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Hadrian raises $260M to build out automated factories for space and defense parts

Investors are continuing to rally behind the call to reindustrialize American industry, this time by building out a $260 million war chest for automated manufacturing startup Hadrian to scale its factory footprint and make even more machine parts. Hadrian’s aim is to modernize American manufacturing by leveraging advanced automation to deliver mass-produced parts for aerospace and defense companies at a fraction of the time. It’s a huge change to the status quo: a manufacturing industry that’s

Defense manufacturing startup Hadrian closes $260 million funding round led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund

Defense manufacturing startup Hadrian on Thursday announced the closing of $260 million Series C funding round led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and Lux Capital. The machine parts company said it will use the funding to build a new 270,000 square foot factory in Mesa, Arizona, and expand its Torrance, California, location as it looks to beef up its shipbuilding and naval defense capabilities. "What we really need in this country is this quantum leap above China's manufacturing model," said CE

Senate votes to kill entire public broadcasting budget in blow to NPR and PBS

The US Senate voted to rescind two years' worth of funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), delivering a blow to public radio and television stations around the country. The CPB is a publicly funded nonprofit corporation that supports NPR and PBS stations. The 51-48 vote today on President Trump's rescissions package would eliminate $1.1 billion that was allocated to public broadcasting for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. All 51 yes votes came from Republicans, while Sens. Susan

FX/Hulu drops one last trailer for Alien: Earth

The premiere of Alien: Earth is just weeks away, and FX/Hulu dropped one last trailer to pique our interest, along with a much more detailed synopsis. It's meditative and existential in tone, with a haunting tune playing over footage of mysterious alien craft, dead bodies, blood-spattered humans fleeing through futuristic corridors, and, of course, a spooky silhouette of a xenomorph in the distance. As previously reported, the eight-episode series is set in 2120, two years before the events of

News publishers take paywall-blocker 12ft.io offline

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. The News/Media Alliance, a trade association behind major news publishers, announced that it has “successfully secured” the removal of 12ft.io, a website that helped users bypass paywalls online. The trade association says 12ft.io’s webhost took down the site on July 14th “following the News/Media Alliance’s efforts.” 12ft.io — or 12 Foot Ladder —

Substack raises $100M from Chernin Group, Andreessen Horowitz, Skims CEO, and more

In Brief Substack announced on Thursday that it has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by investors at BOND and The Chernin Group (TCG). The round included participation from Andreessen Horowitz; Rich Paul, CEO and founder of Klutch Sports Group; and Jens Grede, CEO and co-founder of Skims. The New York Times reports that the funding brings Substack’s valuation to $1.1 billion, almost 70% higher than its 2021 valuation of $650 million. Founded in 2017, Substack has gained popularity

Spotify's Audiobooks+ add-on is now available to some Premium subscribers

It’s likely that you predominantly associate Spotify with music and podcasts, but if you’re a Premium member, you also get 15 hours of audiobook access per month. For some members, though, that clearly isn’t enough, as Spotify has introduced a new add-on subscription that doubles that listening time. Audiobooks+ was first trialled in Ireland and Canada, and is launching initially for Premium Individual and Plan members in a number of countries in Europe, as well as Australia and New Zealand. On

Molecule produced by gut bacteria causes atherosclerosis

A team of Spanish scientists made a striking announcement 15 years ago: they were seeking thousands of volunteers among the employees of Banco Santander in Madrid: researchers wanted to study them in depth for decades, in order to understand the onset of cardiovascular disease in healthy people. The results are even more surprising. Researchers have discovered that gut bacteria produce a molecule that not only induces but also causes atherosclerosis, the accumulation of fat and cholesterol in th

Our Best View Yet of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

A comet unlike any seen before has fixated astronomers around the world. An observatory in Hawaii has unveiled the most stunning image of this ancient interstellar visitor yet. The Gemini North telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii, recently snapped a close-up of 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar object ever discovered. The telescope’s highly sensitive Multi-Object Spectrograph captured the comet’s compact coma—a cloud of gas and dust surrounding its icy nucleus—in striking detail. 3I/ATLAS is inbound t

Substack raises $100M from Chernin Group, Andreessen Horowitz, Skims CEO and more

In Brief Substack announced on Thursday that it has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by investors at BOND and The Chernin Group (TCG). The round included participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Rich Paul, CEO and founder of Klutch Sports Group, and Jens Grede, CEO and co-founder of Skims. The New York Times reports that the funding brings Substack’s valuation to $1.1 billion, almost 70% higher than its 2021 valuation of $650 million. Founded in 2017, Substack has gained popularity

I love anti-reflective displays, but an iPhone one is no big deal

A report yesterday suggested that the two iPhone 17 Pro models could get an anti-reflective display, after Apple’s suppliers managed to overcome production difficulties. I do love anti-reflective displays, and still have very fond memories of my all-time favorite Apple one from way back in 2004, but an iPhone one would have only moderate appeal to me … There was a time when all screens were matte. Then along came glossy screens, Apple and the rest of the tech industry fell in love with them, a

I put this buzzworthy 2-in-1 robot vacuum to work in my house - here's how it fared

ZDNET's key takeaways The Yeedi S14 Plus is available for a retail price of $1,400, though an introductory offer puts it at $999 for a limited time. The Yeedi is a big upgrade from almost any robot vacuum on the market right now, with 18,000Pa of suction and a self-cleaning mop roller. The S14 Plus doesn't have a detergent dispenser, its obstacle avoidance could be better, and it has an odd plastic smell (though that could be my unit). $1,399.99 at Amazon I've been testing what is decidedly t

Topics: mop plus robot s14 yeedi

Doing Hard Things

On Doing Hard Things 10 Jul, 2025 I've never been known for my coordination, balance, or cardiovascular enthusiasm. In team sports, I was invariably the last one picked – probably only because "not picking" wasn't an option. Physical exertion was not among my natural strengths. So naturally, last summer, I climbed into a boat that was both longer than my room (thanks KRH) and about as wide as myself, and tried to make it move in a straight line. The first few sessions went about how you’d ex

Topics: boat did like team water

Confident Security, ‘the Signal for AI,’ comes out of stealth with $4.2M

As consumers, businesses, and governments flock to the promise of cheap, fast, and seemingly magical AI tools, one question keeps getting in the way: How do I keep my data private? Tech giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Google, and others are quietly scooping up and retaining user data to improve their models or monitor for safety and security, even in some enterprise contexts where companies assume their information is off limits. For highly regulated industries or companies building on the

Boulevard raises $80M to power self-care boom driven by Botox and GLP-1 surge

The beauty industry has seen an explosion of offerings recently. Customers can now access treatments far beyond basic hair and nail care, from wrinkle-smoothing Botox and fillers to permanent laser hair removal and even weight management through GLP-1 medications. Riding this wave of industry growth is Boulevard, a provider of scheduling and payment software for the self-care sector. The nine-year-old Boulevard just raised $80 million in Series D funding, valuing the business at nearly $800 mi

Hackers are trying to steal passwords and sensitive data from users of Signal clone

Hackers are targeting a previously reported bug in the Signal clone app TeleMessage in an effort to steal users’ private data, according to security researchers and a U.S. government agency. TeleMessage, which earlier this year was revealed to be used by high-ranking officials in the Trump administration, already experienced at least one data breach in May. The company markets modified versions of Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram for corporations and government agencies that need to archive chats

Adobe's AI Videos Get Audio: Is It Better Than Google's Veo 3?

New Adobe Firefly video updates are here to bring your AI-generated videos to the next level and to potentially keep the company competitive in the crowded AI market. You'll be able to add sound effects to your Firefly AI videos, thanks to a beta release of a new AI tool rolling out now, the company announced Thursday. It's the second major tech company to release such capabilities, following Google's Veo 3 launch in May. There are also a couple of other changes coming to Firefly video, includi

3 Best Hall Effect Keyboards for Gamers and Serious Typists (2025)

Polling rate is likely one of the most prominently displayed details on any Hall effect keyboard, purely because the large numbers emphasize one of the most important aspects of these keyboards: Speed. Whether a keyboard has a 1,000- or 10,000-Hz polling rate, this number represents how many messages are sent from the keyboard to the PC every second. For example, a keyboard with 1,000-Hz polling will send 1000 messages every second. Most office equipment operates at 125 Hz. In high-performance g

Spotify expands audiobook access to family plan members for the first time

Spotify on Thursday announced an expansion of its premium audiobooks service, with two new plans that offer additional listening hours to subscribers, and allow other family members to access the service. The options are currently only available for Spotify Premium users in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, following initial tests in Ireland and Canada. U.S. users could already purchase 15 hours of

This hidden Google Maps feature is making people emotional - here's why

'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean? ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or

How I started my own LinkedIn newsletter for free - in 5 easy steps

David Gewirtz / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET It's been almost exactly two years since I launched my weekly Advanced Geekery email newsletter on Substack. Each week, I list my latest ZDNET articles, showcase any new videos I put out, sometimes spotlight projects I'm working on (and those of readers), and share a few great YouTube videos and articles worth reading. The newsletter is a great way for those who like my work to keep up with what I produce. Recently, I've started getting requests fo

What Makes Cheap Earbuds a Real Value (or Not)? I Dug In to Find Out

A few months ago, Final Audio, a boutique Japanese brand, sent me its new, relatively low-priced ZE3000 SV noise-canceling earbuds to test. I was curious: Would this be a hidden gem among the dozens, even hundreds, of budget headphone options out there? Even as a full-time reviewer of these products, I can't keep up with all of them. So I did what I always do. I charged them up, then swapped out the default medium-size tips for the largest set of included ear tips and hoped I'd get a tight seal

Eddington gets the pandemic right but still isn’t a great movie

A24 is known for its prestige arthouse films, but in its early days as a distributor, it made most of its money from elevated horror films like Ari Aster’s Hereditary and Midsommar. Over a decade in, the ambitions of A24 and Aster have expanded beyond genre film. But for both, the more recent results have been mixed. Eddington, Aster’s latest, feels like a continuation of the maximalist guilt-trip Beau Is Afraid. Joaquin Phoenix stars once again, though the concerns here are less Jewish and Oed

The AI bubble today is bigger than the IT bubble in the 1990s

The difference between the IT bubble in the 1990s and the AI bubble today is that the top 10 companies in the S&P 500 today are more overvalued than they were in the 1990s, see chart below. This presentation may not be distributed, transmitted or otherwise communicated to others in whole or in part without the express consent of Apollo Global Management, Inc. (together with its subsidiaries, “Apollo”). Apollo makes no representation or warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the accura

Rejoy Health (YC W21) Is Hiring

About Us Rejoy Health provides an AI-powered medical search platform designed for clinicians, enabling them to ask complex medical questions and receive accurate, evidence-based answers with cited sources. Job Description As a Software Engineer at Rejoy, you'll work on: Building and scaling backend systems for our AI medical search engine Developing APIs and services that power clinician-facing web app Collaborating with ML engineers to integrate NLP/LLM models into production Designing p

DOGE Put Free Tax Filing Tool on Chopping Block After One Meeting With Lobbyists

When the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) arrived at the Internal Revenue Service earlier this year, leaders of the group reassured workers that the agency’s free tax filing tool, Direct File, would be spared from cuts. But only a few days after meeting with tax software lobbyists, the beloved tool was placed on the chopping block, multiple sources familiar tell WIRED. The plans to potentially kill Direct File, the free tax filing tool developed by the IRS which services 25

Topics: direct file free irs tax

Slack bolsters search with AI, adds transcriptions and summaries for huddles

As the race to bake in AI features into productivity apps intensifies, Slack is bolstering search on its app with AI features, adding transcription and summaries for huddles, and a way to see recaps of channels and threads. Using AI, Slack now lets you search across channels as well as connected apps (like Google Drive, Salesforce and Teams) to surface relevant files and conversations. This feature will be available on Slack’s Business and Enterprise plans. Image Credits: Slack The company is

Lovable becomes a unicorn with $200M Series A just 8 months after launch

Fast-growing Swedish AI vibe coding startup Lovable has become Europe’s latest unicorn. Only eight months since its launch, the startup has raised a $200 million Series A round led by Accel at a $1.8 billion valuation. Like Cursor and other platforms that help developers write code and build apps by harnessing the coding and reasoning abilities of large language models, Stockholm-based Lovable helps people use natural language to create websites and apps. The startup’s trajectory so far has cha

Uber makes multi-million-dollar investment in Lucid and Nuro to build a premium robotaxi service

Uber is investing hundreds of millions of dollars into EV maker Lucid and autonomous vehicle technology startup Nuro in a bid to launch its own premium robotaxi service. Under the deal announced Thursday, Uber will invest $300 million in Lucid and separately buy “at least” 20,000 of the EV maker’s new Gravity SUV over the next six years. Those EVs will be equipped with Nuro’s autonomous vehicle system, and the vehicles will be owned and operated by Uber or its third-party fleet partners. Uber p