According to him, the CEO of Canadian cryptocurrency company WonderFi was kidnapped and held for ransom on Wednesday CBC. Dean Skurka was reportedly forced right into a vehicle in downtown Toronto during rush hour and escaped unhurt after electronically sending $1 million (possibly CAD) to his kidnappers.

The CEO of WonderFi is the most recent cryptocurrency star to fall victim to a brutal attack. This is the 171st case of physical violence geared toward stealing cryptocurrency, a security company tells CBC.

Skurek’s company reported results for the third quarter the day before the incident, generating C$41 million in revenue over the past nine months. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s price rose above $76,000 this week, reaching a brand new record high for the digital currency.

WonderFi is endorsed by Shark Tank co-host Kevin O’Leary and is some of the well-known publicly traded crypto corporations in Canada, in response to Cointelegraph.

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The election has only been two days and there may be already numerous speculation concerning the next election Trump’s presidency will mean for transport and technology, in addition to related sectors akin to energy and climate. Many of those questions will take months to reply. We will observe and report on what impact this may increasingly have on the long run of transport.

Early on, we produced several articles that examined who might win, who might lose, and how specific sectors might deal with changes in governance in the chief and legislative branches. TC reporter Tim De Chant provided evaluation on why President-elect Trump may find it difficult to lighten the mood Act on reducing inflationand reporter Rebecca Bellan examined what this victory could mean Elon Musk and his corporations including Tesla, SpaceX and X.

Little bird

A little bit bird told us that Tesla has definitely given up on its $25,000 electric vehicle and replaced it with a robotaxi. The breakthrough that got here in April, when Musk announced that Tesla would unveil its robotaxi this 12 months, got here as a surprise to many Tesla employees who were enthusiastic about the opportunity of constructing a less expensive electric vehicle that their children could sooner or later afford. This change in strategy, combined with mass layoffs earlier this 12 months, led to low morale amongst employees and even some departures. But our little bird says morale is slowly improving.

In other baby bird news…

Just a few little birds told us concerning the launch of electrical vehicles Canoo struggled with executive departures and more furloughs. Just a few days later, before the newsletter was able to ship, our information was verified in a regulatory document: the CFO and general counsel had left, which, amongst other things, resulted within the furloughing of 30 employees.

You can even see these instructions to learn the best way to contact us via the encrypted messaging app or SecureDrop.

Offers!

Beta technologiesstartup developing electric planes for vertical takeoff and landing had an enormous round of funding — 318 million largeand yes, I mean dollars. The Series C financing round was led by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. Fidelity, TPG and United Therapeutics, which can also be a client, joined the round. This brings Beta’s total funding to over $1 billion. Not a word concerning the valuation.

As Rebecca Bellan noted in an article earlier this 12 months, Beta doesn’t wish to run its own urban air taxi network. Beta is positioning itself more as an OEM that may sell aircraft and charging solutions to multiple customers. The company has assured security for customers within the defense, cargo delivery and medical logistics industries – akin to United Therapeutics, UPS, Air New Zealand and the United States Air Force – with plans to launch products in these markets by 2025.

Other offers that caught my attention…

DeepRoute.aiShenzhen-based autonomous driving technology startup raised $100 million from Great Wall Motor. The funding is meant to assist DeepRoute introduce automated driving systems to as many vehicles as possible in China before Tesla launches next 12 months.

Last week we reminded you Waymo closing a $5.6 billion round from parent company Alphabet. Well, Bloomberg spotted the valuation, which their sources say is currently at $45 billion.

Van revised the valuation of Indian passenger transport startup Ola to around $2 billion at the tip of August.

Xavveostart-up coping with autonomous vehicle sensor technology, raised $8.6 million in a seed round co-led by Vsquared Ventures and imec.xpand.

Noteworthy reading and other interesting facts

Autonomous vehicles

Lift announced three separate partnerships — with a startup May mobilityautomated vehicle company Mobileyeand the corporate’s smart dash camera Nexar — all aimed toward gaining a foothold within the emerging autonomous vehicle market. All of those Uber and Lyft partnerships take me back to the hype days of AV in 2017 and 2018.

Electric vehicles, charging and batteries

Ferry said it is going to halt production of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck starting in mid-November for nearly two months because it grapples with reduced demand, increased competition and losses in the electrical vehicle industry.

Hurry up unveiled by an Electric camper concept which he describes as “the perfect escape pod,” Ars Technica reports.

Technology and software within the automotive

Reporter Sean O’Kane spoke with Rivian’s software chief Wassym Bensaid on the sidelines of TechCrunch Disrupt and learned that it’s working on an ecosystem for third-party developers that may make more apps available on the vehicle’s infotainment system.

This week’s wheels

This week, I’m reaching out to a handful of TechCrunch staffers who took their first Waymo rides while in San Francisco for Disrupt 2024. I’ve ridden many autonomous vehicles, including a driverless Waymos, so I assumed it might be fun to share a newbie’s perspective.

Venture reporter Dominic-Madori Davis said: “I thought I would hate Waymo, but I didn’t. He drove like my mother. Quite careful, very slow. I felt as safe as I could in the self-driving car, and honestly, I was glad I didn’t have to talk about the weather.”

AI and enterprise reporter Kyle Wiggers said “it’s nerve-wracking, especially when other cars pass us.” Sitting with a shotgun, the entire experience felt unnerving. I expected the worst.” I asked him if he would take one other Waymo, and his answer was, “Yes, but carefully.”

Venture editor Julie Bort went on three rides. She noted that her first ride was somewhat scary because she “turned a bit wobbly in a narrow lane next to a row of parked cars.” He also did not turn right on a red light, which resulted in frustrated people honking. She also noticed that sometimes the costs were much higher than what Uber would charge, and the drop-off locations were strange and just across the corner.

“All in all, it was a fun experience and if the car price is as affordable as other rideshares, I will do it regularly,” Bort told me. “But while it solved one security problem, it introduced others.”

Reporter Amanda Silberling said: “Waymo is like a roller coaster. It’s funny because it seems a little dangerous, but like a roller coaster, you know it’s been tested ad nauseam so it’s probably okay? If I wasn’t on a business trip with a corporate card, I don’t know if I could see myself using it because in many cases it was more expensive than Uber. Overall, I’m surprised at how safe I felt on Waymo rides, even though when I told my friends I was riding Waymo, they made me promise to text them once I arrived safely at my destination. My friends would react the same way if I was alone on the subway after midnight.”

Anthropic on Thursday announced that it’s working with Palantir, a knowledge mining company, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide U.S. intelligence and defense agencies with access to Anthropic’s Claude family of artificial intelligence models.

The news comes as an increasing variety of AI vendors seek to sign contracts with U.S. defense customers for strategic and fiscal reasons. Meta recently revealed that it’s sharing its llama models with defense industry partners, while OpenAI does searching establishing closer relations with the Department of Defense.

Anthropic’s head of sales, Kate Earle Jensen, says the corporate’s partnership with Palantir and AWS will “operationalize the use of Claude” on the Palantir platform, leveraging AWS hosting. Claude, which became available on the Palantir platform earlier this month, can now be utilized in Palantir’s defense-accredited Impact Level 6 (IL6) environment, hosted on AWS infrastructure.

The Department of Defense’s IL6 is reserved for systems containing data considered critical to national security and requiring “maximum protection” against unauthorized access and manipulation. Information in IL6 systems can reach the “secret” level – one step less top secret.

“We are proud to be a leader in bringing responsible AI solutions to classified environments in the U.S., increasing analytical capabilities and operational efficiency in key government operations,” Jensen said. “Access to Claude on Palantir on AWS will equip U.S. defense and intelligence organizations with powerful artificial intelligence tools that can quickly process and analyze massive amounts of complex data. This will dramatically improve intelligence analysis and decision-making for officials, streamline resource-intensive tasks and increase operational efficiency across all departments.”

This summer, Anthropic introduced select Claude models to AWS’s GovCloud service, signaling its ambition to expand its public sector customer base. (GovCloud is an AWS service designed for US government cloud workloads). Anthropic positions itself as a more security-conscious provider than OpenAI. However, the corporate’s terms of service allow it to use AI for tasks reminiscent of “legally authorized foreign intelligence analysis,” “identifying covert influence or sabotage campaigns,” and “providing advance warning of potential military activities.”

There is actually interest in artificial intelligence amongst government agencies. March 2024 Brookings Institute evaluation found 1,200% increase in government procurement related to artificial intelligence. But some branches, reminiscent of the US military, do slow implementation of this technology — and skeptical concerning the return on investment.

Anthropic, which has recently expanded into Europe, is he said conduct talks on obtaining a brand new round of financing value up to USD 40 billion. To date, the corporate has raised about $7.6 billion, including forward commitments. Amazon is by far the most important investor.