What could go wrong with eating an extremely high-fat diet of beef, cheese, and sticks of butter? Well, for one thing, your cholesterol levels could reach such stratospheric levels that lipids start oozing from your blood vessels, forming yellowish nodules on your skin.

That was the disturbing case of a man in Florida who showed up at a Tampa hospital with a three-week history of painless, yellow eruptions on the palms of his hands, soles of his feet, and elbows. His case was published today in JAMA Cardiology.

The man, said to be in his forties, told doctors that he had adopted a “carnivore diet” eight months prior. His diet included between 6 and 9 pounds of cheese, sticks of butter, and daily hamburgers that had additional fat incorporated into them. Since taking on this brow-raising food plan, he claimed his weight dropped, his energy levels increased, and his “mental clarity” improved.

Meanwhile, his total cholesterol level exceeded 1,000 mg/dL. For context, an optimal total cholesterol level is under 200 mg/dL, while 240 mg/dL is considered the threshold for “high.” Cardiologists noted that prior to going on his fatty diet, his cholesterol had been between 210 mg/dL to 300 mg/dL.

The cardiologists diagnosed the man with xanthelasma, a condition in which excess blood lipids ooze from blood vessels and form localized lipid deposits. The escaped lipids would normally be taken up by roaming white blood cells called macrophages. But, in cases with xanthelasma, the amount of lipids is too large for the macrophages, which turn into foam cells with the excess cholesterol, leading to visible deposits.

Such deposits are often seen around the eye (a condition called xanthelasma palpebrarum), which often strikes people with lipid abnormalities, such as familial hypercholesterolemia. It’s thought that continuous blinking of the eye over a person’s life can eventually weaken capillaries in the area, allowing for lipid seepage. But, while this may be a more common presentation of the condition, lipid deposits can occur anywhere in the body.

Xanthelasma—especially xanthelasma palpebrarum—is not always associated with high cholesterol and heart risks, but having high total cholesterol is strongly associated with coronary heart disease.

The case study doesn’t provide information on the man’s outlook. However, the authors write that the case “highlights the impact of dietary patterns on lipid levels and the importance of managing hypercholesterolemia to prevent complications.”

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.

Best robot vacuum deals

This mopping Roomba is as good as the j7 Plus, with the bonus of a retractable mop on top that can polish your hard floors as it vacuums. It’s great at avoiding obstacles, features good battery life, and includes an auto-emptying docking station.

With a unique ability to remove and reattach its mop pads, the Dreame X40 solves the problem of vacuuming carpets (with 12,000Pa suction power) while also mopping hard floors. Its mops can also swing out and under low furniture, getting where most bots can’t reach.

The S10 is a great mopping robot with a battery-powered water refill dock that makes it the most hands-free robovac we’ve tested. A separate auto-empty dock takes care of the dust. It’s big and loud and lacks some features found on high-end robots, but it does a great job of keeping your floors clean.

It’s not fancy, but the Q5 Pro has a huge bin and big wheels to get up on higher-pile carpets easily. It has a small removable mopping reservoir for when there are dirty paws on the floors, but its main job is to suck up dirt and pet hair, and it does very well at both.

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One of the first robots that can vacuum, mop, self-empty, self-wash, and self-dry with hot air for under $1,000, the Yeedi Cube retails for $699.99 but is regularly on sale for far less. It’s a good vacuum and mop for hands-free cleaning on a budget.

Companies that want to build AI voice into their products are rushing to work with ElevenLabs, the startup that develops synthetic voice technology like voice cloning and dubbing tools. Now ElevenLabs is turning up the volume on its business with a huge series C raise, just a year after a sizable series B.

The New York startup has closed a Series C of $250 million at a valuation of between $3 billion and $3.3 billion, multiple sources tell TechCrunch. The round is being led by ICONIQ Growth, several people said. Andreessen Horowitz, one of the lead investors in the company’s $80 million Series B in January, 2024, was another name mentioned as a potential investor in this round. ElevenLabs, ICONIQ Growth and Andreessen Horowitz did not respond to our request for comment. 

For months, investors have been scrambling to invest in ElevenLabs after a blockbuster period of growth for the company, with its AI audio technology getting used everywhere, TechCrunch was the first to report in October.

On the back of a strong funnel of business, sources tell us that ElevenLabs was initially looking for funding at a $4 billion valuation. But a $3 billion valuation is still triple the unicorn valuation that the company landed with that year-ago Series B. One source said the company has been preparing to announce the round this month so official confirmation may come any day now.

ElevenLabs’ fundraise comes after a strong few years both for the company and the wider industry. The company was founded in 2022 by Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski who respectively previously worked at Palantir and Google. Childhood friends from Poland, the pair were inspired by the poor quality of dubbing in the American videos they watched growing up, and they saw an opportunity to use AI to develop something better. 

Their idea was a clear example of right idea-right time. As generative AI services have become more advanced, multimedia has come to the fore, and there has been a growing interest in building applications that include sound and video alongside GenAI text services.

ElevenLabs released its first beta product in January 2023, and by the time it had raised its Series A of $19 million in June 2023, it had gone viral.

Some of that growth has not been without controversy, with stories of fake news being created with its tech. But as ElevenLabs has developed a raft of detection tools and other safeguards to prevent misuse, it has emerged as a key partner for enabling speech-based services for an increasingly high-profile number of businesses. 

Its technology, usable via an API and priced at a number of usage tiers, covers a wide range of use cases: translating text to speech (in multiple languages), cloning voices, changing voices in an audio track, creating entirely new voices; alongside other voice editing tools.

Customers include other technology platforms such as Syntheisa, the text-to-video startup that works with businesses and itself announced a fundraise of $180 million earlier this month; publishing giants like Washington Post, Harper Collins and Bertelsmann, which says 36 businesses are using ElevenLabs’ tech in their content creation; and gaming companies, among others.

Usage has led to a rapid rise in sales. In October, sources told us that ElevenLabs’ annualized recurring revenue (ARR) had grown from $25 million in 2023 to $80 million. Two people in November estimated that its ARR was likely closer to $90 million. If the latter figure is accurate, a $4 billion valuation would have put its valuation multiple at 44 times ARR; in the end it seems the deal has been done at a slightly more moderate multiple of 37 times ARR.

For some context on that number, these are not the most exuberant valuations at the moment: investors appear willing to pay as much as 50 times ARR for the fastest-growing generative AI companies. 

Anysphere, the maker of a popular AI-coding assistant Cursor, has received multiple unsolicited offers valuing the company at about $2.5 billion, which translates to about 52 times ARR, TechCrunch reported in November. The company has seen its revenue grow from $4 million annualized recurring revenue (ARR) in April to $4 million a month as of last month. (ARR is commonly calculated by multiplying the latest monthly revenue by 12.) However, by the time the deal, which was led by Thrive at a valuation of $2.5 billion, was announced earlier this month, Anysphere had reached $100 million in ARR, The New York Times reported. That implies that the company was valued at 25 times ARR.

ElevenLabs’ more temperate multiple may be a function of the company’s competitors, which include a plethora of startups but also giants like Google and OpenAI.

Other past backers of the company have included Sequoia, Credo Ventures, Concept Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Disney, and nearly two dozen high-profile angel investors.

I had a chance to see Dreame’s newest robot vacuum, the Dreame X50 Ultra Complete, in action. With its cutting-edge features, this brand is the one to watch. In fact, it might even make me switch allegiance from my current favorite bot brand, Roborock.

We saw plenty of impressive robot vacuum innovations at CES 2025 in January, but the X50 Ultra Complete has the most… well, complete feature set I’ve seen.

Rivian is planning to launch a hands-free driving assistant system for its electric R1T and R1S vehicles later this year, followed by an “eyes-off” version in 2026, reveals Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe in a press roundtable interview according to a post on Rivian Forums and reported by Electrek. The first part of the system sounds like it will work similarly to Ford’s Blue Cruise or GM’s Super Cruise software, which are Level 2 assistants that only work on highways fully mapped by each manufacturer.

It’s unclear if current Gen 1 and Gen 2 Rivian vehicles will support the upcoming hand-free assistant software or if it will come to upgraded models or the upcoming R2 SUV.

Gen 2 vehicles already come with exclusive features like matrix headlights and an upgraded light bar that can change colors, which Scaringe says could be used as an indicator to let others know a Rivian is operating autonomously, according to a Rivian Forum user. Gen 2 vehicles also come with a newer Rivian Autonomy Platform, which might mean Gen 1 vehicles aren’t going to get some of the upcoming advanced ADAS features.

Currently, Rivian trucks have available “Driver Plus” advanced driver assistant systems (ADAS) that work similarly to Tesla’s standard Autopilot software in that they enable lane keeping and auto speed up / slow down on highways. However, like other Level 2 systems, you still need to pay attention to the road.

In an email to The Verge, Rivian’s product communications manager, Courtney Richardson, confirms Scaringe’s comments about the upcoming ADAS upgrades in the interview yesterday. Richardson says there are no further details to add at this time. Currently, only Mercedes-Benz ships a Level 3 autonomous system that works in some states in the US, which allows drivers to look away from the road.

The massive $100 billion Stargate joint venture will reportedly be powered, at least in part, by solar and batteries.

The renewable power installations will be built by SoftBank-backed SB Energy, according to a report from Bloomberg, though they’re unlikely to be the venture’s sole source of energy. Stargate is a partnership between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank Group, which promises to build a slew of new data centers to drive artificial intelligence applications. 

The growth in cloud computing and AI in recent years has sent developers and tech companies scurrying to secure power. The U.S. Department of Energy expects that data centers could consume as much as 12% of all power produced in the U.S. by 2028, up from 4.4% in 2023. The looming crunch could leave 50% of new data centers underpowered by 2027.

Nuclear power has emerged as a darling of data center developers and tech companies. Google signed a 500-megawatt deal with nuclear startup Kairos, and Microsoft is restarting one of the shuttered reactors at Three Mile Island. Data center operator Switch announced an agreement in December with Oklo, the Sam Altman-baked small modular reactor company, for 12 gigawatts of capacity.

But nuclear’s recent history has been beset by cost overruns and delays. The fresh crop of nuclear startups were largely founded to overcome those hurdles by modularizing and mass producing reactor components. If all goes as planned, the approach could speed approvals and construction of new nuclear plants. 

But despite progress, none of the startups has yet to complete a reactor, and the first of their commercial reactors aren’t expected to come online until 2030, doing little to ease the near-term energy shortage. Natural gas power plants, another possible source for data centers, will also take years to build.

Solar and wind farms are much quicker to stand up. Compared with nuclear and natural gas plants, they can be completed in about half the time, according to one study of 50 years worth of power plant projects. More recent estimates suggest that the average time to completion for a solar power plant is around 18 months. Because of their inherent modularity, they can start producing power before the bulk of the project is complete.

The longest part of any solar project is permitting and interconnection, when the facility is connected to the grid. For data centers, grid connections can be optional — many could take power directly from the source. And given the apparent urgency of Stargate, it’s possible that permitting could be sped along, too, leaving solar as the likely frontrunner for the first data centers.

Back in August 2023, Meta revealed an ‘all-in-one’ AI translation model capable of understanding close to 100 different languages.

Dubbed SeamlessM4T (Massively Multilingual and Multimodal Machine Translation), this is Meta’s attempt at creating a ‘universal translator’ akin to the Babel Fish in Douglas Adams’ classic sci-fi series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Apple released new figures Friday, highlighting user adoption of iOS 18. Released in public form back in September 2024, the mobile operating system is now installed on 68% of compatible devices. That number jumps to 78% on iPhones released in the last four years.

As for the remaining iPhones out there, 19% are running iOS 17, and 13% are using an earlier version. Similarly, 19% of iPhones released in the last four years are  currently running iOS 17.

The figure drops to 5% with earlier iOS builds — understandable, given the overall percentage of those devices that shipped with either iOS 17 or 18, along with early adopters’ propensity to keep their devices running the latest OS updates. As 9 to 5 Mac points out, the figures presented are similar to those Apple issued in 2024 around iOS 17 adoption.

The company’s small model approach to generative AI, Apple Intelligence, was the marquee feature for iOS 18. That arrived with the operating system’s first major update, 18.1, with additional features arriving with 18.2. The current public version is 18.2.1. Of course, Apple Intelligence has had some stumbles out of the gate, including one that required the company to roll back News notification summaries.

iPadOS 18’s adoption figures, meanwhile, are markedly lower than its mobile counterpart. Currently, 53% of all iPads are running iPadOS 18. That figure jumps to 63% for those released in the last four years.

• QNAP said it addressed six flaws in its Hybrid Backup Sync tool
• The flaws stemmed from rsync, an open-source file syncing tool
• Users are advised to update their HBS immediately

QNAP has addressed half a dozen vulnerabilities affecting its Hybrid Backup Sync (HBS) software.

In a security advisory, the company noted the vulnerabilities were discovered in rsync, an open source file synchronization tool used to transfer and sync files between systems. It supports local and remote operations via SSH, and minimizes data transfer with incremental updates. Many backup solutions use rsync, including Duplicity, Bacula, Rclone, and others.