Amber Hill spent 14 years as a medical researcher. She didn’t mind the work, but there was one thing she consistently hated: administrative tasks. 

“I think most people do, especially in research,” she told TechCrunch. She would rather be analyzing data or building relationships with patients, she said. “But I was spending so much time doing manual tasks that didn’t require any medical expertise. It’s a process that’s completely broken, and I knew it could be fixed.” 

So, she did what any problem solver would do: She launched a company. 

Her startup, called Research Grid, was founded in London in 2020. The company is trying to make clinical trials more efficient by automating administrative and data management workflow. It hails itself as the the only software that can automate full back-office trials.

Research Grid on Tuesday announced a $6.4 million seed round, led by Fuel Ventures, with participation from firms including Ada Ventures and Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Lab. 

Research Grid consists of two patent products: Inclusive and Trial Engine. Together, the products handle tasks such as flagging protocol errors, data extraction, and workflow. Right now, clinical trials use a more manual process supported by legacy software systems that often cause expensive delays during a trial. 

“They are built on old codebases, which means it’s almost impossible for them to innovate,” she said. “Our tech is already superior, and while the displacement of large players won’t happen overnight, it’s going to happen, and I don’t see why it won’t be us that does it.” 

But there are other issues Research Grid hopes to tackle, such as making clinical recruitment faster and better handling of the pressure that often comes from the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) regarding compliance. Recruitment can take months, “it’s manual, administrative, and hard to find people,” she said. It’s also hard to do consistently when it comes to finding people who fit in a narrow, strict criteria for a research trial.

Right now, it’s a very manual process, using non-targeted social ads and parsing health records. “If there’s not enough participation, researchers can’t understand if a drug or intervention is safe and effective, which ultimately means it’s not approved by regulators to go to the people who might need it most.” 

Plus, the FDA has now made it a requirement to make clinical trials more diverse, since women and people of color are often left out of medical trials. Hill sought to build a customer relationship management feature in Research Grid that has more than 80,000 groups, across 157 countries, representing around 2,000 medical conditions, she said. “It uses AI to extend far beyond traditional methods of finding people,” she said. “It helps out partners to find who they need to find in seconds rather than months.” 

Hill was introduced to her lead investor by the EMEA team of the venture firm Plug and Play, who came into this round early. The company, which has raised $8 million in venture funding to date, will use this latest funding to invest in more research and development, build out its engineering team, and further expand into the U.S. and Asian markets. 

“The next challenge is mostly about setting up the corporate infrastructure to seamlessly serve these partners,” she said of operating in the U.S., U.K., and Asia. 

Though this company, like many great ones, was built out of a frustration point, Hill said she always had a passion for entrepreneurship. She ran a nonprofit while studying for her doctorate as a way to widen her access to research. Running the business taught her how to be resilient and resourceful, and how to work with different types of people. “I kept a volunteer team together over three years without financial resources,” she recalled. “We fundraised the ‘old school’ hard way in buckets and took it to the bank.” 

Her first tech idea was to use AI to automate all the work that goes into running a nonprofit. “We’ve come full circle because that idea morphed into our pre-trial product and meaningful IP,” she said. When she knew she wanted to launch Research Grid, she applied to an incubator program to help switch her “mindset from nonprofit to for-profit,” from “academic to an entrepreneur.” Then she went through an accelerator program that put her in front of some of the largest investors in London; she raised her first £1 million — a feat in a country where Black founders raise less than 2% of all venture capital. And from 2019 to 2023, only eight Black women raised more than $1 million in venture funding, as TechCrunch previously reported.

The hardest part for Hill was getting the company off the ground during the pandemic as a solo founder. She managed through and is now in growth mode. Revenue grew over 20x last year and is expected to continue to grow, she said. The company is working across Big Pharma, Contract Research Organisations, and Clinical Sites, hiring more experts, and improving their AI technology.

“AI is expediting precision medicine, drug development operations, and changing the care pathway for everyone,” she said. “It’s here to stay.” 

Suzuki and Toyota have been working together on a new 4WD-capable electric SUV, and in Italy yesterday, Suzuki revealed the fruits of the collaboration: a new compact called the E Vitara. It’s the automaker’s first EV, and it’s scheduled for production at Suzuki Motor Gujarat in India starting next spring.

The E Vitara will launch in Europe, India, and Japan “around” the summer of next year, and there will be a Toyota-badged version, which will probably look a lot like the Urban SUV Concept Toyota revealed in 2023. Toyota similarly shares its mediocre bZ4X EV with Subaru, which is rebadged as the Solterra EV.

Toyota and Suzuki have been slow to adopt EVs into their lineups, with Toyota refocusing on building more hybrids and a three-row electric SUV for the US market. As reported by Autocar, Suzuki’s previously announced target of launching multiple EVs by 2030 is on hold, with President Toshihiro Suzuki saying the company will “monitor the situation” due to cooling EV demand.

As for the E Vitara, the vehicle will be powered by a lithium iron phosphate battery in either 49 kWh or 60 kWh capacities. Both batteries can be offered in 2WD drivetrains, but 4WD versions only come with the larger one. According to The Japan Times, Suzuki said the E Vitara can get up to 400km (about 248 miles) on a single charge.

At its peak, the E Vitara motor is capable of 135 kW output. It’s fairly underpowered compared to the 150 kW output of the similarly-sized Chevy Bolt, which is just 130mm shorter in length than the 4,275mm E Vitara.

There’s currently no pricing for the E Vitara, and like Hyundai’s Inster, the US market is not in the launch plans for this tiny EV.

Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need clues.

What should you do once you’ve finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I’ve also got daily Wordle hints and answers, Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too.

Picking a streaming service isn’t as easy as it used to be. With the most popular streaming services delivering a combination of classic favorites, and new original content, viewers have more choices than ever before. Of the many live TV streaming services out there, Hulu Plus Live TV and Sling TV both deliver an excellent experience.

Both may have the channels you want, at a price you’re willing to pay, but they each have their own perks. Sling TV is easily the more affordable of the two, and offers up a variety of add-ons to their channels to allow you some degree of customizing your viewing. On the other hand, Hulu Plus Live TV has an ace up its sleeve, thanks to the bundles it has available.

Let’s take a look.

Plans and pricing

At their most basic, Sling TV and Hulu Plus Live TV work a little differently. Sling TV has a couple of tracks of channels you’ll choose from up front. There’s Sling Orange and Sling Blue. They cost $40 and $5 per month, respectively, on their own, or $60 if you get both of them. There are a couple dozen overlapping channels, so Sling TV is really sort of steering you that way. You’ll then have a number of add-ons called Sling “Extras,” with which you can add additional channels in a number of categories.

Hulu Plus Live TV is a different sort of animal. Start with the name. For $83 per month you’ll get Hulu Plus Live TV’s live channels. And you also get Hulu’s vast on-demand catalog, from new movies and series, to old favorites, with new titles coming and going every month. That in and of itself is a pretty big differentiator and a likely reason why Hulu Plus Live TV is twice as popular as Sling TV.

But then there’s the trump card known as the Disney Bundle. Subscribe to Hulu Plus Live TV, and you’ll automatically get ESPN+ — which has all kinds of live sports (and original series) you can’t get anywhere else — and Disney+, which is home to all things Disney, Marvel, Pixar, National Geographic, and Star Wars.

That’s a big deal and is something that no other live-streaming service has.

Channels

This really is where the rubber meets the road, as they say. If a streaming service doesn’t have the channels you want to watch, everything else is moot. As always, you’ll want to check with the service to make sure all channels are available where you live. But here’s how things break down as of Autumn 2024:

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Sling TV channels

Channels exclusive to Sling Orange: Disney Channel, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPN4K, FreeForm, and Motor Trend.

Channels that are exclusive to Sling Blue: Bravo, Discovery Channel, E!, FS1, FS1 4K, FX, Fox News, HLN, MSNBC, NFL Network, National Geographic, SYFY, TLC, USA, and TruTV.

The following channels are available on either track: A&E, AMC, AXS TV, BBC America, BET, Bloomberg, Charge!, CNN, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, Comet, Food Network, Fuse, HGTV, History Channel, IFC, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, Local Now, MGM+ Drive-In, Nick Jr., QVC,  Sling scapes, Sling scapes2, TBS, TNT, Travel Channel, and Vice.

Hulu Plus Live TV channels

A&E, ABC, ABC News Live, ACC Network, Adult Swim, Animal Planet, BET, Big Ten Network, Bloomberg Television, Boomerang, Bravo, Cartoon Network, CBS, CBS News, CBS Sports Network, Cheddar News, CMT, CNBC, CNN, CNN International, Comedy Central, COZI, Crime & Investigation, CW, DABL, Discovery, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD,

E!, ESPN, ESPN College Extra, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNU, Food Network, Fox, Fox Business, Fox News, Freeform, FS1, FS2, FX, FXM, FXX, FYI, Golf Channel, HGTV, History, HLN, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, Lifetime Movies, Localish, Military History, MotorTrend, MSNBC, MTV,

NASA, Nat Geo Wild, National Geographic, NBC, NBC News Now, NBCLX, News Nation, NFL Network, Nick Jr., Nickelodeon, Olympic Channel, OWN, Oxygen, Paramount Network, Pop, QVC, SEC Network, Smithsonian Channel, Start TV, SYFY, TBS, TCM, Telemundo, TLC, TNT, Travel Channel, Tru TV, TV Land, Universal Kids, USA, VH-1, Vice.

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Local channels

Add-ons

Both Hulu Plus Live TV and Sling TV have a number of optional add-ons. Sling TV will appear to have far more because of its structure, with the lighter Sling Orange and Sling Blue plans bolstered by the “Extras” that can be used to flesh out the rest of your channels.

Sling TV also has options for additional recording storage and a healthy slate of premium channels.

The add-ons available for Hulu With Life TV perhaps are a bit more meager, but that’s balanced by the fact that you get more channels up front with your subscription — and don’t forget about Disney+ and ESPN+, which are included for free. Premium add-ons are limited to Cinemax, Max, Showtime, and STARZ.

Also available on Hulu are the following add-ons:

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Sports: FanDuel TV, FanDuel Racing, MAV TV, NFL RedZone, Outdoor Channels, Sportsman Channel, Strike Zone, & The Tennis Channel

Entertainment: American Heroes Channel, BET Her, Boomerang, Crime & Investigation, CNBC World, Cooking Channel, Destination America, Discovery Family, Discovery Life, Hallmark Drama, Military History, MTV Classic, MTV2, NickToons, Science, TeenNick

Español: CNN Español, Discovery en Español, Discovery Familia, ESPN Deportes, Fox Deportes, History Channel de Español, Hogar de HGTV, NBC Universo, The Weather Channel en Español.

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Apple could finally add “charging time remaining” to the iPhone starting with the iOS 18.2 update. Hidden inside the incremental update are traces of code pointing to the new feature in addition to more Apple Intelligence features.

More Apple Intelligence features arriving with iOS 18.2

Apple started actively adding Apple Intelligence features to the iPhones starting with iOS 18. Eligible iOS smartphones received the first batch of Apple’s Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) features with iOS 18.1.

Apple has indicated that it will gradually roll out Apple Intelligence features and allow iPhone users to change default apps. Specifically speaking, the iOS 18.2 update, expected to arrive next month, should include Genmoji, Image Playgrounds, ChatGPT integration, and Visual Intelligence.

Apple iPhone users have been eagerly looking forward to getting the aforementioned features. However, Apple is also reportedly testing other features not related to Apple’s Gen AI.

One such feature that Android smartphone users have long had, was the ability to see when their smartphones would be fully charged. In other words, newer versions of Android have allowed smartphone users to know the estimated time their devices would take to fully charge.

‘BatteryIntelligence’ framework in iOS 18.2 may show the charging time remaining

Hidden inside the OS 18.2 beta 2, which was released on Monday to developers, is a new framework called “BatteryIntelligence”. Although the feature appears in iOS 18.2, Apple has reportedly disabled the same, and it appears unfinished.

Apple currently offers a similar feature for MacBooks within the Battery menu. Hence, it is likely that the new framework inside iOS 18.2 may extend the feature to the iPhone.

Apple may allow iPhone users to see the charging time remaining from iOS 18.2. Since it’s Apple, the company may limit the feature to a notification. Apple may only alert users when their iPhones reach 80% charge. Needless to say, an estimation of the actual charging time remaining would be very handy primarily because there are several types of USB-C chargers, cables, and charging protocols.

The Internet Archive is continuing the recovery process after a series of that took down its servers in early October. On Monday, the nonprofit digital library on X that its ‘Save Page Now’ service has been restored to the Wayback Machine.

The Wayback Machine resumed operation on October 14; now users can upload new web pages to record their information and access them later. As the X post notes, the Wayback Machine will begin collecting web pages that have been archived since October 9 when the entire site was taken down.

The October DDoS attacks coincided with the Internet Archive’s move to disclose a data breach that saw more than 31 million records taken. Security researcher Troy Hunt, who runs the service for monitoring compromised accounts, that the two actions against the Internet Archive were “entirely coincidental” and likely taken by “multiple parties.”