Morphotonics, a Netherlands-based nanoimprint lithography company that makes waveguide displays for AR glasses, has raised €40 million to scale production and expand into optical components for data centers. The round included 3M Ventures, Innovation Industries, BOM, Invest-NL, the European Innovation Council Fund, a Dutch family office, and the European Investment Bank. The funding extends a round that began in 2024 as the company rides growing demand for smart glasses displays.
A wave of new regulations covering customs duties, AI disclosure, packaging, deforestation and privacy is hitting consumer markets this year, each with firm compliance deadlines. Though the rules appear unconnected, they share a common requirement: companies must be able to document and prove what they know about their prices, products and systems.
TechCrunch announced another five investors joining the judging panel for its Startup Battlefield 200 pitch competition, which runs October 13–15 at San Francisco's Moscone West as part of Disrupt 2026. Founders selected for the contest get six minutes to pitch followed by investor questioning, with a $100,000 prize awarded to the winning startup. This group joins ten judges previously revealed for the event.
Athom's Homey hub now lets users update Matter, Z-Wave, and Zigbee smart home devices directly from its app, without opening separate manufacturer apps. For Matter devices specifically, Homey pulls firmware information straight from the Connectivity Standards Alliance's Distributed Compliance Ledger, bypassing the need for manufacturers to build update support into their own apps. Z-Wave and Zigbee updates depend on developer support, with an initial vendor list including IKEA, Aeotec, INNR, and others.
The UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) is spending $94 million over three and a half years across 18 projects to build high-altitude pseudo-satellites—essentially long-endurance drones—that would deliver wireless internet to areas lacking ground networks. The program, called Enduring Atmospheric Platforms, targets a unit carrying a 300-watt communications payload that can stay airborne for a full week, with work split into technology development, system integration, and deployment phases.
TechCrunch announced another group of five venture capitalists who will judge the Startup Battlefield 200 competition at Disrupt 2026, held October 13-15 at Moscone West in San Francisco. Among those named is Aditi Maliwal, a general partner at Upfront Ventures who invests in fintech, enterprise SaaS, AI applications, and developer tools, with a portfolio including Clair and Writer. Early-bird ticket discounts of up to $200 are available until September 25.
Researchers built a vacuum ultraviolet spectroscopy setup, using frequency-doubled laser light guided by dichroic mirrors into a chamber holding a thorium-229-doped crystal, to probe the nucleus's unusually low-energy isomeric transition. The system combined a stabilized frequency comb, referenced either to an atomic maser clock or an Yb+ ion clock, with precise beam alignment and a photomultiplier detector to record absorption signals from the crystal as the laser was scanned across the transition frequency.
Italian startup Exein raised $270 million led by Headline, valuing the Rome-based cybersecurity firm at $1.7 billion. The company, which secures over 2 billion connected devices across sectors like aerospace, automotive and healthcare, is expanding its focus from IoT to protecting physical AI systems such as robots, drones and self-driving cars.
Oracle has begun another round of layoffs, notifying affected employees through termination emails sent as early as 6 a.m. Monday. This follows a fiscal 2026 workforce reduction that already cut roughly 21,000 jobs, or 13% of staff, and Oracle has now raised its restructuring cost estimate by $700 million to about $2.8 billion.
Oracle has begun another round of layoffs, sending termination emails to staff as early as 6 a.m. Monday as part of its ongoing fiscal 2026 restructuring. The company's workforce already shrank by about 21,000 people this fiscal year, and Oracle has now increased its restructuring cost estimate by $700 million to roughly $2.8 billion, though the exact number of newly affected employees remains undisclosed.
Astronomers revisited a gravitational-wave detection that appeared to show an unusually massive black hole merger, one that seemed to defy current models of stellar evolution. New analysis suggests the signal may have been distorted by gravitational lensing, an intervening massive object bending and magnifying the waves, making the black holes appear far larger than they actually are.
At Goldman Sachs' Communacopia + Technology Conference, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told CNBC's David Faber that AI is neither good nor bad by nature, comparing it to nuclear power that can either power a city or destroy one. He framed AI's rise as a 'cognitive revolution' that could make humans smarter rather than replace them, urging people to ride the technological shift instead of being overwhelmed by it.
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