Author: Editor-in-Chief

AST SpaceMobile has inked a new deal with Verizon to bring space-based cellular broadband across the United States, marking its most significant partnership to date and its latest move to capture a larger share of the emerging space-to-cellular market. Under the agreement, Verizon will integrate AST’s satellite network with its terrestrial infrastructure, using Verizon’s 850 MHz spectrum to extend coverage in remote areas where towers can’t reach. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal builds on an earlier partnership between the two entities announced last year, in which Verizon made a $100 million commitment to support AST’s service…

Base Power has built one of the largest battery storage systems in Texas in two years — and now it wants to grow faster. The Austin-based startup, which had raised $200 million in April, is back with another $1 billion in funding. The Series C round was led by Addition with participation from CapitalG, Elad Gil, Lightspeed, Ribbit, Thrive Capital, and Valor Equity Partners. The new round values the company at $3 billion pre-money, according to The New York Times. Base Power has sold more than 100 megawatt-hours’ worth of its home storage batteries in Texas — a notable figure…

A few weeks ago, President Trump announced the application fee for an H-1B visa would increase to $100,000. The price tag sent shock waves through, especially the tech ecosystem, which heavily utilizes the visa to bring talent in from other countries. On this week’s Equity, we sat down with Jeremy Neufeld, the director of immigration policy at the Institute for Progress, to talk about the visa changes, what it means, and why it’s happening. He said the intention of the visa change makes sense, but the implementation of it has “left a lot to be desired.” “Some of the proposals…

UXBRIDGE (IPS) — Pollution is likely to be the most pressing global health issue in the coming years without effective prevention and clean-up efforts, experts say. Air, water and soil pollution already kills nearly nine million people a year and cripples the health of more than 200 million people worldwide. Far more people die from pollution than from malaria and HIV/AIDS combined. Development and rising pollution levels remain closely linked, as clearly evidenced in China and India. However, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a major opportunity to curb pollution and turn economies around the world towards clean and green…

British fintech Revolut — now launching in India — says cross-border payments remain one of India’s most underserved financial services. By its estimate, Indians spend about $30 billion overseas every year and lose around $600 million in bank charges — fees its India head calls “criminal.” “It has been the preserve of banks,” Paroma Chatterjee, Revolut India CEO, told TechCrunch. “You go to your bank to take currency, foreign exchange out from your bank, or you take a travel card that is issued by your bank when you’re traveling overseas … there have been humongous charges which have been…

The Department of Energy is looking to cut billions more in federal funding, and many promising startups as well as automakers Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis could be affected by the Trump administration’s decision. The proposed cuts would cancel more than $500 million of contracts awarded to more than a dozen startups, according to a TechCrunch analysis of an internal document that has not become public yet. All of the proposed cuts are grants that had been awarded under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The proposed cancellations, many of which have not been reported before, come on top of more than…

Patrick Suzuki wants everyone to know that he is no longer the same insecure person you see now on Love Is Blind. And that’s because he’s worked hard to heal in the year and a half since filming the show, thanks to “a lot of therapy.” Throughout the first six episodes of season 9, Patrick spoke a lot both in his confessionals and on dates in the pods about how living in a predominantly white city like Denver as an Asian man resulted in him developing insecurities over his appearance. And then his fiancée Kacie McIntosh abruptly ended their relationship in a bizarre…

Otter.ai CEO Sam Liang isn’t satisfied with the company being viewed, and used, as just a meeting notetaker. Liang wants Otter.ai to become a go-to source for enterprises and a new batch of products released Tuesday is the first step in that evolution. The Silicon Valley-based AI meeting assistant startup on Tuesday released a new suite of tools for enterprises designed to better incorporate data from meetings into other workflows by funneling that information to a central knowledge base. The aim is to grow Otter’s business by helping companies get more out of the meetings they record. Otter’s new product…

Tesla has spent more than a year teasing that “more affordable models” of its vehicles were on the way, and on Tuesday, the company finally revealed them. The company is now selling a more bare-bones version of the Model 3 sedan and the Model Y SUV, which start at $36,990 and $39,990, respectively. The new versions, each dubbed “Standard,” get an estimated 321 miles of range on a full battery, and will come with fewer features than the more premium rear-wheel or all-wheel drive variants when they ship later this year. They don’t even have Autopilot, the company’s basic…

There’s new legal drama for The Real Housewives franchise. Todd Nepola, the ex-husband of Alexia Nepola, a cast member of the Miami-set edition, has sued the show’s network, Bravo, along with parent company NBCUniversal Media and producers Purveyors of Pop, for defamation. He seeks more than $10 million in damages. After dating for four years, the couple married in 2021, and he appeared on 21 episodes of RHOM before April 2024, when he filed for divorce. But Alexia, one of the original cast members when it premiered in 2011, continued to appear on the reality show, so their relationship was part of the narrative.…