was the younger brother of Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter. (Getty Images)

His follow-up album, 2000’s “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It),” sold over 3 million copies in the U.S. and produced several hit singles, including the title song, “I Want Candy” and “That’s How I Beat Shaq.”

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Fox News Digital’s Emily Trainham contributed to this report.

Stephanie Giang-Paunon is an Entertainment Writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to stephanie.giang@fox.com and on Twitter: @SGiangPaunon.

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How AI innovation can drive 10X growth in enterprises | David Shrier interview

David Shrier is making a number of predictions about AI, some encouraging and some scary. And they’re worth paying attention to, like one about how AI innovation will drive 10 times greater growth for enterprises.

Shrier, who did a fireside chat with me at an AI event in San Francisco at ServiceNow, is a globally recognized expert on technology-driven innovation. He is a professor of practice in AI & Innovation with Imperial College Business School, and is a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Engineering at MIT.

And his Visionary Future venture studio invests in a portfolio of university-related spinouts spanning cognitive technologies, new financial architectures and sustainability, and is in the process of launching three new AI businesses over the next 90 days. Visionary Future published a report dubbed Artificial Intelligence Leadership Playbook.

David also has worked with over 100 governments on technology policy & regulation, and served on the parliamentary advisory committee for the EU AI Act. He has published eight books in the past eight years. His ninth book, Basic AI: A Human Guide to Artificial Intelligence, will be released by Little Brown and Harvard Business Publishing in January 2024.

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David’s latest hack is ChatDave.AI (http://chatdave.ai), an LLM-based model that ingested about 600,000 words of his writing — essentially all of his books — on AI, cyber security, digital identity and blockchain.

In our fireside chat, Shrier started out with a discomforting thought, as he said that the importance of generative AI is “both less than people say it is and more than people realize it is.” While some talk of the elimination of jobs is incendiary (like the British Telecom CEO saying he’ll fire 42% of staff and replace them with AI), Shrier believes generative AI will drive some very real changes in workforce and society.

Whether you’re predicting the hype will be true or false, you have to be paying attention. Shrier said that if you look at mentions of AI on earnings calls, it has skyrocketed in the last nine months. You should take that with a grain of salt.

On the other hand, his long-term view of AI is shocking. He said, ” I’m going to make a forecast for you and say that by 2032, we’re going to see close to 10 percent lift in global GDP due to a combination of generative AI and older versions of AI. About $11.8 trillion of increase in global GDP by 2032 due to AI. The bear case forecast is $1.7 trillion, to give you an idea of the spread.”

He noted a colleague at Imperial studied a 2,200-person company and broke down the tasks the workers do. The analysis showed that 30% to 67% of those jobs could be replaced by AI. And the good and bad news? Quantum AI is going to take computing for AI to an incredible new level, Shrier said.

“The workforce of the future is a critical problem. AI is going to hit us in five to seven years with the same intensity that took the industrial revolution 150 years,” Shrier said.

Here’s an edited transcript of our fireside chat. And thanks to Shuchi Rana of ServiceNow for hosting us.

David Shrier and Dean Takahashi at ServiceNow AI event.

VentureBeat: I’m happy to be here with David Shrier, who came all the way from London for this. He’s a globally recognized expert on technology-driven innovation. He holds an appointment as a professor of practice in AI and innovation at Imperial College business school. I’ll leave the rest of the introduction to him.

David Shrier: I’ve been doing corporate innovation now for more than two decades. Many of you who are interested now in enterprise innovation, you have to read Dean’s book on the Xbox. It’s one of the best case studies I’ve ever read on the gory details of how enterprise innovation happens.

But I spend a lot of time in academia, looking at trends and trying to think about how AI and other disruptive technologies are going to impact the world. I teach students. We have a class on AI startups at Imperial College. Imperial, if you don’t know it, is an excellent engineering university. We have more than a thousand AI researchers. We’re doing a lot in the field. I also run a venture studio. We build AI businesses and financial infrastructure businesses. We’ve got our sleeves rolled up in the middle of this mess.

VentureBeat: Our session here is about AI. We’re heard a lot of fear and rumor about generative AI. Where do you think we are in terms of ground truth or things that you know to be true?

Shrier: I’d say that it’s both less than people say it is and more than people realize it is. We’re at this moment where there’s a lot of hype. We’re near the apex of the Gartner hype cycle. When you see the CEO of British Telecom going on the airwaves and saying he’ll fire 42% of his staff and replace them with AI, you sense a bit of froth. At the same time, there are some very real changes that are going to happen in the workforce and society, and generative AI is part of that.

The reason why it’s particularly interesting is that the prior waves of AI innovation affected things like manufacturing jobs and lower-level service jobs. Recently McDonald’s replaced a lot of cashiers with computer screens. But generative AI is starting to replace McKinsey consultants, Goldman Sachs bankers, Microsoft software engineers. A lot of white collar professions that were insulated from the effects of AI automation are now under threat.

Dean Takahashi and David Shrier speak to a crowd at ServiceNow in SF.

VentureBeat: After some of the trends we’ve seen that did end up being overhyped, they may have set everyone up to disbelieve anything that follows. Metaverse, blockchain, cryptocurrency. Is AI going to rise and collapse like those trends and leave us worse off? Or do you see something fundamentally different?

Shrier: I wrote my first AI software program in 1991. I was waiting a long time for people to care. But it’s important to remember that tech forecasting is subject to massive dispersal of outcomes. I’ll give two examples to illustrate why we really should pay attention to AI. In 2009, two major forecasts were established by the tech forecasting companies. First, they said that in five years, cloud was going to be a big thing. It was going to be $14 billion of annual revenue. In fact it ended up being closer to $40 billion. They got it wrong, and cloud was much bigger than people expected. On the other hand they said that virtual reality was going to be $162 billion worth of market. It ended up being $20 billion.

People are forecasting where things are going to go with AI. I’m absolutely certain they’re getting it wrong. We just don’t know in which direction. But there is something fundamentally different. What’s happening now is the accumulation of several generations of technology development. What’s different about what we see with AI now is we’re building on prior waves of automation, robotic process automation, machine learning, and data science. Now you have some applications that are coming to bear when two other trends are converging: high-performance compute and better networks. Now suddenly these AI technologies can be adopted quickly, and they’re more powerful than they ever used to be.

VentureBeat: What are some of the short-term impacts, now that this seems to work?

Shrier: For one thing, I have a new punch line for a joke. I invite all of you to go to ChatDave.AI. It’s a real website. I loaded nine of my last books into a large language model and threw it out there. I’d be curious to hear what you have to say about it.

But aside from the novelty factor, there’s going to be a lot of overreaction. If you look, for example, at mentions of AI on earnings calls, it has skyrocketed in the last nine months. A lot of CEOs feel compelled to do something, or be seen to do something, and so they’re probably going to fire more people than they should, because they want to be seen to be realizing the benefits of AI cost savings. They’ll get rid of a lot of institutional knowledge, and in the near term, meaning one to two years, a lot of companies will falter because they let go of a lot of their most valuable IP. Longer term, they’ll start to get their arms around it, but in the near term we’re going to see a lot of confusion.

VentureBeat: What impact do you think AI is going to have on the economy and society in the next five to 10 years?

Shrier: As we get smarter about how we use it, we’re going to see some fairly significant gains. Bearing in mind what I just said about the dispersal of tech forecasts, I’m going to make a forecast for you and say that by 2032, we’re going to see close to 10 percent lift in global GDP due to a combination of generative AI and older versions of AI. About $11.8 trillion of increase in global GDP by 2032 due to AI. The bear case forecast is $1.7 trillion, to give you an idea of the spread.

A plan for action on AI requires a lot of players.

VentureBeat: I remember McKinsey had their very bold report on the metaverse, that it would be a $5 trillion economy by 2030.

Shrier: Part of how we get to these numbers is we actually look at jobs. I have a colleague at Imperial who did a fairly in-depth study. He worked with a Fortune 10 company and he took 2,200 job descriptions, broke them down into tasks, and mapped them to 32 AI technologies. He was able to fairly granularly figure out what you could replace with an AI. Depending on how aggressive you are about adoption, it was anywhere from 30% to 67% of the workers at this fairly industrial company. There is some logic behind it. It’s not simply guessing.

VentureBeat: I was thinking about some things I’ve heard more specifically in the gaming space. An Israeli startup told me they hired 10 AI engineers, very senior people, and they got going really fast on making their games. Normally they would surround those people with junior engineers to help them, but instead they gave them AI assistants. That doesn’t sound good for people who are graduating from college right now, looking for jobs in game development.

On the other hand, those people graduating from college now can use AI to become, in a way, one-man bands. They could bypass all of the infrastructure out there – studios and publishers – and just publish their games directly to wherever they’re going. In that sense, that’s the upside. It could create a lot of opportunity. What do you extrapolate from these kinds of small details about what could happen?

Shrier: The games example is a good metaphor for broader changes in the construct of enterprise. Today, you’re still not able to replace a senior developer with Copilot or another kind of AI system, but you can replace a bunch of junior developers. One model of management is, you have 10% of your organization that are your A players, and then you have a lot of B players who help fill out what they do. You can’t run your organization with 10,000 A players because they’ll all be fighting with each other. But with the application of these AI systems, you can compress the layer below your A players. You can have an organization that has the fighting weight of a 10,000-person company with only 1,000 employees.

It does have profound implications for the labor market. It also has profound implications for competitiveness and capital intensivity. If you want to build a company, you no longer need 10,000 people to compete on a global scale.

An AI leadership playbook from Visionary Future.

VentureBeat: What’s an enterprise’s path to practical AI right now?

Shrier: The first thing is literacy. A lot of these decisions and announcements are being made without a strong enough understanding of what AI can and can’t do or how to manage it. You can’t just set it and forget it with these AI systems. The models will drift. You need to manage what you do with AI. AI security is another nightmare that no one wants to talk about. There are all sorts of interesting ways that you can attack AI systems and there’s insufficient security surrounding them. Better literacy, for sure, is one thing that corporations need.

The second thing that I recommend is benchmarking and diagnostics. Figure out your current state of play. In a lot of organizations I work with, they don’t know what they have. They don’t know where they have AI in their business and what it’s doing. There’s no AI governance. Which brings me to the third recommendation, which is to institute an AI governance council, so that you stay on top of what’s happening in your enterprise. Finally, once you’ve gotten smarter, figured out what you’re doing, and put some governance on top of it, build your AI strategy so that you can project forward three to five years and build your business for the future.

VentureBeat: What are you worried about? What do we all need to learn more about?

Shrier: These are systems that we as human beings are designing, but not enough people are consciously aware of that in terms of how the algorithms are developed and how the data that trains those models is constructed. We begin to introduce a lot of bias into these AI systems. It’s unintentional, but it ends up having society-scale impact. One of the more famous examples was in 2016, when Google first released their image recognition system, which the primarily young male engineers, aged 20-32, trained on a database of primarily young males of western European descent, aged 20-32. “Oh, this database looks good.” They trained the model and the model was terrible about recognizing anyone who wasn’t 28 years old or a white male. There were some fairly embarrassing headlines.

That was one of the egregious examples, but this happens all the time. It happens a lot more than people are aware of. It’s important, when you implement these systems, you have a lot of consciousness around how you’re training the model, what unintended consequences it could have, and what you’re going to do to correct for it.

VentureBeat: You can look at how the language of choice to use with any chat AI system is English.

Shrier: Right. A language not spoken by the majority of the world’s population.

VentureBeat: How can people get up to speed very quickly on generative AI? How do you become literate?

Shrier: There’s a lot that’s going on in the blogosphere. I have a new book coming out, but as you’ve pointed out, publishing cycles being what they are, it’s not coming until January. But in the meantime there is a lot of good content online from reputable sources that can get you up the curve and keep you apprised of activity in the space.

ServiceNow had awesoe tacos at the event per @ChefGreen510 on Instagram.

VentureBeat: You need to read the news on a daily basis.

Shrier: It’s happening that fast. I have a book from 2021 on AI, and most of it’s good, but it doesn’t talk about generative AI. There are a lot of statements in it that are completely wrong. Things like, “Management consultants are relatively safe from AI automation.” Oops.

VentureBeat: There is the Terminator scenario out there that everyone knows about. But how do we avoid making really stupid mistakes with AI?

Shrier: It’s helpful to take a systems thinking approach. A lot of people tend to focus just on the myopic task in front of them and not look at the bigger picture. If you’re an engineer working on an AI model, how is it being used? There are a lot of Meta engineers who’ve left and said, “I wish I’d known what I was building. I deeply regret it now.” Senior executives have gone on record with similar statements. But they could have known.

This gets back to the idea of having awareness around, what is the use case for the AI? What data is being used to train it? There’s a handful of questions you can ask that could help avoid a Terminator-like scenario. These are things that we are building. AI isn’t just happening to us. We’re making it. A lot of people in this room here are making it. We’re building the stuff. Let’s make it good.

VentureBeat: How do we also avoid paralysis when all of this stuff is changing so quickly?

Shrier: Particularly in innovation industries, it’s better to make a decision under the Pareto principle, 80-20. If it’s the wrong decision, make another decision. I see a lot of companies eaten alive because they sit and wait for the perfect analysis. By the time they have the perfect analysis, they’re Polaroid.

VentureBeat: How do we get this technology more evenly distributed to the masses?

Shrier: This is an interesting one, because on the one hand, mobile networks are connecting everyone. That’s part of how ChatGPT got 100 million users in six weeks. I know usage is down, but Threads got 100 million users in five days, I think it was? That’s something that I’m calling flash growth. We have these widely distributed networks. Smartphones are cheaper and cheaper. You can have a $25 HTC handset in Africa. It improves the onramps.

On the other hand, the backend compute is still too expensive. I think it was costing OpenAI something like 15 cents per query to ChatGPT until they tweaked the model because it was too expensive. Did everyone notice that it got a little dumber? That’s because it was too expensive when it was smart. If that’s true for, let’s say, affluent consumers, what do we do for the rest of the world? That’s something where we need to be working on pathways to affordable AI. Right now we don’t have a good answer.

VentureBeat: Do you think the infrastructure is going to keep up with all these queries we’re throwing at it? I wrote about Cerebras Systems launching a supercomputer. They build giant wafers as their processors, 400 cores on a single processor. They’re feeding that data in from 70,000 AMD Epyc processors. That’s just one machine that they think will help us keep up. Does our demand exceed what we have in terms of infrastructure? Will we melt down the planet while we’re building all this tech?

Shrier: I have good news and bad news. The good news is quantum AI. The bad news is I’m not sure when. We’re nearing some tech breakthroughs that could solve some of the compute demand challenges, but we don’t know when we’ll get them. In the meantime there are also some supply chain issues. We were making a bunch of chips in China, and then that became geopolitically risky. We shifted our supply chain to Taiwan, which turned out to be also geopolitically risky. Now we’re trying to shift it again. There have been some challenges in the global supply chain for hardware, but we’re starting to work through that.

Question: Are you seeing any AI aside from generative AI that’s impactful and exciting?

Shrier: I’m working on a few, actually. One I’m very excited about is in the domain of computational chemistry. We use a digital twin as a control system in a chemical process to pull carbon directly out of factory waste and turn it into food-grade baking soda. That’s carbon utilization through AI. Another one is predicting future prices of traded securities using a hybrid of human and AI systems. We’ve figured out a way, commercializing some MIT research, to tweak prediction markets so they don’t suck. That’s two examples, neither of which are generative.

Question: You work at an intersection of industry, academia, and regulation. How do you see those three coming together?

Shrier: In the near term, unfortunately, poorly. We’re hoping to fix that. Some colleagues of mine and I are trying to put something together called the Trusted AI Institute. This spans Imperial College, Oxford, MIT, and the University of Edinburgh, as well as the OECD, the World Economic Forum, and a number of corporates. We’re trying to bring together a dialogue so that we don’t have a big mess.

Right now more than 80 governments are looking to regulate AI, and they’re all going in 80 different directions. I was on the advisory committee for the EU AI Act. That was well-reasoned, but it didn’t really take generative AI into account. They’re having to tweak it after the fact and figure out how to apply it. If we bring together all of the stakeholders, including industry and enterprise that are going to be impacted by these regulations, and put them in dialogue with the regulators, we hopefully get better regulation coming out.

This is going to be regulated. Don’t kid yourselves. This is not going to be a complete free market. Governments saw what happened with social media and they’re not happy about that. They saw what happened with cryptocurrency and they’re not happy about that. They’re getting pretty activist around AI. It’s incumbent on us to talk to them before they do something that limits innovation.

David Shrier of Imperial College.

Question: You’ve said that you run a venture studio in London. Is there anything specific to that venture studio model that allows AI innovation better than just running a startup or deploying your capital through other VC models?

Shrier: Our venture studio is a mix of passive VC investment and co-creation. We have an 81% IRR on a vintage 2020 fund – or it’s not a fund, but a pool of capital – because of that co-creation model. By engaging closely with management we’ve been able to generate superior returns. I don’t recommend it for everyone. We’re able to do it because we’re experienced operators. I’ve raised more than $600 million as an entrepreneur and taken a company through IPO. That’s different from someone who worked at McKinsey or Goldman Sachs and then became a venture investor. They may be a very good venture investor, but they don’t have the same operational background.

Hollywood’s portrayals of AI-controlled Terminator robots once seemed like pure science fiction, but AI and robotics have been catching up with James Cameron’s legendary nightmares.

Question: Creative people like screenwriters have had their own pushback against AI adoption. Do you think it will be a step function for certain industries? Will they leapfrog through this because of the cost advantage? Or will it be more of a gradual linear curve across industries?

Shrier: This question of adoption by industry–some industries like Hollywood are up in arms and striking in protest over AI. Other industries may seek to adopt it more rapidly. This is exactly why we’re putting the Trusted AI Institute together. The workforce of the future is a critical problem. AI is going to hit us in five to seven years with the same intensity that took the industrial revolution 150 years. Think about what the industrial revolution gave us. It gave us trains, telegraph, telephone, combustion engine, the Russian Revolution, World War I, and World War II. There’s a lot of upheaval that played out with all this technology innovation. We’re about to see a similar scale of change happen in less than a decade.

It’s going to be messy. There are ways we can try to ameliorate the impact, but what’s going on in Hollywood you can easily envision happening in other industries as well. People are correctly feeling threatened by these systems. In the same week that the SAG strike was announced, a startup here in San Francisco released a full episode of South Park that was entirely generated by AI.

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Wacom’s new drawing tablets offer creative flexibility on a budget

/ The new Wacom One tablet lineup starts at $50, supports third-party styluses, and connects via a single USB-C cable — even the display models.

By Jess Weatherbed, a news writer focused on creative industries, computing, and internet culture. Jess started her career at TechRadar, covering news and hardware reviews.a:hover]:text-gray-63 [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63 dark:[&>a]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray”>Image: Wacom

Wacom is fleshing out its range of affordable drawing tablets with four new additions to the Wacom One product family. Designed as an entry-level platform for students, educators, and those new to creative drawing hardware, the new Wacom One range aims to provide “choice and customization” to support different needs.

The four tablets come in two varieties: the Wacom One 12 ($399.99) and Wacom One 13 touch ($599.99) “pen display” tablets with built-in screens or the Wacom One S ($99.99) and Wacom One M ($149.99) traditional “pen tablets,” which don’t feature a display.

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The Wacom One 12 and Wacom One 13 touch pen display tablets are equipped with 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch glass screens, respectively, which are specially bonded to reduce parallax (that gap between the stylus nib and the cursor). These tablets feature a 1920 x 1080p resolution with 99 percent sRGB coverage. The Wacom One 13 touch also supports Wacom’s 10-finger multitouch gestures, which allow users to navigate using familiar hand movements like pinching and swiping, just like an iPad. A button located along the side of the Wacom One 13 touch will disable touch sensitivity if it gets in the way.

The Wacom One S and M are the company’s first entry-level pen tablets with 4K pressure sensitivity and tilt support. The customizable stylus that ships with all four versions of the Wacom One is available in a variety of colors and features two side buttons for assigning keyboard shortcuts. A selection of third-party pens from Staedtler (display tablets only), Lamy, Kaweco, and Dr. Grip are also supported.

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All four of the new Wacom One drawing tablets support Windows, macOS, Android, and ChromeOS and can be used with a USB-C cable instead of the HDMI / USB-C / Power splitter cable that display tablets typically use. A secondary USB-C cable can be connected to the drawing tablet if additional power is needed. HDMI support is also still available for the Wacom One display tablets for those who can’t rely on USB-C, and Bluetooth support is available for the Wacom One S and M models.

Wacom claims the new One lineup is the most sustainable product range it’s ever provided. Postconsumer recycled plastics make up around 30–65 percent of each tablet’s materials, and petroleum-based plastics have otherwise been reduced or replaced with bioplastics. Wacom is also offering cheaper tablet-only “eStore” versions of the product to reduce e-waste for customers who already own compatible cables and styluses.

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“The Wacom One product line is a gateway to the world of digital art, creativity and productivity. It draws on the company’s 40 years of experience in building high-end creative pen displays,” said Faik Karaoglu, executive vice president of Wacom’s branded business unit, in a press release. “Our goal is to make it easier than ever for artists and new users to start their journey.”

This is a good addition to the Wacom product portfolio. The company’s premium offerings like the Wacom Cintiq are still the products of choice for most creative professionals, but more affordable competitors like Huion and XP-Pen have emerged in recent years to target consumers on a budget. The features and pricing of the Wacom One lineup place it in a good position to be competitive at a variety of price levels. 

I do have one complaint… why on earth would you reuse the “One” name again? Wacom already has a Wacom One display tablet (which the company says isn’t being discontinued) and a “One by Wacom” pen tablet. You’d think a company with roots in creativity could do better.

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Save $50 on a Samsung Z Fold 5 or Z Flip 5 preorder while you still can

/ Samsung’s new foldable phones come out on Friday, August 11th, and early adopters have one more chance to score a preorder deal.

By Antonio G. Di Benedetto, a writer covering tech deals and The Verge’s Deals newsletter, buying guides, and gift guides. Previously, he spent 15 years in the photography industry.

a:hover]:text-gray-63 [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63 dark:[&>a]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray”>Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Launch day for Samsung’s new generation of foldable phones is tomorrow, and Samsung really isn’t wasting any time getting the deals out early. Not only can you still get a free storage upgrade when you preorder the Galaxy Z Fold 5 or Galaxy Z Flip 5 (a $120 value) but also Samsung is throwing in a raw $50 discount at checkout if you order directly from its site. That drops the starting price of the ultra-flagship Z Fold 5 to $1,749.99 and the quaint Z Flip 5 to $949.99.

The reviews of both phones are in, and while some of this year’s updates are a little iterative, both foldables look promising. The more affordable Z Flip 5 has a larger exterior cover display for easy access to some handy app widgets, and the Z Fold 5, well, it looks a lot like last year’s model, but it’s now ever so slightly smaller thanks to a new fold-flat hinge. In fact, both phones now fold and flip much flatter, with a minimal air gap while in their respective closed positions.

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 looks a lot like its predecessor, but it now folds flat thanks to a new hinge with fewer moving parts. It maintains the 7.6-inch inner display and narrow 6.2-inch cover screen, but it now utilizes the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor found in Samsung’s Galaxy S23 phones.

Samsung’s Z Flip 5 is its latest 6.7-inch flip phone that folds in half, now sporting a larger front cover display and a new hinge design that allows it to close flat. Inside, it packs a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a dual-camera setup.

Is that enough to make you want to pony up nearly $1,000 or $1,800 to join in on hot foldable summer? Obviously, both phones showcase the usual spec bumps thanks to the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, and they ship with Samsung’s latest One UI version of Android 13 with a promise of five years of security updates. If one of them sounds appealing to you, you might as well save while you still can.

Of course, if a straight $50 discount isn’t enticing enough, there are still gift card promos available at retailers like Amazon (Z Flip 5 / Z Fold 5) and Best Buy (Z Flip 5 / Z Fold 5) — which can net you anywhere between $100 and $200 back via credit to use later. Even Samsung’s forthcoming Galaxy Watch 6 is available for preorder at various retailers with a $50 gift card.

But hey, a proper discount is a proper discount. There are sure to be many more in the months and holiday shopping season to come (it is Samsung, after all). But if you already have your eye set on either of these foldable phones, you might as well keep whatever money in your wallet that you can.

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How I Podcast 2023

My early pandemic podcasting rig was dire. Fitting, really, as everything felt fairly dire at that point. Transitioning to remote interviews was a shock to the system after so many years of stubbornly insisting that they all be done face to face. Much like going into the office every day, however, I’ve gotten to a point where I can’t imagine going back.

That isn’t to say I no longer find value in real life interviews. I still believe you lose something important when you put thousands of miles and a couple of computer screens between yourself and your interview subject. Pandemic-induced agoraphobia may have gotten the better of me, but really, it comes down to convenience.

Booking a studio and factoring in an hour-long commute in either direction feels silly in hindsight. I’m also keenly aware of the many interviews I turned down, because I wasn’t in the same city as the other person. Big, interesting, important names. Turns out a big part of maturity is identifying the entirely arbitrary stances you took earlier in life, often to your own peril.

Thankfully, both my feelings about remote recording and my rig have evolved a good bit since then. The gear side of things is a perpetual work in progress, of course – but then, aren’t we all. One of the perks this job is that it affords you more wiggle room for trial and error, when it comes to hardware. In particular, I’ve been through a number of different mics over the years.

My own set up is far from ideal for everyone, of course, and you’re mileage will almost certainly vary. Given that my own podcast, RiYL, is a labor of love (side gigs are generally things you don’t lose money on), I have a bit of a bias toward lower cost and easy of use. That means, for example, that I’ve opted for a USB microphone (albeit a very good one), versus a more complex audio interface.

It’s been a few years since I’ve done one of these, so there’s a good bit of ground to cover. We’ll be going over hardware, software, and some interviewing tips, for good measure.

Shure MV7

Image Credits: Shure

A good mic is important. I mean, obviously. It’s a podcast. It’s also the thing I’ve been the most indecisive about in the 10+ years I’ve been hosting my show. I felt pretty good about the mobile rig I’d spent some years perfecting, but going remote was really starting from scratch. I went through a number of different microphones for the show, before finally settling on one I don’t foresee upgrading any time soon.

If you’ve ever heard anyone discuss podcast studios, you know how central Shure’s SM7B is to the lore. It’s a fantastic vocal microphone that’s in widespread use in virtually any professional podcast you listen to. The MV7 is as close as you’re going to get to the SM7B with a simple USB audio interface. The microphone is also optimized specifically for the human voice, while the SM78 is a bit more all-purpose. It sounds really great. I’ve hosted a couple of NPR shows and gone on news outlets with the thing. If you want more control over the sound, it’s probably worth looking at an interface, but this thing sounds great out of the box.

The interface is dead simple – close to straight ahead plug and play. It has a touch-based volume panel and mute function – though, I generally defer to the mute feature on whatever app I’m using. It’s too easy to forget you’re muted otherwise. As Shure points out, there’s also an XLR-out on the mic, so you can still use it if you plan to upgrade to an audio interface.

On-Stage Mic Stand

Image Credits: OnStage

There are mic stand people and there are mic arm people. Honestly, I’m not sure what either says about a person on a fundamental level. I just know that I bought the On-Stage mic stand for $15 years ago, and it has served me ever since. It’s heavy duty and has outlasted several of the microphones that I’ve screwed into it over the years. It’s simple, easy, cheap. I do bump into occasionally, but the windscreen seems the far likelier culprit there.

Insta360 Link webcam

Image Credits: Brian Heater

I was a big Opal proponent for a long time, but ultimately the beta software was too buggy, too long. Thankfully, Insta360’s webcam crossed my desk at just the right time. This is a really capable piece of hardware – in fact, it might even be a bit too capable if you just plan to sit stationary in front of your computer while using it.

Being built atop a gimble means it’s great at tracking dynamic movement, which can feel like overkill. However, the tracking is useful when centering.

In addition to my podcast, I use it for work meetings, panels and the occasional television spot. Everyone has different needs when it comes to framing, and the Link is able to adjust with nuance. More importantly, the picture it great. It feels weird to say that people have complimented my image during meetings, but here we are.

The Link is capable of shooting up to 4k, though you’ll likely lose a bit of resolution as you crop the image with digital zoom. Oh, and get yourself a nice Ring light, too.

Sony WH1000X M5

Image Credits: Brian Heater

The truth of the matter is, I’m just picking Sony’s WH1000X M5s because they’re my favorite all around over-ear headphones.

When it comes to podcasting, I can’t do earbuds. I want a comfortable pair that sound great, and the M5s absolutely fit the bill. Unless you’re made of money, you’re going to want a pair of headphones that are great for more than just the hour or so a week you spend podcasting. They also feature an aux cable, so you can plug them directly into your mic if needed.

A Quiet Keyboard

Image Credits: Brian Heater

I became a mechanical keyboard convert fairly recently. You don’t realize what a quality of life improvement it is until you try it out for a while. But while I swapped the Mac keyboard out for something nice, I still dust it off every time I podcast. It’s too damn loud. I often take notes while I’m podcasting, and no one wants to hear that clacking.

That said, OnePlus’ new mechanical keyboard is actually quiet enough to use while podcasting. Very few keyboards are completely silent, however, so it’s always a good idea to do a pass while editing the audio.

Google Calendar

Calendar work location

Seems silly, I know, but Google Calendar is an essential part of show prep for me. In addition to hosting and editing the show, I’m also the booker. It’s not the best role for someone as absentminded/disorganized as myself, but you learn to adapt. These days, the minute we’ve agreed upon a time, I create a calendar invite and add the guest or comms person who booked them.

I’ve also created the following form letter. Feel free to adapt for your purposes:

Hello, happy to have you here.

The conversation will be recorded via Riverside.fm. The studio can be accessed via browser – please ensure you have the latest version of Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge on your desktop. For mobile devices, it’s possible to download the Riverside app, but quality tends to be better on the desktop.

This is our link: [Riverside link]

If you’re able, please wear headphones. This will help reduce echo. External microphone or those built into your headphones are preferred to the desktop’s built-in mic, where possible. Don’t worry, the app will walk you through the process of ensuring that the proper mic, headphone and camera are chosen from the drop downs.

If you run into any issues or have any questions, feel free to text Brian: [Phone Number]

Riverside.fm

Image Credits: Riverside.fm

I’ve written a lot about Zencastr on TechCrunch. I used it to host shows for much of the pandemic, but ultimately made the switch to Riverside. Much like my experience with Opal, there were just too many buggy experiences. You never want your recording experience to feel like a crapshoot, and many of the people I interview on the show aren’t especially tech savvy, so we’d often end up using Zoom as a backup. Zoom sounds terrible. Nobody wants that.

Like Zencastr, Riverside.fm is built specifically for remote recording and broadcasting. It’s a fairly easy walkthrough for guests (though instructions are always a good idea, just in case), and it system records locally on either side of the conversation, uploading the conversation to the cloud at the same time. Local recordings dramatically improve sound quality, versus a program like Zoom, which isn’t built with such things in mind.

Best case scenario, you get your guests to record on their system at the same time using something like Audacity or Zoom, but in my case, adding this additional level is a lot of fraction. Much of the time I’m interviewing musicians or artists, and any additional steps are just potential points of failure.

On the whole, I’ve been satisfied with the Riverside recording experience. There are certainly tweaks I would make to the interface and feature set, but it’s the best remote recording software I’ve used thus far. I’ve had less success with its editing software, however, and continue to rely on a handful of additional solutions.

Google Drive

The Google Drive storage application is seen on a portable device in this photo illustration on December 6, 2017. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

A total lifesaver – particular for all of the editing I do on the road. The moment you get done with the interview, download the audio and upload it to a service like Google Drive (auto Drive uploads are probably the bit I miss the most from Zencastr). Creating a clear filing system for the show and move finished episodes into a new folder. I avoid deleting anything until I absolutely free up space, because you never know.

Audacity/Garage Band

When you’re editing, it’s all about workflows. I’ve been using Audacity for more than a decade and a half at this point, and I’ve grown to appreciate its completely no-frills approach to audio. Many of the “beginner” audio editing programs don’t let you edit the wave file directly. For my money, it’s important to see what you’re working with and listen through the show at least once in the process. That’s where Audacity shines.

Audacity is a little too simple for some things, however. Once the primary audio is finished, I drop it into an existing show template in Garage Band (Mac/PC) to add the music.

Side note: I always export the audio in wav form, keeping it as lossless as possible until the final product is produced. You’ll want to compress it into an MP3 before uploading it to the servers.

Auphonic

Image Credits: Brian Heater

This is the most recent addition to my work flow. I’m embarrassed to admit that I did a lot of audio leveling by hand, as many of the effects features can distort or degrade the final product. Auphonic is a web-based service. You tick a few boxes, upload it and it churns out a product surprisingly quickly. Pictured above is the before and after audio from an upcoming interview with YouTube Effect director, Alex Winter.

The feature is especially important when you have multiple speakers (such as an interview), recorded and speaking at different volumes. I admit that my mic etiquette could be better, as well, so there’s often a fair bit of deviation in my own voice. I’ve been impressed with the job it does so far, and it saves me more time than just about any other bit of software in my workflow currently. I would prefer a desktop version I could tweak a bit more, but the web app is certainly simple.

It’s also, frankly, easier to monetize. You get two free hours a month, and beyond that can either buy credits or sign up for a monthly subscription.

Acast

Image Credits: Brian Heater

My podcast was hosted by Podbean for most of its life. I switched to Acast a year or two ago and haven’t looked back. It’s great, full featured, and somehow still free. From here, you can make sure that the show is distributed to all of the important podcatching services.

Otter

Sutro Sam, the lone river otter that lives in San Francisco’s Sutro Baths ruins, climbs out of the water onto a concrete surface.

Far and away the best transcription service, for my money. Otter is terrific for scanning content and grabbing clips for promotional purposes.

Headliner

I use Headliner for two steps. First is creating simple, animated clips of the show for social media. The second is turning the audio only show into a full length, animated MP4 for YouTube. The service is dead simple and great for getting the word out. You can also share clips directly from the app to social media services like Instagram.

Podcastpage

Image Credits: Podcastpage

Podcastpage is a super simple site builder for your podcast. Customize a few details, connect it to your show and purchase a domain if it strikes your fancy. It’s never a bad idea to have a distinct landing page for your show that lives outside of services like Apple Podcasts.

Interview tips

Condenser microphone for recording songs or broadcasting and podcasting in a studio

All right, you’ve made it this far, so here are some assorted interview tips I’ve figured out over the years as a bonus.

Listen to interviews with your subject ahead of time. Read some as well for context, but listening to someone’s voice and how they answer questions will help give you a feel for the potential flow of the conversation and help structure questions and follow ups.Research also puts the subject at ease. People are often more willing to give you good stuff, when it’s clear that you know what you’re talking about.Reading interviews allows you to both ask more developed questions, based on previous answers and understand which question to skip, either because the subject gets them to often or just doesn’t give a compelling answer.Suggest your subject listen to an episode or two of your show prior to the interview. They will be much more comfortable if they’re not flying blind.Be willing to go off script. Sticking to prewritten questions is one of the biggest and most consistent issues I’ve seen with interviewers. People miss out on great follow ups when they stick to the script. Let the conversation structure the form.For that reason, I largely rely on bullet points for topics and bring them up organically when they make sense. If you write full questions, bold key words and phrases to be able to scan them at a glance.It might not seem like it on paper, but sometimes “why” is the best follow up question.Take notes! It takes a bit of practice, but it’s entirely possible to take notes will still being in the moment. If anything, taking the note allows you to be more present and engaged with what the subject is saying, rather than thinking about what your next question is going to be.Be okay with the silence. Let questions – and answers – breathe. The beauty of editing is you can always remove them later

Previous How I Podcasts:

Left Handed Radio’s Anna Rubanova
Science Vs’s Rose Rimler
Election Profit Makers’ David Rees
Welcome to Your Fantasy’s Eleanor Kagan
Articles of Interest’s Avery Trufelman
First Draft and Track Changes’ Sarah Enni
RiYL remote podcasting edition
Family Ghosts’ Sam Dingman
I’m Listening’s Anita Flores
Broken Record’s Justin Richmond
Criminal/This Is Love’s Lauren Spohrer
Jeffrey Cranor of Welcome to Night Vale
Jesse Thorn of Bullseye
Ben Lindbergh of Effectively Wild
My own podcast, RiYL

SOURCE

Identity management platform Veza secures $15M from Capital One and ServiceNow

Veza, a platform that helps to secure identity access across apps, data systems and cloud infrastructure, today announced that it raised $15 million in a funding round led by Capital One Ventures and ServiceNow — valuing the company at $415 million.

Bringing Veza’s total raised to $125 million, co-founder and CEO Tarun Thakur says that the proceeds will be put toward product development, expanding Veza’s sales capacity and supporting its go-to-market execution.

“Veza was not looking to actively raise capital,” Thakur said. “The new investors were attracted to Veza because of the unique security challenges we address — the core problem of securing identity and authorization end-to-end. Veza was keen to take on these new investors because of the strategic market presence and insights that these professionals and organizations bring to the table.”

Data breaches continue to dominate headlines, costing organizations $4.45 million on average, according to IBM’s latest study. In a survey from One Identity — which, granted, sells identity management software — 95% of organizations say that they struggle with digital ID management.

That’s put companies on high alert — to the benefit of cybersecurity startups like Veza. While investment in cybersecurity has fallen below the record highs recorded in previous years, investors — including Capital One and ServiceNow, evidently — remain optimistic.

Thakur founded Veza in 2020 alongside Maohua Lu and Rob Whitcher, launching the startup out of stealth in April 2022. The three met at Thakur’s previous company, Datos IO, which was acquired by Rubrik roughly two years ago.

Veza, like other identity management solutions on the market, enables companies to enforce policies, monitor in real time for violations and risky permissions and automatically block or revoke unauthorized access to products and services. Leveraging what Thakur describes as an “authorization graph,” Veza attempts to make sense of the authorization metadata in a company’s internal apps and databases. 

“Since traditional identity solutions are built on a relational database, they are transactional, lack the visibility into the modern enterprise and don’t show the reality of an organizations’ permissions,” Thakur said. “Our mission is to invent the future of access control, make it automated and put data security back within reach.”

Palo Alto-based Veza, which expects to employ 150 people by the end of the year, claims to have over a hundred customers today, including Wynn Resorts, Blackstone, Expedia, SoFi, Warby Parker, Wayfair, Zoom and Intuit. The company’s client portfolio has more than tripled since Veza came out of stealth, Thakur says, despite competition from SailPoint, CyberArk, Saviynt, Okta, Obsidian and others. And it has three years of runway.

“As breaches continue to rise and with the SEC’s new rules about cybersecurity disclosure, CIOs are now taking a very active role to share with their boards on privileged access dashboards and KPIs in order to build transparency on access debt that organizations have,” Veza said —  referring to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s recently-passed rules on requiring the prompt disclosure of cybersecurity incidents. “These are becoming critical business initiatives and leading identity security is becoming increasingly top of mind for boards, CEO, CIOs, CTOs and CISOs.”

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Disney+ announces another price hike, says ad-supported tier is coming to more countries

Disney is raising prices for its online streaming services across the board amid a declining subscriber base. This is the company’s second price hike in the last 12 months after it increased subscription fees for different offerings including Disney+ and Hulu last October.

Here is a handy list of Dinsey’s news price hikes:

Disney+ (ad-free): $13.99 per month from $10.99 per monthHulu (ad-free): $17.99 per month from $14.99 per monthESPN+ (with ads): $10.99 per month from $9.99 per monthDisney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ (all ad-supported): $14.99 per month from $12.99 per monthDisney+ (ad-free), Hulu (ad-free), and ESPN+ (with ads): $24.99 per month from $19.99 per month

The company is also introducing a new ad-free bundle of Disney+ and Hulu at $19.99 per month. Ad-supported tiers for both services will remain at $7.99 per month. Disney said that these new tariffs will be applicable from October 12.

Disney+’s domestic subscriber base across the U.S. and Canada dipped from 46.3 million to 46.0 million in the last three months. Notably, the biggest subscriber drop was in India as Disney+Hotstar went from 52.9 million paid users to 40.4 million paid users. This was mainly due to the company losing digital rights to stream the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament. Reliance-owned JioCinema streamed IPL for free to attract more users. Hotstar has announced a similar move for the upcoming One-day Cricket World Cup starting in October.

CEO Bob Iger, who returned to lead the company last year, however, asked investors to not focus on the Hotstar subscriber drop as it is “not a material component of our overall D2C financial results” because the service in India fetches lower revenue per user that the core Disney+ service.

Iger also noted that the company is expanding its ad-supported service in more countries including Canada and Europe. Last December, the company launched the ad-fueled tier in the U.S. to compete with a similar offering from Netflix.

“I’m pleased to share that our ad-supported Disney+ subscription offerings will become available in Canada and in select markets across Europe, beginning November 1st, while a new ad-free bundled subscription plan featuring Disney+ and Hulu will be available in the U.S,” he said during the earnings call.

Yesterday, Disney announced that it has struck a $2 billion deal with Penn Entertainment to rebrand its sportsbook to ESPN Bet. Iger added that the company is also looking for digital distribution and technology partners to take ESPN direct to consumers.

“Taking our ESPN flagship channels direct-to-consumer is not a matter of if but when. And the team is hard at work looking at all components of this decision, including pricing and timing. It’s interesting to note that ratings continue to increase on ESPN’s main linear channel even as cord-cutting has accelerated,” he said.

Disney’s revenue grew 4% year-on-year at  $22.33 billion. However, it fell short of Wall Street’s expectation of $22.53 billion for the quarter ending in June.

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Ask Sophie: As an immigrant to the US, how can I create and work for my own startup?

Sophie Alcorn Contributor

Sophie Alcorn is the founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley and 2019 Global Law Experts Awards’ “Law Firm of the Year in California for Entrepreneur Immigration Services.” She connects people with the businesses and opportunities that expand their lives. More posts by this contributor Ask Sophie: Any tips for F-1 student visa approval amid the rising denial rate?Ask Sophie: Which US visas are best for international founders?

Here’s another edition of “Ask Sophie,” the advice column that answers immigration-related questions about working at technology companies.

“Your questions are vital to the spread of knowledge that allows people all over the world to rise above borders and pursue their dreams,” says Sophie Alcorn, a Silicon Valley immigration attorney. “Whether you’re in people ops, a founder or seeking a job in Silicon Valley, I would love to answer your questions in my next column.”

TechCrunch+ members receive access to weekly “Ask Sophie” columns; use promo code ALCORN to purchase a one- or two-year subscription for 50% off.

Dear Sophie,

I was born in India and have been living and working in the U.S. on an H-1B with my current employer for four years. I tried to apply for one of the 10,000 H-1B visa holder work permits that Canada made available in July, but I didn’t get one.

I’ve decided to move forward and found my own startup in the U.S. What’s the best way for me to be able to stay in the U.S. and legally work for my startup?

— Fledgling Founder

Hiya Fledgling!

Kudos to you for your grit and determination to continue to build and innovate in the United States. You’ve got this — and I’ve got your back!

A note to U.S. lawmakers: We are falling behind

Canada’s H-1B initiative and its overall work visa and permanent residence processes are far more appealing and effective in attracting and retaining international talent than the restrictive, complicated and backlogged immigration system individuals face in the United States.

The U.S. must enact immigration legislation that helps startup founders and merit-based workers have a clear path. This has become a national security issue: Do we want the emerging technologies of the future to be created in the U.S.?

Even state-level actors see the urgency and importance of founder immigration: California governor Gavin Newsom recently budgeted $2 million for a Global Entrepreneur in Residence (GEIR) pilot program in the University of California system. The program aims to attract and retain international talent by enabling the UC system to sponsor visas for individuals to build startups.

Immigration vs. corporate law

Creating a strong foundation for your startup under corporate law and creating a strong startup to sponsor you for a work visa or green card under immigration law focus on different things. Because of that, I recommend you work with both an immigration lawyer and a corporate lawyer for guidance.

During a chat with Michael Avent, a partner at multinational law firm Perkins Coie who works with emerging growth startups and VCs, he emphasized it’s crucial for prospective founders to keep in mind the proprietary inventions and assignment agreement that they likely signed with their current employer.

Avent said one of the first things he does when meeting with prospective founders if they are currently working for a company is to go through the proprietary inventions and assignment agreement. “One of the things that we always think about at the earliest stage — even pre-company — is protecting the IP that’s going to form the foundation of the business and that can be complicated if you’re working someplace else.”

Things get complicated with immigration law, too, since you cannot do any work for your startup without a work visa or other work authorization. Your H-1B usually authorizes you to work only for the company that sponsored your visa — your current employer. Working to get your startup off the ground without the proper work authorization could have a detrimental impact on your ability to remain in the U.S. and any future visas or green cards you apply for.

However, there are things you can do that are not typically considered work, such as attending business meetings with prospective hires or investors or signing contracts. Ask your immigration lawyer about other activities you want to engage in to set up your startup to find out if they are allowed.

Avent also highlighted a few things that will have a huge impact on your future as a founder and on that of the company that you should stay on top of as a founder. For example, he talked about the importance of meeting the filing deadline for Section 83(b), which enables a founder to be taxed on the equity in their startup on the date it was granted rather than when it vests.

It can be “catastrophic to founders and their company if the 83(b) filing is missed,” he says, meaning potentially “hundreds of thousands [in] tax liability for the founder and withholding for the company.”

In addition, Avent emphasized that founders pay close attention to the dilutive impact of a convertible security or SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) or multiple SAFEs. “You can inadvertently give away more of your company than you want if you don’t understand the mechanics.”

SOURCE

SAEKI’s “microfactories” help large manufacturing scale up

The architecture, engineering and construction industries involve giant concrete molds that are expensive, slow to manufacture and often only used a few times before being disposed. Robots-as-a-service startup SAEKI says its tech not only makes creating these molds faster, but also more cost-efficient. The Lupfig, Switzerland-based company is building what it says will be fully automated plants with industrial robots that use 3D tech to create components like aircraft wings and construction site installations.

SAEKI launched from stealth today with $2.3 million in seed funding led by Wingman Ventures, along with participation from Vento Ventures, Getty Capital and angel investors.

It is currently building its first production hub, which will have industrial robots that are capable of combining digital manufacturing methods, including 3D printing, milling and inspection. SAEKI says the robots each act as “microfactories,” which means they are self-contained units that can do all manufacturing steps.

SAEKI was founded in 2021 by Andrea Perissinotto, Oliver Harley and Matthias Leschok. Perissinotto told TechCrunch he became interested in manufacturing when he was a child, learning metalworking at his uncle’s workshop and building his first 3D printer when he was 12. He met Harley while building a large 3D printer for the maker space at ETH Zurich, where they were both studying, and they began working with Leschok to combine 3D printing and industrial robots.

The three were completing their studies during the pandemic when Perissinotto decided he wanted to leave academia and become an entrepreneur. SAEKI was founded in February 2021 to combine robotics with 3D printing, machining and inspection. During that process, Perissinotto said he and his co-workers learned that 3D printing for large items, like wind turbine blades, airplane and car parts, was still early in development and not at industry quality and scale yet. They decided to focus their new startup on the issue by creating fully automated factories with independent robotic cells that customers can book.

Want the top robotics news in your inbox each week? Sign up for Actuator here.

SAEKI produces the large components needed by industries like construction, aerospace and automotive, without needing to retool their machines. This is a time- and cost-saving advantage for components that are only used a few times during the building and manufacturing process.

For example, when constructing buildings out of concrete, builders first need a mold called a “formwork.” Unless it is being used for something standard, like a flat wall or ceiling, special formwork needs to be created from scratch. Typically, they are built by hand out of wood and scrapped after building is completed. SAEKI’s solution is to use recyclable thermoplastics that are 3D printed and processed by one of its robots and delivered to construction sites.

It also plans to work with the composites industry, which builds the lightweight but strong parts found on airplanes, cars and bikes, among other things. These parts are usually made in complex molds created from metal or composite materials. Perissinotto said this creates a bottleneck for companies because the molds are expensive and need a long time to build. SAEKI’s goal is to reduce lead time costs and use their tooling processes to enable companies in the composites industry to have faster hardware production cycles.

Since SAEKI’s robots act as “microfactories,” this means its customers do not have to purchase another new machine or take up more floor space in their facilities. Perissinotto said this is why SAEKI decided to use a robots-as-a-service business model, since that allows customers to just purchase the amount of time they need with a machine.

SAEKI is currently finalizing its first pilot projects in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector, with customers using its 3D printed formwork to create custom concrete elements. Its target AEC clients include construction companies, pre-casters, interior designers and architects.

Perissinotto said SAEKI is already generating revenue because of its pilot projects. It is building its first factory in Switzerland, but its robots are already operational and have already been producing parts for the last few months.

In terms of competition, Perissinotto said additive manufacturing has been a “prominent topic” for years now, and even though there has been significant advancement in tech, market acceptance has not fully matched that progress, due in large part to the cost of the machinery involved. Even though additive manufacturing has gained some traction in the industrial market, it is still in the early stages when it comes to large-scale applications, he added. Companies that offer machines for large-scale additive manufacturing include CEAD B.V., Caracol AM and Therwood Inc, but Perissinotto said SAEKI’s customers want a different approach.

“What we consistently hear from people and companies is a desire for faster more sustainable solutions for their parts,” he said. “Merely offering savings through a multi-million dollar machine that requires extensive space and additional resources, including hiring personnel well-versed in new processes and materials, is not appealing to them.”

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