Brinc Drones, a Seattle-based startup founded by 25-year-old Blake Resnick, has secured $75 million in fresh funding led by Index Ventures.
Known for its police and public safety drones, Brinc is scaling its presence across emergency services, with the new funds bringing total investment to over $157 million. The round also includes participation from Motorola Solutions, a major player in US security infrastructure.
The company, founded in 2017, is part of a growing wave of American drone startups benefiting from tightened restrictions on Chinese drone manufacturers.
Brinc’s drones are designed for rapid response in hard-to-reach areas and boast unique features, such as the ability to break windows or deliver emergency supplies.
The new partnership with Motorola will enable tighter integration into 911 call centres, allowing AI systems to dispatch drones directly to emergency scenes.
Despite growing competition from other US startups like Flock Safety and Skydio, Brinc remains confident in the market’s potential.
With its enhanced funding and Motorola collaboration, the company is aiming to position itself as a leader in AI-integrated public safety technology while helping shift drone manufacturing back to the US.
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Nearly 20 years after his AI career scare, screenwriter Ed Bennett-Coles and songwriter Jamie Hartman have developed ARK, a blockchain app designed to safeguard creative work from AI exploitation.
The platform lets artists register ownership of their ideas at every stage, from initial concept to final product, using biometric security and blockchain verification instead of traditional copyright systems.
ARK aims to protect human creativity in an AI-dominated world. ‘It’s about ring-fencing the creative process so artists can still earn a living,’ Hartman told AFP.
The app, backed by Claritas Capital and BMI, uses decentralised blockchain technology instead of centralised systems to give creators full control over their intellectual property.
Launching summer 2025, ARK challenges AI’s ‘growth at all costs’ mentality by emphasising creative journeys over end products.
Bennett-Coles compares AI content to online meat delivery, efficient but soulless, while human artistry resembles a grandfather’s butcher trip, where the experience matters as much as the result.
The duo hopes their solution will inspire industries to modernise copyright protections before AI erodes them completely.
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Microsoft is testing a major upgrade to its Copilot AI that can view your entire screen instead of just working within the Edge browser.
The new Copilot Vision feature helps users navigate apps like Photoshop and Minecraft by analysing what’s on display and offering step-by-step guidance, even highlighting specific tools instead of just giving verbal instructions.
The feature operates more like a shared Teams screen instead of Microsoft’s controversial Recall snapshot system.
Currently limited to US beta testers, Copilot Vision will eventually highlight interface elements directly on users’ screens. It works on standard Windows PCs instead of requiring specialised Copilot+ hardware, with mobile versions coming to iOS and Android.
Alongside visual assistance, Microsoft is adding document search capabilities. Copilot can now find information within files like Word documents and PDFs instead of just searching by filename.
Both updates will roll out fully in the coming weeks, potentially transforming how users interact with both apps and documents on their Windows devices.
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Amazon has unveiled Nova Sonic, a new AI model designed to process and generate human-like speech, positioning it as a rival to OpenAI and Google’s top voice assistants. The company claims it outperforms competitors in speed, accuracy, and cost, and it is reportedly 80% cheaper than GPT-4o.
Already powering Alexa+, Nova Sonic excels in real-time conversation, handling interruptions and noisy environments better than legacy AI assistants.
Unlike older voice models, Nova Sonic can dynamically route requests, fetching live data or triggering external actions when needed. Amazon says it achieves a 4.2% word error rate across multiple languages and responds in just 1.09 seconds, faster than OpenAI’s GPT-4o.
Developers can access it via Bedrock, Amazon’s AI platform, using a new streaming API.
The launch signals Amazon’s push into artificial general intelligence (AGI), AI that mimics human capabilities.
Rohit Prasad, head of Amazon’s AGI division, hinted at future models handling images, video, and sensory data. This follows last week’s preview of Nova Act, an AI for browser tasks, suggesting Amazon is accelerating its AI rollout beyond Alexa.
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AI-driven food company Starday has secured $11 million in Series A funding to support the development and retail expansion of its innovative food brands.
The round was led by Slow Ventures and Equal Ventures, with an additional $3 million credit facility from Silicon Valley Bank. Starday’s total funding now stands at $20 million.
Founded by Chaz Flexman, Lena Kwak, and Lily Burtis, Starday uses AI to identify market gaps and quickly create new food products that cater to evolving consumer preferences.
Its latest offerings, including allergen-free snacks like Habeya Sweet Potato Crackers and All Day chickpea protein crunch, are already available in major United States grocery chains such as Kroger and Hannaford.
With plans to launch 14 new products across its four brands, the company is aiming to redefine the pace and precision of food innovation.
CEO Flexman says the funding will help Starday partner with more retailers and food brands to fill gaps in the market, accelerating the launch of targeted products in fast-growing categories. Backers believe Starday’s data-led model gives it a structural edge in a traditionally slow-moving industry.
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India’s Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has sparked controversy by questioning whether Indian start-ups should focus on semiconductor chips instead of gluten-free ice creams and food delivery apps.
Speaking at a start-up conference, he compared India’s consumer internet boom unfavourably with China’s advances in robotics and AI, urging entrepreneurs to pursue more ambitious tech innovations instead of safe lifestyle products.
While acknowledging the position of India as the world’s third-largest start-up ecosystem, Goyal faced pushback from founders who argued consumer apps often evolve into tech pioneers.
Quick-commerce CEO Aadit Palicha noted that companies like Amazon began as consumer platforms before revolutionising cloud computing. However, investors admitted deep-tech struggles for funding, with most capital chasing quick-return ventures instead of long-term hardware or AI projects.
The debate highlights India’s innovation crossroads. Despite having 4,000 deep-tech start-ups, projected to reach 10,000 by 2030, they attracted just 5% of 2023 funding instead of China’s 35%.
Experts suggest the government could help by offering tax incentives instead of criticism, and building research bridges between academia and start-ups to compete globally in advanced technologies
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Russia’s Federal Tax Service (FTS) has introduced a new online tool to assist crypto miners in calculating their taxes. The tool offers exchange rate data for cryptocurrencies. It helps miners calculate income based on the minimum closing price in rubles on specific dates.
While the tool currently includes data from seven exchanges, such as Binance and ByBit, some major coins like Ethereum (ETH) are missing from the database.
Despite its limitations, the resource aims to simplify the calculation of tax liabilities for digital currency transactions. The FTS emphasises that taxpayers must independently verify the information.
Since the legalisation of crypto mining in Russia, miners must comply with a two-tiered tax system introduced in 2024. Miners earning up to 2.4 million rubles are taxed at 13%, while those exceeding this threshold face a 15% tax.
Miners using over 6,000 kWh of electricity per month must register with the FTS. Fines will be imposed for non-compliance.
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President Trump is set to sign an executive order designating coal as a critical mineral instead of allowing its continued decline in the energy sector.
The order will force some coal-fired power plants slated for closure to remain operational, with the administration citing rising electricity demand from data centres instead of acknowledging coal’s dwindling competitiveness.
Currently, coal generates just 15% of US electricity instead of its 51% share in 2001, having been overtaken by cheaper natural gas and renewables.
Environmental experts warn coal remains the dirtiest energy source instead of cleaner alternatives, releasing harmful pollutants linked to health issues like heart disease and mercury poisoning. While the order may temporarily slow plant closures, analysts note it won’t reverse coal’s decline.
Solar and wind power now undercut operating costs at nearly all US coal plants instead of being more expensive, as was once the case.
The move could have more impact in steelmaking, where coal is still used instead of newer green steel techniques in most production. However, for power generation, renewables can be deployed faster than new coal plants instead of struggling to meet demand.
The order appears to prioritise political symbolism instead of addressing energy market realities, as even existing coal plants struggle to compete with increasingly affordable clean energy alternatives.
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A new San Francisco-based startup, Deep Cogito, has unveiled its first family of AI models, Cogito 1, which can switch between fast-response and deep-reasoning modes instead of being limited to just one approach.
These hybrid models combine the efficiency of standard AI with the step-by-step problem-solving abilities seen in advanced systems like OpenAI’s o1. While reasoning models excel in fields like maths and physics, they often require more computing power, a trade-off Deep Cogito aims to balance.
The Cogito 1 series, built on Meta’s Llama and Alibaba’s Qwen models instead of starting from scratch, ranges from 3 billion to 70 billion parameters, with larger versions planned.
Early tests suggest the top-tier Cogito 70B outperforms rivals like DeepSeek’s reasoning model and Meta’s Llama 4 Scout in some tasks. The models are available for download or through cloud APIs, offering flexibility for developers.
Founded in June 2024 by ex-Google DeepMind product manager Dhruv Malhotra and former Google engineer Drishan Arora, Deep Cogito is backed by investors like South Park Commons.
The company’s ambitious goal is to develop ‘general superintelligence,’ AI that surpasses human capabilities, rather than merely matching them. For now, the team says they’ve only scratched the surface of their scaling potential.
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Google DeepMind is enforcing strict non-compete agreements in the United Kingdom, preventing employees from joining rival AI companies for up to a year. The length of the restriction depends on an employee’s seniority and involvement in key projects.
Some DeepMind staff, including those working on Google’s Gemini AI, are reportedly being paid not to work while their non-competes run. The policy comes as competition for AI talent intensifies worldwide.
Employees have voiced concern that these agreements could stall their careers in a rapidly evolving industry. Some are seeking ways around the restrictions, such as moving to countries with less rigid employment laws.
While DeepMind claims the contracts are standard for sensitive work, critics say they may stifle innovation and mobility. The practice remains legal in the UK, even though similar agreements have been banned in the US.
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