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She grew up a car enthusiast — now her startup has raised $4.3 million to reduce CO2 emissions from trucking

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From left, Christy McCaig (Nine Realms), Danielle Walsh (Clearly), Katharina Neisinger (Pace Ventures). Photo by Hubert Cecil

The irony was not lost on her. Growing up the daughter of a family obsessive about motor racing, Danielle Walsh became — in her late 20s — head of the Future Cities project at HSBC, a global banking giant that’s trying to address the climate change concerns of its customers.

It was 2018, and she or he reported to each the bank’s technology M&A department and its chief data officer.

“After a year and a half of living on airplanes and talking to customers, I realized the world would have to spend trillions a year to meet the ‘net zero’ climate goals that have been set for road transportation alone,” Walsh recalls. She saw the chance and launched her startup in 2021 to address the issue.

Fast forward to today, after I am the founder and CEO of my startup. ClearlyWalsh (pictured above, center, with two investors) just closed a $4.3 million seed funding round to bolster her flagship product: an AI-powered “climate intelligence” platform geared toward transportation fleet operators. The platform, Walsh says, is detailed enough to know when to notify a driver to pump up their vehicle’s tires for optimal climate-friendly performance.

The financing round was led by Pace Projects AND Nine Kingdomsand was attended by existing investors within the mobility sector: Mobilion, Next Gear and M1720, in addition to business angels including Lord Nash and Margaux Primat.

The problem Clearly solves could seem obvious, however the devil is in the main points. While we’re all aware of the trucks and vans on our streets and sometimes how much exhaust they emit, decarbonizing each the transportation fleet and provide chains is a huge and expensive conundrum.

The transport sector is chargeable for 25% of worldwide emissionsthus holding certainly one of the most important keys to unlocking the reduction of CO2 within the atmosphere. It will cost an estimated $1.75 trillion to decarbonize the sector, and meaning changing vehicles, modernizing power grids and more. Meanwhile, transportation emissions are set to rise by 60% by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.

Founded in 2021, Clearly is trying to solve one a part of that puzzle. Its platform—based on anonymized data provided by its customers, which include logistics operators, fleet owners, and other participants within the transportation supply chain—includes vehicle movement and performance diagnostics, GPS, tracking, IoT data, cargo weight, and more. The resulting dashboard provides fleet managers with a number of emissions insights, in addition to alerts delivered through an app to drivers to “jog” their behavior. (These can include instructions like “Try to drive slower.”) The platform now tracks greater than 100 million customer trips.

The aim is to help operators lower your expenses while ensuring they meet emissions regulations and targets which can be now a part of legal compliance in lots of countries.

The company’s current largest clients include: Internet FleetBridgestone fleet management solution.

Walsh says Clearly’s data has shown that as much as 30% of fuel consumption is down to driver behaviour alone, so it is vital to provide drivers with data on how they’ll improve their performance.

“This space is growing rapidly, and we were impressed by the strong demand for Clearly’s product from large corporations and the financial sector,” Marius Swart, a partner at Pace Ventures, said in a statement. “We see demand for data-driven ordering and AI-powered operational decision-making expanding at a rapid pace.”

That said, Clearly is up against the large incumbents. Typically, those are the large telematics vendors, and that presents a challenge, Walsh says: They could have the info, but they’ve trouble creating platforms that fleet operators can put into practice.

“They’re tracking vehicles, tire pressure, driver behavior, but they don’t know how to add that extra data,” she told TechCrunch. While she acknowledges that any company that does operational efficiency or fleet management “could expand their product to our area,” she says they would wish a recent set of technologies that transcend that.

“If I can get 1% of the market, I can make a billion dollars in revenue,” she said. “I would welcome additional players. It’s a very large market.”

So what would she say to her family of racing enthusiasts, now that she has gone from being a car enthusiast to a “climate enthusiast”?

“Well, I just raised $4 million… What do you think?” Walsh jokes.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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US medical device giant Artivion says hackers stole files during a cybersecurity incident

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Artivion, a medical device company that produces implantable tissue for heart and vascular transplants, says its services have been “disrupted” resulting from a cybersecurity incident.

In 8-K filing In an interview with the SEC on Monday, Georgia-based Artivion, formerly CryoLife, said it became aware of a “cybersecurity incident” that involved the “compromise and encryption” of information on November 21. This suggests that the corporate was attacked by ransomware, but Artivion has not yet confirmed the character of the incident and didn’t immediately reply to TechCrunch’s questions. No major ransomware group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Artivion said it took some systems offline in response to the cyberattack, which the corporate said caused “disruptions to certain ordering and shipping processes.”

Artivion, which reported third-quarter revenue of $95.8 million, said it didn’t expect the incident to have a material impact on the corporate’s funds.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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It’s a Raspberry Pi 5 in a keyboard and it’s called Raspberry Pi 500

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Manufacturer of single-board computers Raspberry Pi is updating its cute little computer keyboard device with higher specs. Named Raspberry Pi500This successor to the Raspberry Pi 400 is just as powerful as the present Raspberry Pi flagship, the Raspberry Pi 5. It is on the market for purchase now from Raspberry Pi resellers.

The Raspberry Pi 500 is the simplest method to start with the Raspberry Pi because it’s not as intimidating because the Raspberry Pi 5. When you take a look at the Raspberry Pi 500, you do not see any chipsets or PCBs (printed circuit boards). The Raspberry Pi is totally hidden in the familiar housing, the keyboard.

The idea with the Raspberry Pi 500 is you could connect a mouse and a display and you are able to go. If, for instance, you’ve got a relative who uses a very outdated computer with an outdated version of Windows, the Raspberry Pi 500 can easily replace the old PC tower for many computing tasks.

More importantly, this device brings us back to the roots of the Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi computers were originally intended for educational applications. Over time, technology enthusiasts and industrial customers began using single-board computers all over the place. (For example, when you’ve ever been to London Heathrow Airport, all of the departures and arrivals boards are there powered by Raspberry Pi.)

Raspberry Pi 500 draws inspiration from the roots of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a non-profit organization. It’s the right first computer for college. In some ways, it’s a lot better than a Chromebook or iPad because it’s low cost and highly customizable, which inspires creative pondering.

The Raspberry Pi 500 comes with a 32GB SD card that comes pre-installed with Raspberry Pi OS, a Debian-based Linux distribution. It costs $90, which is a slight ($20) price increase over the Raspberry Pi 400.

Only UK and US keyboard variants will probably be available at launch. But versions with French, German, Italian, Japanese, Nordic and Spanish keyboard layouts will probably be available soon. And when you’re in search of a bundle that features all the things you would like, Raspberry Pi also offers a $120 desktop kit that features the Raspberry Pi 500, a mouse, a 27W USB-C power adapter, and a micro-HDMI to HDMI cable.

In other news, Raspberry Pi has announced one other recent thing: the Raspberry Pi monitor. It is a 15.6-inch 1080p monitor that’s priced at $100. Since there are quite a few 1080p portable monitors available on the market, this launch is not as noteworthy because the Pi 500. However, for die-hard Pi fans, there’s now also a Raspberry Pi-branded monitor option available.

Image credits:Raspberry Pi

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Apple Vision Pro may add support for PlayStation VR controllers

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Vision Pro headset

According to Apple, Apple desires to make its Vision Pro mixed reality device more attractive for gamers and game developers latest report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

The Vision Pro was presented more as a productivity and media consumption device than a tool geared toward gamers, due partly to its reliance on visual and hand controls moderately than a separate controller.

However, Apple may need gamers if it desires to expand the Vision Pro’s audience, especially since Gurman reports that lower than half one million units have been sold to this point. As such, the corporate has reportedly been in talks with Sony about adding support for PlayStation VR2 handheld controllers, and has also talked to developers about whether they may support the controllers of their games.

Offering more precise control, Apple may also make other forms of software available in Vision Pro, reminiscent of Final Cut Pro or Adobe Photoshop.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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