J.B. Hunt will be Waymo’s first self-driving freight customer

Waymo Via, the autonomous vehicle company’s trucking and cargo transportation unit, is expanding its existing partnership with logistics company J.B. Hunt Transport Services from a pilot into a long-term strategic alliance. As part of the agreement, J.B. Hunt will be Waymo Via’s first launch customer for fully autonomous, driverless freight routes, which Waymo expects to […]

China’s robotaxis charged ahead in 2021

Autonomous driving startups in China are in an arms race to put passengers in their machine-driven vehicles. Every few weeks, news arrives that another major player has got the greenlight to launch a new pilot program or a small-scale service. These press releases, often dotted with regulatory jargon and flowery language to aggrandize the companies’ […]

North Korea hacked nearly $400M in cryptocurrency last year 

North Korean hackers launched at least seven attacks on cryptocurrency platforms last year to steal almost $400 million worth of digital assets, according to a report by blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis.  “From 2020 to 2021, the number of North Korean-linked hacks jumped from four to seven, and the value extracted from these hacks grew by […]

Shell-founded startup fund receives $13 million from Canadian DFI to accelerate clean energy access in Africa

FinDev Canada has injected $13 million into Energy Entrepreneurs Growth Fund (EEGF), which invests in early and growth-stage energy startups in sub-Saharan Africa. Part of the funding that will go towards increasing access to clean energy for off-grid households and businesses in the region. The $120 million EEGF, which was founded in 2019 by the […]

EVage raises $28M to be a driving force in India’s commercial EV revolution

A congruence of factors in India — notably, climate change policies, fuel costs and skyrocketing demand for e-commerce — has set up ideal conditions for startups like all-electric commercial vehicle startup EVage. The startup already has five EV trucks on the road for a range of e-commerce customers including Amazon India’s Delivery Service Partner, with […]

House committee investigating Jan. 6 subpoenas Meta, YouTube, Twitter and Reddit

The House committee leading the investigation into the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol issued subpoenas to four major tech companies Thursday. January 6 select committee chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) sent letters to YouTube parent company Alphabet, Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, Reddit and Twitter demanding for those companies to provide […]

UK class action lodged against Meta seeks $3.1B for breach of competition law

A competition legal expert, backed by a powerful litigation fund, is set to mount a multibillion-dollar class action suit against Facebook/Meta for breach of competition law on the basis that it abused its dominance of social networking in the U.K. for several years. If successful, the action would see Facebook having to pay $3.1 billion […]