I’ve been a CNET journalist for over 15 years and I’ve tested everything from the latest electric cars and bikes to cameras and, er, TV-controlling magic wands. I’ve even compared drones to barn owls. My main focus focus has always been the latest, greatest phones and I’ve seen a lot of them in my time. Names like Apple and Samsung have remained stalwarts in the industry during my time, but I’ve also seen the rise of brands like Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus. Meanwhile once-dominant names like BlackBerry, HTC and LG have vanished from the mobile space. Even Sony doesn’t make much of a fuss over its phones these days.
I’ve seen phones arrive with such wild fanfare that they changed the entire mobile industry, while others quietly trickled into existence only to vanish just as uneventfully. But it’s the weird ones that stick in my memory. Those devices that tried to be different, that dared to offer features we didn’t even know we wanted or simply the ones that aimed to be quirky for the sake of being quirky. Like someone who thinks an unusual hat is the same thing as having a personality.
Here then are some of the weirdest phones I’ve come across in my mobile journey at CNET. Better yet, I still have these phones in a big cardboard box in my office, so I was able to dig them out and take new photos — though not all of them still work. Let’s start with a doozy.
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BlackBerry briefly tried to convince us that it’s hip to be square.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
BlackBerry Passport
At the height of its power RIM’s BlackBerry was one of the most dominant names in mobile. It was unthinkable then that anything could unseat the goliath, let alone that it would fade into total nonexistence. But the once juicy, ripe BlackBerry withered and died on the bush, but not without a few interesting death rattles on its way.
My pick from the company’s end days is the Passport from 2014, notable not just for its physical keyboard but its almost completely square design. The rationale behind this, according to its maker, was that business types just really love squares. A Word document, an Excel spreadsheet, an email — all square (ish) and all able to be viewed natively on the Passport’s 4.5 inch display with its 1:1 aspect ratio. Let’s not forget that all Instagram posts at that time were also square so it had that going for it too. YouTube, not so much.
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In theory it’s a sound idea. In practice the square design made it awkward to use, as the physical keyboard was too wide and narrow. Its BlackBerry 10 software, especially the app availability, lagged behind what you’d get from Android at the time. BlackBerry quickly ditched the new shape. After trying to claw back some credibility with its Android phones — including the stupidly named Priv, a phone I quite liked — and by bringing on singer Alicia Keys as Global Creative Director (because BlackBerry phones had keys, get it?) the company stopped making its own phones in 2016.
The Russian YotaPhone 2
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
YotaPhone 2
You’d be forgiven for having never heard of this phone or its parent company, Yota. Based in Russia, Yota made two phones: the creatively named YotaPhone in 2012 and the similarly inspired YotaPhone 2 in 2014, pictured above. Both were unique in the mobile world for their use of a second display on the rear. From the front, these phones looked and operated like any other generic Android phone. Flip them over though and you’d get a 4.3-inch E Ink display.
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The idea was that you’d use your Android phone as normal for things like web browsing, gaming or watching videos, but you’d switch to the rear display if you wanted to read ebooks or simply have it propped up to show incoming notifications. E Ink displays use almost no power, so it made a lot of sense to preserve battery life by viewing “slow” content on the back.
The reality though is that beyond ebooks — which aren’t great to read on such a tiny screen anyway — there’s very little anyone might want to use an E Ink display for when out and about. It was difficult to operate, too, thanks to a slow processor and clunky software. After just two generations of YotaPhones, the company went into liquidation.
The HTC ChaCha and its Facebook button
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HTC ChaCha
Remember when Facebook was the cool spot to be instead of just the place your parents and their friends go to publicly air their most troubling of opinions? When I was at university, instead of trading phone numbers when you met someone, the default thing was to add each other on Facebook before you began poking each other. Facebook was so ubiquitous at the time that it was simply the way every single person I knew communicated.
Keen to capitalise on Zuckerberg’s social media success, HTC brought out the ChaCha in 2011. The phone came with an utterly ludicrous name and a dedicated Facebook button on the bottom edge. Tapping this would immediately bring up your Facebook page, allowing you to post the lyrics to Rebecca Black’s Friday, ask what Fifty Shades of Grey is about or do whatever else it was we were all up to in 2011.
Facebook might still be around in one form or another, but HTC abandoned its phone-making business back in 2018. Unsurprisingly, phones with dedicated hardware buttons tied to social media haven’t caught on. Though if I’m being generous there is strictly speaking an X button on every keyboard.
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The Finney’s pop-up screen is ideal for crypto bros.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
Sirin Labs Finney U1
“Bro!” I hear you shout, all-too loudly. “BRO! You’ve got to check out what my Bitcoin is doing!” You’d then show me your phone and I’d watch while your crypto account plummeted, rebounded and plummeted again over the course of 12 seconds. The phone you’d be showing me, of course, would be the Sirin Labs Finney, a 2019 phone specifically targeted at crypto bros who wanted a device that would perfectly match their high-living, high-fiving crypto-trading lifestyle.
At its core, the Finney is just another Android phone, but a hidden second screen pops up from the back of the phone, with the sole purpose of giving you secure access to your crypto wallet. The phone had a whole host of security features to ensure that only you could access your Bitcoin or Etherium, and it allowed you to send and receive cryptocurrency without having to use a third-party online platform. Apparently that was a good thing.
If you were entrenched in the crypto world, this phone might have been the dream. But the wallet wasn’t easy to use and the phone was expensive, thanks to the cost of that second screen. Sirin Labs stopped making phones soon after and the mobile industry learned an important lesson about not developing hyper-niche devices that aren’t even that well-suited for the handful of customers that might be interested.
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The Gemini PDA was part phone, part laptop.
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Planet Computers Gemini PDA
Half phone, half laptop, all productivity. The Gemini PDA by UK-based mobile startup Planet Computers was a clamshell device in 2018 with a large (at the time) 5.99-inch display and a full qwerty keyboard. It was basically a slightly more modern interpretation of a PDA, like 1998’s Psion 3MX, in that it was effectively a tiny laptop that would fold up and fit in your pocket. The full keyboard allowed you to type away comfortably on long emails or documents while the regular Android software on the top half meant it also functioned like any other phone — apps, games, phone calls, whatever.
It had 4G connectivity for fast data speeds and a later model even got an update to 5G. But, like the BlackBerry Passport, its focus on business-folk and productivity above all else meant it was a niche product that failed to garner enough appeal to succeed. It didn’t help that it was utterly enormous and fitting it in a jeans pocket was basically impossible, so it didn’t impress either as a laptop or as a phone.
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LG’s G5 was a nice idea, but it didn’t last. Nor did LG’s phones.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
LG G5
LG remains a huge name in the tech industry today, thanks to its TVs and appliances, but it also tried to be a big player in the phone world, too. I liked LG’s phones — they were quirky and often tried weird things which kept my days as a reviewer interesting, perhaps none more so than the LG G5 in 2016.
LG called the G5 “modular,” meaning that the bottom chin of the phone snapped off allowing you to attach different modules such as a camera grip or an audio interface. Like many items on this list I can say that it’s a nice idea in theory, but in practice the phone fell short. Swapping out modules meant removing the battery, which of course meant restarting your phone every time you wanted to use the camera grip.
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It was an inelegant solution to a problem that never needed to exist. But its bigger issue was that the camera grip and audio interface were the only two modules LG actually made for the phone. It’s as though the company had this fun notion in creating a phone that can transform according to your needs but then forgot to assign anyone to come up with any ideas on what to do with it. As a result, the end product was uninspiring, over-engineered and expensive.
What once was big now seems small.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
Samsung Galaxy Note
Samsung’s Galaxy Note series helped transform the mobile industry. It literally stretched the boundaries of phones, encouraging larger and larger screens — even creating the unpleasant and mercifully short-lived term “phablet.” But the first-generation model in 2011 was controversial, mostly due to what was then considered its enormous size.
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At 5.3 inches, it was significantly bigger than almost any other phone out there, including Samsung’s own Galaxy S2 — which, at a measly 4.3 inches, paled into insignificance against the mighty Note. It was mocked for being so huge, with memes appearing online poking fun at people holding it up when making calls. And while times have changed and we now have Samsung’s 6.9-inch Galaxy S25 Ultra, the original Note’s boxy aspect ratio meant it was actually wider than the S25 Ultra. So even by today’s standards it’s big.
It was also among the first phones to come with its own stylus shoved into its bottom. It’s a feature that few mobile companies have mimicked, but Samsung kept it as a differentiator on its later Note models before incorporating it into its flagship S line starting with the S22 Ultra.
Nokia may have been well ahead of its time.
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Andrew Lanxon/CNET
Nokia Lumia 1020
Nokia’s Lumia 1020 was my absolute favorite phone for quite some time after its launch in 2013. And it’s because of its weirdness.
Nokia had an amazing history of bonkers mobiles — 2004’s 7280 “lipstick phone,” for example — and while the Lumia range was much more sedate, the 1020 had a few things that made it stand out. First, it ran Windows Phone, Microsoft’s brief and unsuccessful attempt to launch a rival to Android and iOS. A rival that I happened to quite like.
It was also made of polycarbonate, with a smoothly rounded unibody design that strongly contrasted the angular metal, plastic and glass designs of almost all other phones launching at that time. Its look was unlike anything else on sale, and I loved it.
But the main thing I loved was its camera. With a 41-megapixel sensor, Carl Zeiss lens, raw image capture and optical image stabilization, the Lumia 1020 packed the best camera specs of any phone I’d ever seen. It made the phone a true standout product, especially for photographers like me who wanted an amazing camera with them at all times, but didn’t want to have to carry both a phone and a compact digital camera.
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While incredible image quality from a phone is a given in almost all camera phones in 2026, the Lumia 1020 was an early pioneer in what could be achieved from a phone camera.
The LG G5 was the love child of a phone and a handbag.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
LG G4
LG, twice in one list? Oh yes, my friend, because the G5 seen above was not the first time LG went weird. Launched in 2015, the LG G4 had two main features that raised a few eyebrows. Most notably was LG’s decision to wrap the phone in real leather. Yes, real actual leather. Like what you’d get when you peel a cow. It even had stitching down the back, making it look like a handbag or a boot.
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While it’s not a phone for vegans, I actually liked the look, especially as real leather — even the really thin stuff LG used on the G4 — naturally wears over time, gaining scuffs and scratches that give each phone a unique patina. It’s why I love my old leather Danner boots, and it’s why a vintage, worn-in leather jacket will almost always look better than a brand new one. Still, with leather being an expensive — and arguably controversial — material to use on a phone, it’s no surprise LG didn’t return to this idea.
But it’s not the only weird thing about the phone — the G4 was among a small number of phones released around that time that experimented with curved displays. It’s gently bent into a banana shape, the theory being that it makes watching videos more immersive, as is the case with curved screens in movie theaters. The problem is that movie screens are immense, so that curve makes sense. On a 5.5 inch phone like the G4, that curve is barely noticeable and only really served to push the price up.
I designed this custom phone. You can’t do that anymore.
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Motorola Moto X and Moto Maker
I’ve just pointed out how weird the LG G4 was for using leather and now I’m pointing out another phone that, as you can see in the image above, is also wrapped in leather. But the weird thing here isn’t that the Motorola Moto X came in leather — it’s that I personally got to choose that it came in leather.
With the Moto X in 2013, Motorola launched a service called Moto Maker that allowed you to customize your phone in a wild variety of ways. From different-colored backs and multicolored accents around the camera and speakers through to using materials including leather and even various types of wood, there were loads of options to make your Moto X look unique. Each phone would then be made to order and you could even have it personalised with lazer etching and provide your Google account for it to be prelinked on arrival.
If custom-making phones with a vast number of potential options en mass sounds like an absolute logistical nightmare then you’re on the same page as Motorola eventually found itself. Moto Maker only existed for a few years before the company retired its customization service.
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It was a weird time back then.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
Samsung Galaxy Fold
I’m ending on a wildcard addition with the original Galaxy Fold. It’s a wildcard because Samsung’s Fold and Flip range are now up to number seven and we’ve got foldable devices from almost all major Android manufacturers. Though still not Apple.
While the original Fold might have kicked off the foldable revolution, there’s no question it was a weird phone. I was among the first to test it in the world when it launched in 2019 and while I was certainly impressed by the bendy display, its hinge felt weird and “snappy” to use. The outer display was, let’s face it, terrible.
On paper its 4.6-inch size is reasonable, but it’s so tall and narrow that it was borderline unusable for anything more than checking incoming notifications. Trying to type on it meant whittling down your thumbs to pointy nubs so I spent most of my time interacting with the phone’s much bigger internal screen. Cut to today when the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s outer screen measures a healthier 6.7 inches and as a result can function like any regular smartphone, with the bigger inside screen only required when you want more immersive content.
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Looking back at the original Fold and its bizarre proportions, it’s honestly a surprise that Samsung persisted with the format. But I’m glad it did.
Watch this: The Galaxy S26 Ultra Could Be Samsung’s Best Yet, With These Changes
“Space.com and The Guardian are reporting that the Falcon 9 upper stage leftover from the launch of the Firefly Blue Ghost-1 lander on Jan. 15, 2025 is due to impact the Moon on Aug. 5, 2026,” writes longtime Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot. From a report: Onboard the same flight was the Hakuto-R Mission 2, called Resilience, a robotic lunar lander developed by the Japanese company ispace. According to a new study by an international team, the resulting impact plume may briefly be bright enough to see against the dark sky near the moon’s edge. That means it might be visible to moongazers with sufficiently sensitive telescopes. This head-on collision of the errant stage is expected to occur near the Einstein and Bell craters near the western lunar limb. It may well be visible to ground and space-based assets.
Using special physics simulations to model the impact, William Jo, a graduate research assistant at the University of Texas, Austin and colleagues predict the debris plume from the impact will have the central ejecta spike reaching roughly 47 miles to over 60 miles (75 kilometers to 100 kilometers) altitude. “Our calculations suggest the plume should be several orders of magnitude brighter than the dark-sky background for the first few minutes after impact,” Jo told Space.com. “So the plume should be visible, though I’d stress this is a single nominal case. The real one will look different, and the numbers are on the optimistic side. But the point worth making is that the flash isn’t really the story here.” Jo emphasized that there’s great slam-dunk science to be had. “Watching this one gives us a rare chance to open up ejecta-plume science and calibrate those models against a real event, which matters for every future thing we deliver to the moon,” Jo said.
Weary travelers making their way through airports have enough to contend with these days without some Microsoft borkage popping up over departure information.
A Heathrow Terminal 5 flight information display shows a Windows activation watermark above airport check-in signs showing where to drop your bags.Supplied
Spotted by an eagle-eyed Register reader identifying themselves as Ethel Grapefruit (Mrs), one of the information boards at Heathrow Terminal 5’s check-in area has decided that whatever is running behind the scenes does not meet with Microsoft’s approval, and requires activation.
The message is familiar to many Windows users, and appears as a watermark when something has made the knickers of the computer behind the scenes get a bit twisty. Perhaps there’s been a hardware replacement, and Windows needs to be reactivated. Or an update that sent the operating system into a tizzy. There are any number of reasons the watermark may appear, and any number of ways to remove it.
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The good news is that, while annoying, the presence of the watermark is unlikely to have much adverse effect at a technical level. There’ll be nagging. There won’t be much in the way of customization to make the computer your own. And, of course, Microsoft won’t be offering much – if anything – in the way of support (other than security updates).
Not that any of that matters much for a sign showing where to go to check in for a flight and hand bags over to be weighed by a member of staff.
However, it might matter for a passenger already a little tense about being flung through the air in a metal tube at ludicrous speed after passing through multiple (and occasionally performative) security gates. If, after stepping through the airport doors, the first sight a person has is of an approach to IT that would have the head of their home tech team given a stern talking-to by The Boss, what hope is there for the rest of the journey?
Heathrow and British Airways are names that rarely feature in sentences that include the words “competent IT.” There was the 2024 British Airways luggage whoopsie or last year’s Heathrow fire-related closure. Digital signage indicating that some IT contractor has not done their work to the required standard is therefore the least of their worries.
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And it’s not as if either entity couldn’t afford a Windows license. Let’s face it, the cost of some baggage tipping the scales would probably go a long way toward acquiring a license key (if that is indeed the issue).
However, for an already jumpy customer, a Windows activation message is unlikely to assuage nerves already jangling over EU passport queues and overly complicated airplanes doing some odd things on approach. Perhaps the moral of today’s bork is that it is better to forget all this traveling malarky. Instead, how about a nice sit-down, a beverage, and a delicious biscuit? ®
The next major milestone is making Windows 11 run smoothly on Windows PCs with just 8GB of RAM. That directly means entry-level and budget laptops will at least get the basics right, even if that means sacrificing the on-device AI bells and whistles. Let’s face it. The increasingly AI-first approach to computing on a Windows 11 machine is a little too taxing on the hardware at hand.
At last
Varun Mirchandani / Digital Trends
Running the full OS experience without any jitters on a desktop or laptop PC with just 8 GB of RAM is proving to be increasingly challenging. The situation is not too different for Apple’s famously well-optimized macOS. Running the latest AI-heavy wheels of macOS Golden Gate or macOS Sequoia on older MacBooks with 8 GB of RAM, or even the new MacBook Pro, is an exercise in frustration until you decide to switch off the AI processes completely.
Pavan Davuluri, EVP of the Windows and Devices portfolio at Microsoft, says the company’s next target is memory optimization for devices with 8GB of RAM. “Reducing Windows memory footprint to deliver a fast and responsive Windows experience across the PCs customers use every day,” he wrote in a blog post. Additionally, the out-of-the-box set-up experience will also get smoother, and parental controls will also be fixed.
As a result, the average selling price of laptops has kept climbing, and even the likes of Apple had to raise prices a few weeks ago. Analyst predictions are pretty disheartening, too. “The sub-$500 entry-level PC segment will disappear by 2028,” Ranjit Atwal, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, said in a research note. “PC memory costs are expected to peak at 23% of the total bill-of-materials (BOM) up from 16% in 2025,” the report adds.
A huge step forward
This is where the situation gets tricky. The makers of operating systems are increasingly pushing AI into the workflow, whether it’s a desktop on your table or on a phone in your palm. Microsoft is no different, and over the past couple of years, it has tried to push the Copilot AI experience into every corner of the Windows experience and the apps that it ships.
Microsoft
The company even had to create a baseline hardware requirement (an NPU that goes over 40TOPS and 16GB of RAM) for a PC to qualify as a Copilot+ machine. But the company soon realized its mistake as well. Owing to the higher asking price of its latest Surface hardware and how increasingly inaccessible they are becoming, the company launched a watered-down version of its latest Surface laptops, packing just 8 GB of RAM and lacking the Copilot+ AI branding, because it’s just not feasible to serve all those on-device AI features on a laptop with just 8 gigs of memory.
But Copilot is not the only hurdle that makes budget laptops a testing experience on a foundation with just 8 GB of RAM. There are a whole bunch of background processes and redundancies that keep Windows running slower on the same amount of RAM, whereas macOS does a much better job. I have used Apple’s MacBook Air and Neo laptops with the same RAM allowance, and they perform far more reliably than a budget Windows laptop with a similar memory allowance.
I’m glad that Microsoft is finally realizing the mistake and trimming the bloatware that could allow laptops and PCs with 8GB of RAM to perform smoothly. Given the current state of the market, laptops with 8GB of RAM — and a more affordable price tag — are desperately needed. Intel is chasing that dream with Project Dragonwing. Let’s hope Microsoft can pull off some magic. I’m not too confident, but I am certainly hopeful!
RFK Jr. has a lot on his plate at the moment as the head of HHS. America is currently dealing with a record breaking outbreak of the measles, for instance. His agency has had a very hard time getting people confirmed for key roles. There’s that whole cyclosporiasis thing going around, which you’ll know you’ve caught it by the simple fact that you won’t be able to stop shitting yourself. There’s a huge self-inflicted talent vacuum at HHS and its child agencies. Pertussis cases are on the rise. Court orders keep blocking Kennedy’s committees.
With all of these crises and chaos, Kennedy became very angry at news reports that he was mostly checked out of the HHS work he should be doing to address all of this. It’s hard to take that anger all that seriously, though, given that Kennedy also became the very first sitting cabinet secretary to host a podcast while in office. And I have to assume it is also a first time a sitting cabinet secretary will — checks notes — host a cooking show with celebrity chefs.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has launched a show geared toward teaching Americans how to cook healthy, inexpensive meals.
“Thanks to President Trump, we flipped the food pyramid and put real food back where it belongs: at the center of the American plate,” Kennedy said in a video he posted Wednesday to YouTube touting “The Real Food Show.” “I’m traveling across America, connecting with renowned chefs to show families how to cook delicious, nutritious meals with real ingredients, and all at affordable prices,” the HHS secretary added. “America, it’s time to eat real food. Let’s get cooking.”
Cute. How about instead you travel the country on a mass vaccination campaign for measles? Maybe some lower level member of HHS can rub elbows with celebrity chefs while you, oh, I don’t know, do literally anything concrete when it comes to cyclosporiasis. Maybe you could fill the open roles in your agencies with competent people you can get confirmed by Congress. Or maybe you could get your agencies running smoothly and with high morale.
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It’s not that cooking isn’t important. It’s not even that all of Kennedy’s thoughts on food and health are wrong, because they certainly are not. But there is other, real, important work that needs to be done, leadership that needs to be demonstrated, and confidence building that needs to happen with the public. All of that is a better place for the Secretary of HHS to be spending their time, compared with cosplaying as a daytime cooking show host.
Kennedy told USA Today his new cooking show aims to convince Americans that eating healthier does not cost more.
The price of food at home and away from home both rose by 0.2 percent from May to June, according to the consumer price index, a popular measure of inflation.
It’s actually worse than that and looking at the CPI for food on a monthly basis doesn’t tell the whole story. Year over year CPI for food is up by roughly 3%. All of that is to say that if Kennedy wants to focus on the affordability of fresh food, part of the solution would be for him to get his current boss to not play stupid games with tariffs and to stop starting the very foreign wars that he promised to keep us out of.
So, as you continue to see headlines for the very real health issues the country is currently facing, just remember that RFK Jr. is hard at work baking crab cakes and getting his plating skills just right.
Does It matter?: Intel is providing a startup with significant access to its chip design schematics as part of a rare licensing deal involving the x86 instruction set architecture. RosaicLabs could now theoretically build its own x86 CPU, although speculation points to more cutting-edge applications such as robotics and AI.
Reuters sources claim that Intel is entering into a secret agreement with RosaicLabs Inc., a company incorporated in Delaware just a couple of months ago. The agreement covers the register-transfer level (RTL) code for Intel’s Atom CPUs, although we don’t have any specific clues about which generation of Atom chips – or which computing core technology – is involved.
Atom chip technology is based on the x86 ISA, although it is designed to operate within significant power and form-factor constraints. In circuit design, RTL code provides a design abstraction that models data transfers between hardware registers and logical operators. In theory, RosaicLabs could use Intel’s RTL IP to develop a brand-new x86 CPU or even design something more complex based on the ISA that has powered most PCs since the IBM PC era.
A few significant hints about RosaicLabs’ business prospects come from the people actually involved in the deal. Reuters reports that the company’s CEO is Amarjit Gill, a longtime business partner of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. Gill and Tan previously worked at Rivos, a chip company that was later acquired by Meta. Amit Parikh, Rivos’ former top financial officer, is also part of the new Rosaic venture.
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Besides a long-standing cross-licensing agreement with AMD, Intel is not known for freely sharing official design documents for x86 CPUs with third-party organizations. Incorporation documents filed in Delaware state that RosaicLabs is seeking an initial funding round of $10 million, with executives free to invest up to $5 million without seeking approval from investors or the board.
It’s safe to say that one potential outcome for RosaicLabs is adapting Atom’s peculiar low-profile “skills” to this brand-new world of chip scarcity and data center overprovisioning. The “lesser” x86 processor could find a new role in edge-computing infrastructure, robotic AI, or other emerging applications. In the worst-case scenario, Lip-Bu Tan’s Intel could simply swoop in and acquire whatever RosaicLabs develops a few years down the line. Although, then again, there would be nothing particularly revolutionary about that.
An illustration of a protein created by Accipiter Bio that has two active sites, shown in light and darker green, that can simultaneously bind two targets. (Accipiter Bio Image)
Less than a year after emerging from stealth operations with $12.7 million and partnerships with pharmaceutical giants, Seattle-based biotech startup Accipiter Biosciences has added $10.5 million to its funding total. The new cash will let the company move faster on promising drug candidates.
“We could have stuck with the original plan and been just fine,” said Matthew Bick, Accipiter Bio’s co-founder and CEO. “But we thought we’d rather capitalize on the progress we’ve made now and diversify our clinical portfolio.”
The team has grown to 22 people and includes researchers who worked at the University of Washington’s Institute for Protein Design under Nobel laureate David Baker.
The company uses artificial intelligence tools developed at the institute to engineer proteins with the unusual ability to bind multiple cellular targets at once, potentially amplifying their ability to fight illnesses.
“We’re not just trying to replicate what antibodies can do,” Bick said. “We’re unlocking some really interesting biology.”
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Accipiter Bio has a collaboration and license agreement with Pfizer to research and engineer new molecules. The deal provides an upfront payment and the potential to earn more than $330 million through milestones and royalties. The startup has a similarly structured agreement with oncology drug company Kite Pharma, owned by Gilead Sciences, to design proteins for use in cell therapies.
The startup also runs its own in-house drug-development programs. It originally planned to advance one or two into the clinic, but the extra cash will allow it to bring three or four programs forward into clinical trials. Bick said the company is now primarily focused on immunology-related conditions, alongside its lead oncology program.
Matthew Bick, CEO and co-founder of Accipiter Biosciences. (Accipiter Bio Photo)
The company launched in March 2023, emerging from stealth in November 2025. The new funding is an addition to Accipiter Bio’s seed round and includes only existing investors. Flying Fish Partners and Takeda co-led the seed round, which included Columbus Venture Partners, Cercano Capital, Washington Research Foundation, Alexandria Investments, Pack Ventures and Argonautic Ventures.
The new funding will help grow the team, bringing in additional scientists and reaching a headcount of about 30 people over the next six months to a year.
Interest continues to grow in AI’s potential to speed up the creation of new drugs. But Bick cautions that the process isn’t as simple as some might suggest, particularly for more complex therapeutics.
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He knows this firsthand: he and two of his co-founders worked at Neoleukin, a biotech company co-founded by Baker that spun out of the UW in 2019. The startup’s lead drug candidate, an engineered protein used in cancer treatment, underperformed in a Phase 1 trial. Neoleukin laid off many of its employees before merging with another company.
“There’s an impression with AI methods that you can just hit a button and you get your molecule out, but it’s not that easy — and certainly when you’re pushing the methods to their limits, it’s really not that easy,” Bick said.
The process still requires asking the right therapeutic questions, manual engineering and a deep understanding of the molecules, he said. “There’s still protein intuition that comes into it.”
The funds raised will enable CoreMap to develop more precise data-driven tools to assist atrial fibrillation ablation.
CoreMap, a US-based medtech, has announced the closure of an oversubscribed Series C funding round, which was led by Medtronic and included participation from existing and new investors.
The organisation, which was established in 2016 and is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, focuses on advancing the diagnosis and treatment of atrial fibrillation. This is a common heart rhythm disorder in which the beat is irregular.
CoreMap will put some of the funds raised towards further developing its electrophysiology mapping system, which is designed to provide physicians with atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation guidance, based on large datasets of highly accurate electrical activation data.
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Ablation is a technique that targets tissue in the heart, creating tiny scars via radiofrequency or pulsed field energy; this works to block the faulty signals that result in the irregular heartbeat.
Commenting on the funding announcement Sarah Kalil, the CEO and co-founder of CoreMap, said: “The successful completion of this financing is a significant milestone for CoreMap.
“AF remains one of the most significant unsolved challenges in electrophysiology and physicians need better data to guide treatment decisions and improve patient outcomes. This investment provides the resources to accelerate CoreMap’s next-generation AF mapping platform’s time to market.”
Chris Eso, the global head of corporate and business development, M&A and ventures at Medtronic, said: “CoreMap is addressing one of the critical unmet needs in AF treatment with a differentiated technology platform and strong clinical support. We are excited to support Sarah and the CoreMap team as they advance the company through its next stage of growth.”
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SiliconRepublic.com previously spoke with Ronan Rogers, the senior R&D director for cardiac ablation solutions at Medtronic. Alongside his colleague Ruth Callanan, who is Medtronic’s director of site quality, Rogers discussed how the Ireland’s west is building real depth not just in medtech, but across key areas such as pharmaceutical science, advanced analytics and digital technology.
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To confirm that the observed signal was indeed caused by a moon, the research team also examined other possible factors. These included apparent periods resulting from errors in corrections for Earth’s orbital motion, seasonal variations in atmospheric conditions, and the effects of the brown dwarf’s own rotation.
An artist’s concept of a moonlike object (center) orbiting the brown dwarf CD-35 2722 B (right). Researchers refer to this object as an “exosatellite” and describe it as a massive gas giant with a mass at least equal to that of Jupiter.
Video: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Furthermore, calculations of the Roche limit—the boundary beyond which a satellite would be torn apart by the brown dwarf’s tidal forces—and the Hill radius—the radius of the brown dwarf’s gravitational influence—confirmed that the satellite’s orbit falls within a range where it can exist in a physically stable manner.
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According to the researchers, this is the first evidence of a satellite orbiting a brown dwarf companion obtained using this method. A few months earlier, another team had gathered clues suggesting the presence of a satellite during observations of the HD 206893 star system using the VLT Interferometer but had not yet achieved a definitive detection.
The object discovered in this study occupies a unique position that cannot be fully understood using the conventional framework for moons in our solar system. “We have a clear delineation between the planets and the Sun in the Solar System, so defining things like moons is simple,” says Alice Zurlo, an astrophysicist at Diego Portales University, in a news release. “In the CD-35 2722 system, where we are blurring the lines between stars, planets, and moons, the whole thing becomes more complicated to describe.”
It remains unclear whether this object should be called a moon. ESO also notes that there is no officially recognized definition for exomoons and the researchers use the term “exosatellite.” The paper itself acknowledges that it is uncertain whether this object will meet future criteria to be considered a moon, but that the discovery is a step toward creating a definitive detection.
Researchers believe this discovery will serve as a catalyst for identifying new directions in future theories of planet formation and celestial mechanics. Furthermore, if there are smaller, rocky moons like the one in the new paper, they could be subjected to tidal heating from brown dwarfs, potentially creating environments suitable for life even at greater distances from their stars—a development that might also have implications for the search for extraterrestrial life.
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It’s also possible that once the next-generation Extremely Large Telescope equipped with a 39-meter primary mirror is completed, it will be possible to detect even smaller exomoons.
This story originally appeared onWIRED Japanand has been translated from Japanese.
For years, India was the world’s largest app download market but one of its toughest places to make money. That is beginning to change as Indian consumers spend more on AI, entertainment, and other premium apps.
India’s mobile app market generated a record $345 million in consumer spending during the second quarter of this year, up 35% from a year earlier, according to a new report by Sensor Tower. The app-market intelligence firm said the gains were increasingly driven by generative AI, streaming, and productivity apps rather than gaming, as Indian consumers became more willing to pay for digital subscriptions.
The record quarter builds on a broader trend of rising app monetization. India’s revenue per download has more than doubled over the past three and a half years, while quarterly app downloads have remained at around 6.3 billion since 2023.
“We would describe India today as a rapidly evolving mobile market with a large user base and growing willingness to pay for digital services,” Eve Chen, an insights analyst at Sensor Tower, told TechCrunch.
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Chen attributed the change to the wider adoption of digital payments, including India’s Unified Payments Interface (a system that lets people pay directly from their bank accounts) and digital wallets, which have reduced friction for in-app purchases, alongside growing acceptance of app-based subscriptions and premium digital services.
The trend also stands out globally. India’s app revenue saw its fastest growth in Q2 among major app markets, generating more than $200 million in quarterly consumer spending, per Sensor Tower’s data shared with TechCrunch. In contrast, Mexico grew 30% and Turkey 25%, while U.S. app revenue actually declined 3% over the same period.
“These figures suggest that India is no longer just the world’s largest market by downloads, but is also emerging as one of the fastest-growing markets for app monetization,” Chen told TechCrunch.
India still trails more mature app markets by a wide margin. Revenue per download stands at about $4.60 in the U.S., $3.90 in South Korea, and $6.10 in Japan, compared with a small fraction of that in India. Nonetheless, Chen said the trajectory matters more than the absolute level, with India’s steadily improving monetization suggesting significant room for long-term growth.
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Generative AI has emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments, with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude together accounting for nearly 83% of India’s AI app revenue in Q2, according to Sensor Tower’s data shared with TechCrunch.
Much of India’s app revenue growth is also being driven by non-gaming apps. Non-gaming categories, Sensor Tower said, accounted for 68% of India’s mobile app revenue in the first half of 2026, up from 58% three years earlier.
The latest data also suggests global subscription apps continue to be among the biggest beneficiaries of rising app spending in India, with Google One becoming India’s highest-grossing mobile app during the quarter. Streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Crunchyroll, Sony LIV, and JioHotstar also saw growing consumer spending. Gaming also bucked the global trend, with revenue rising 3.7% from the previous quarter despite a worldwide decline, per Sensor Tower.
Image Credits:Sensor Tower
App intelligence firm Appfigures also sees India’s app subscription market continuing to grow, although it says the pace has slowed after an AI-fueled surge over the past two years. Subscription revenue is still rising, but much of the initial excitement around AI has abated, Ariel Michaeli, the company’s founder and CEO, told TechCrunch.
“The numbers are still staggering,” Michaeli added. Appfigures estimates that ChatGPT generates about $60,000 a day in India and attracted around 1.8 million downloads over the past month, although that’s down from roughly $80,000 a day last October.
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