Tech

Qualcomm’s Latest Chip Could Lead a New Wave of Camera-Equipped AI Watches and Wearables

Published

3 weeks ago

2 March 2026

I’ve been steeling myself for a coming wave of AI-infused wearables that could be worn all over the place, based on reports on gadget plans at Meta, Google and Apple — a halo of connected tech with cameras onboard, streaming to AI services. Qualcomm’s latest chip, announced Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, is built for it, and the first devices using it are coming this summer. Samsung, Google and Motorola are already building hardware with it.

I sat down with John Kehrli, senior director of product management for Qualcomm, to discuss the newest wearable chip push, and it caught my attention on several levels. The reason you should care is that this is a clear preview of tech products to come: Qualcomm’s chips power almost all of the non-Apple watches, VR headsets and smart glasses out there.

While Qualcomm has had separate chip lines for smartwatches and for smart glasses and VR headsets, the new Snapdragon Wear Elite chip aims to bridge across categories. It’s a higher-powered watch chip filled with different wireless connection capabilities, but it is also made to support video input and streaming for AI, even 1080p video output to displays. That could include AI-infused smart glasses.

“It’s not just the watch: for sure that’s a focus for us, but the portfolio [of devices] has expanded dramatically,” Kehrli says.

Here’s the news about Snapdragon Wear Elite that stood out for me.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear Elite chip and three forms it could fit into. — Qualcomm’s new chip design is meant to be flexible in form. It could end up many places.
Advertisement

Qualcomm

A lot more onboard processing for offline AI

A big part of Qualcomm’s push on these chips is to do more generative AI and LLM work on device, a trend I expect to grow. The Snapdragon Wear Elite looks a lot more powerful than previous Qualcomm watch chips. Some of the offline, on-device functions could be voice-based AI, for fitness or, according to Qualcomm, for “life logging.”

I’m not sure I need life logging, but I’d be interested in having more AI-based controls for wearables. The extra power looks to also drive video on displays and run onboard cameras, including video streaming. The whole idea behind next-wave multimodal AI is to have AI services be aware of what you’re doing — that’ll mostly happen via camera access.

Kehrli says the processing cores for the neural processing unit on the Snapdragon Wear Elite could support AI models of up to 2 billion parameters on device, at about 10 tokens per second to process. He sees that being good enough for a lot of offline needs, with cloud-connected AI kicking in when needed otherwise.

Kehrli sees a lot of local AI needs for the extra sensors, including cameras, that are going to be on these wearables. “There’s so many exciting inputs coming in [to the devices]. Location, sound, voice, text, all the sensors — we’re really seeing a lot of medical-grade sensors come into the retail space. What do I do with that data?”

An athlete wearing an AI pendant. What is on the device is shown in a pop up. — Qualcomm’s concept for a wearable pendant is like a smartwatch, but with outward-facing camera.
Qualcomm

Cameras everywhere?

In Qualcomm’s sizzle video for the new chip, we can see a glimpse of a watch with a camera on its top edge. Most smartwatches don’t have cameras right now, but that could be changing soon. While it’s not necessarily a great way to take photos, the onboard cameras are likely more an additional way to tap into AI, like for face recognition biometrics for tap-to-pay, using a watch like a smart key for cars or other connected things, or maybe to use for other AI-based controls.

Another concept shot of a pendant, which looks basically like a neck-worn smartwatch, has its camera facing out. All the AI pins and pendants that have been trickling in these last few months are showing similar ideas. Like smart glasses, the outer-facing cameras could be another way to see things without putting something on your face. But you’d have to wear some pin or pendant.

Qualcomm graphic showing features of the new Snapdragon Wear Elite chip — Qualcomm’s talking points for the new chipset.
Qualcomm

Better battery life, faster charging, lower-power Wi-Fi connections

It also sounds like devices with these new chips will last longer on a charge. Qualcomm’s promising 30% better battery life than with its previous watch chip — potentially “days” of use. I’d still expect more or less a full day, considering these chips might also be supercharging more camera-based and AI features.

The faster charging sounds promising, though. The chips could charge devices up to 50% on 10 minutes of charging. That’s key because a lot of these wearables are being designed to be worn all the time, and some while you’re sleeping. It’s like companies are trying to find ways to do a quick recharge pit stop without spending too much time off your body.

The most interesting part could be the boosted wireless features. Qualcomm’s got six different protocols on-chip: support for Redcap 5G (a protocol to support high-speed and low-power connected tech), Bluetooth 6.0, ultra wideband, GPS, satellite-connected NB-NTN for messaging, and micropower Wi-Fi 802.11ax.

The micropower Wi-Fi support could allow these new wearables to stay Wi-Fi connected continuously, says Kehrli, letting them work in the background longer. On Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, for instance, right now, they’re mainly Bluetooth-connected and don’t stream video by default; switching to that mode kills battery life fast. Streaming always-on AI modes could last longer on Elite-powered devices.

Six types of wearable tech powered by Qualcomm's new chip, which are an AI headset, wireless earbuds, smartwatch, AI glasses, smart ring/band, and pin/pendant. — Qualcomm’s plans for this chip extends to nearly every wearable territory.
Advertisement

Qualcomm

Where they could show up: Watches, glasses, headphones, pendants, more

Qualcomm’s aiming to put its new chip across a wide range of wearables, from camera-enabled headphones and earbuds like Razer’s Motoko concept (which I tried at CES in January) to next-gen smartwatches and AI pendants, to smart glasses, and even sensor-connected bands. Devices like Meta’s neural band, which uses EMG (electromyography, using skin contact sensors) for hand gestures that control its smart glasses, could see upgrades with this chip. Maybe that’s exactly the sort of territory Meta could be exploring with its reported smartwatch debut this year.

It’s also clear that everyone, Qualcomm included, isn’t entirely sure where people prefer to wear these future AI gadgets. Is it glasses? Pendant? Watch? Headphones? All of the above? Kehrli feels people will have different preferences and will choose what works. Will that sort of redundancy make sense or settle itself down into clearer categories in another year or two?

Glasses, Kehrli adds, could be a landing spot for this chip because of the cellular-connecting possibilities, saying he expects adoption of wearables with their own data connections will keep rising, especially with AI services. “We’re seeing, on-wrist, up to 50% of customers taking connected [wearables] with a service plan. We’re seeing that dramatically increase, especially with this AI on device/off device type of experience in the cloud.”

It’s clear that halos of wearables are on deck from several big companies. How it all shakes out and works, though, is still unclear. And while these new wearables should be a lot more powerful, the focus right now isn’t on improving how they could stay connected and communicate with each other, something I got a glimpse of in a demo of a personal mesh network made by startup Ixana at CES. Maybe that’s next on deck.

For now, wearables are trying to be better extensions of your phone, first, and act better as standalone devices too.

Source link

Tech

Signal is being targeted by Russian hackers in a huge new phishing campaign, FBI says

Published

2 minutes ago

23 March 2026

NewsAdmin

FBI and CISA warn of Russian espionage campaign targeting messaging apps
Phishing and social engineering used to hijack Signal and other CMA accounts
Thousands of victims’ accounts compromised, including officials, military, and journalists

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are warning about an ongoing espionage campaign by Russian cyberspies.

In a joint Public Service Announcement (PSA) published late last week, the two agencies said Russian Intelligence Services (RIS)-affiliated threat actors are actively targeting commercial messaging applications (CMA). They specifically mentioned Signal, but stressed that other CMAs are most likely targeted, as well.

The campaign does not revolve around “breaking” the apps by abusing vulnerabilities, or similar. Instead, it revolves around phishing and social engineering, where the victims end up sharing access willingly.

“RIS cyber actors send phishing messages masquerading as automated CMA support accounts,” the PSA reads. “The actors tailor the messages to deceive targets into taking an action, such as clicking a link or providing verification codes or account PINs. If the user performs any of the requested actions, they unwittingly provide the actors with unauthorized access to their account either by adding the attacker’s device as a linked device or through a full account takeover.”

similar warning, saying that Russian spies were targeting not only Signal, but WhatsApp, as well. The General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), the Netherlands’ primary civilian intelligence and security agency, said at the time that the campaign was “large-scale”, and “global”. Targets were dignitaries, military personnel, and civil servants, including Dutch government employees.

AIVD believes the campaign is already a success: “The Russian hackers likely gained access to sensitive information through this campaign,” it said, although it did not detail if they accessed it from Dutch targets or someone else entirely.

On X, FBI Director Kash Patel echoed these warnings, saying the effort “resulted in unauthorized access to thousands of individual accounts.”

“After gaining access, the actors can view messages and contact lists, send messages as the victim, and conduct additional phishing from a trusted identity,” he warned.

Via The Hacker News

The best antivirus for all budgets

Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

Source link

Tech

AI could be the opposite of social media

Published

16 minutes ago

23 March 2026

NewsAdmin

For more than four decades, technological progress has been undermining expert authority, democratizing public debate, and steering individuals toward ever-more bespoke conceptions of reality.

In the mid-20th century, the high costs of television production — and physical limitations of the broadcast spectrum — tightly capped the number of networks. ABC, NBC, and CBS collectively owned TV news. On any given evening in the 1960s, roughly 90 percent of viewers were watching one of the Big Three’s newscasts.

Journalistic programs weren’t just limited in number, but also ideological content. The networks’ news divisions all sought the broadest possible audience, a business model that discouraged airing iconoclastic viewpoints. And they also relied overwhelmingly on official sources — politicians, military officials, and credentialed experts — whose perspectives fell within the narrow bounds of respectable opinion.

This media environment cultivated broad public agreement over basic facts and widespread trust in mainstream institutions. It also helped the government wage a barbaric war in the name of lies.

There’s evidence that LLMs converge on a common (and largely accurate) picture of reality.
LLMs have successfully persuaded users to abandon false and conspiratorial beliefs.
Unlike social media companies, AI labs have an economic incentive to spread accurate information.
Still, there are reasons to fear that AI will nonetheless make public discourse worse.

For better and worse, subsequent advances in information technology diffused influence over public opinion — at first gradually and then all at once. During the closing decades of the 20th century, cable eroded barriers to entry in the TV news business, facilitating the rise of Fox News and MSNBC, networks that catered to previously underrepresented political sensibilities.

But the internet brought the real revolution. By slashing the cost of publishing and distribution nearly to zero, digital platforms enabled anyone with an internet connection to reach a mass audience. Traditional arbiters of headline news, scientific fact, and legitimate opinion — editors, producers, and academics — exerted less and less veto power over public discourse. Outlets and influencers proliferated, many defining themselves in opposition to established institutions. All the while, social media algorithms shepherded their users into customized streams of information, each optimized for their personal engagement.

The democratic nature of digital media initially inspired utopian hopes. It promised to expose the blind spots of cultural elites, increase the accountability of elected officials, and put virtually all human knowledge at everyone’s fingertips. And the internet has done all of these things, at least to some extent.

Yet it has also helped pro-Hitler podcasters reach an audience of millions, enabled influencers with body dysmorphia to sell teenagers on self-mutilation, elevated crackpots to the commanding heights of American public health — and, more generally, eroded the intellectual standards, shared understandings, social trust, and (small-l) liberalism on which rational self-government depends.

Many assume that the latest breakthrough in information technology — generative AI — will deepen these pathologies: In a world of photorealistic deepfakes, even video evidence may surrender its capacity to forge consensus. Sycophantic large language models (LLMs), meanwhile, could reinforce ideologues’ delusions. And fully automated film production could enable extremists to flood the internet with slick propaganda.

But there’s reason to think that this is too pessimistic. Rather than deepening social media’s effects on public opinion, AI may partially reverse them — by increasing the influence of credentialed experts and fostering greater consensus about factual reality. In other words, for the first time in living memory, the arc of media history may be bending back toward technocracy.

Are you there Grok? It’s me, the demos

At least, this is what the British philosopher Dan Williams and former Vox writer Dylan Matthews have recently argued.

Matthews begins his case by spotlighting a phenomenon familiar to every problem user of X (née “Twitter”): Elon Musk’s chatbot telling the billionaire that he is wrong.

In this instance, Musk had claimed that Renée Good, the Minnesota woman killed by an ICE agent in January, had “tried to run people over” in the moments before her death. Someone replied to Musk’s post by asking Grok — X’s resident AI — whether his claim was consistent with video evidence of the shooting.
The bot replied:

In reaching this assessment, Grok was affirming the consensus among mainstream journalistic institutions — and also, other chatbots.

For Matthews, this incident illustrates a broader truth about LLMs: Like mid-20th century TV, they are a “converging” form of technology, in the sense that they “homogenize the perspectives the population experiences and build a less polarized, more shared reality among the population’s members.” And he suggests that they are also a “technocratising” force, in that they give experts’ disproportionate influence over the content of that shared reality.

Of course, this would be a lot to read into a single Grok reply; if you glanced at that bot’s outputs last July — when a misguided update to the LLM’s programming caused it to self-identify as “MechaHitler” — you might have concluded that AI is a “Nazifying” technology.

But there is evidence that Grok and other LLMs tend to provide (relatively) accurate fact checks — and forge consensus among users in the process.

One recent study examined a database of over 1.6 million fact-checking requests presented to Grok or Perplexity (a rival chatbot) on X last year. It found that the two LLMs agreed with each other in a majority of cases and strongly diverged on only a small fraction.

The researchers also compared the bots’ answers against those of professional fact-checkers and the results were similarly encouraging. When used through its developer interface (rather than on X), Grok achieved essentially the same rate of agreement with the humans as they did with each other.

What’s more, despite being the creation of a far-right ideologue, Grok deemed posts from Republican accounts inaccurate at a higher rate than those of Democratic accounts — a pattern consistent with past research showing that the right tends to share misinformation more frequently than the left.

Critically, in the paper, the LLMs’ answers did not just converge on expert opinion — they also nudged users toward their conclusions.

Other research has documented similar effects. Multiple studies have indicated that speaking with an LLM about climate change or vaccine safety reduces users’ skepticism about the scientific consensus on those topics.

AI might combat misinformation in practice. But does it in theory?

A handful of papers can’t by themselves prove that AI is adept at fact-checking, much less that its overall impact on the information environment will be positive. To their credit, Matthews and Williams concede that their thesis is speculative.

But they offer several theoretical reasons to expect that AI will have broadly “converging” and “technocratising” effects on public discourse. Two are particularly compelling:

1) AI firms have a strong financial incentive to produce accurate information. Social media platforms are suffused with misinformation for many reasons. But one is that facilitating the spread of conspiracy theories or pseudoscience costs X, YouTube, and Facebook nothing. These firms make money by mining human attention, not providing reliable insight. If evangelism for the “flat Earth” theory attracts more interest than a lecture on astrophysics, social media companies will milk higher profits from the former than the latter (no matter how spherical our planet may appear to untrained eyes).

But AI firms face different incentives. Although some labs plan to monetize user attention through advertising, their core business objective is still to maximize their models’ ability to perform economically useful work. Law firms will not pay for an LLM that generates grossly inaccurate summaries of case law, even if its hallucinations are more entertaining than the truth. And one can say much the same about investment banks, management consultancies, or any other pillar of the “knowledge economy.”

For this reason, AI companies need their models to distinguish reliable sources of information from unreliable ones, evaluate arguments on the basis of evidence, and reason logically. In principle, it might be possible for OpenAI and Anthropic to build models that prize accuracy in business contexts — but prioritize users’ titillation or ideological comfort in personal ones. In practice, however, it’s hard to inject a bit of irrationality or political bias into a model’s outputs without sabotaging its commercial utility (as Musk evidently discovered last year).

2) LLMs are infinitely more patient and polite than any human expert has ever been. Well-informed humans have been trying to disabuse the deluded for as long as our species has been capable of speech. But there’s reason to think that LLMs will prove radically more effective at that task.

After all, human experts cannot provide encyclopedic answers to everyone’s idiosyncratic questions about their specialty, instantly and on demand. But AI models can. And the chatbots will also gamely field as many follow-ups as desired — addressing every source of a user’s skepticism, in terms customized for their reading level and sensibilities — without ever growing irritated or condescending.

That last bit is especially significant. When one human tries to persuade another that they are wrong about something — particularly within view of other people — the misinformed person is liable to perceive a threat to their status: To recognize one’s error might seem like conceding one’s intellectual inferiority. And such defensiveness is only magnified when their erudite interlocutor patronizes (or outright insults) them, as even learned scholars are wont to do on social media.

But LLMs do not compete with humans for social prestige or sexual partners (at least, not yet). And chatbot conversations are generally private. Thus, a human can concede an LLM’s point without suffering a sense of status threat or losing face. We don’t experience Claude as our snobby social better, but rather, as our dutiful personal adviser.

The expert consensus has never before had such an advocate. And there’s evidence that LLMs’ infinite patience renders them exceptionally effective at dispelling misconceptions. In a 2024 study, proponents of various conspiracy theories — including 2020 election denial — durably revised their beliefs after extensively debating the topic with a chatbot.

It seems clear then that LLMs possess some “converging” and “technocratizing” properties. And, experts’ fallibility notwithstanding, this constitutes a basis for thinking that AI will foster a healthier intellectual climate than social media has to date.

Still, it isn’t hard to come up with reasons for doubting this theory (and not merely because ChatGPT will provide them on demand). To name just five:

1) LLMs can mold reality to match their users’ desires. If you log into ChatGPT for the first time — and immediately ask whether your mother is trying to poison you by piping psychedelic fumes through your car vents — the LLM generally won’t answer with an emphatic “yes.” But when Stein-Erik Soelberg inundated the chatbot with his paranoid delusions over a period of months, it eventually began affirming his persecution fantasies, allegedly nudging him toward matricide in the process.

Such instances of “AI psychosis” are rare. But they represent the most extreme manifestation of a more common phenomenon — AI models’ tendency toward sycophancy and personalization. Which is to say, these systems frequently grow more aligned with their users’ perspectives over extended conversations, as they learn the kinds of responses that will generate positive feedback. This behavior has surfaced, even as AI companies have tried to combat it.

The sycophancy problem could therefore get dramatically worse, if one or more LLM providers decide to center their business model around consumer engagement. As social media has shown, sensational and/or ideologically flattering information can be more engaging than the accurate variety. Thus, an AI company struggling to compete in the business-to-business market might choose to have their model “sycophancy-max,” pursuing the same engagement-optimization tactics as Youtube or Facebook.

A world of even greater informational divergence — in which people aren’t merely ensconced in echo chambers with likeminded idealogues, but immersed in a mirror of their own prejudices — might ensue.

2) Artificial intelligence has radically reduced the costs of generating propaganda. AI has already flooded social media with unlabeled, “deepfake” videos. Soon, they may enable nefarious actors to orchestrate evermore convincing “bot swarms” — networks of AI agents that impersonate humans on social media platforms, deploying LLMs’ persuasive powers to indoctrinate other users and create the appearance of a false consensus.

In this scenario, LLMs might edify people who actively seek the truth through dialogue or fact-check requests, but thrust those who passively absorb political information from their environment — arguably, the majority — into perpetual confusion.

3) AI could breed the bad kind of consensus. Even if LLMs do promote convergence on a shared conception of reality, that picture could be systematically flawed. In the worst case, an authoritarian government could program the major AI platforms to validate regime-legitimizing narratives. Less catastrophically, LLMs’ converging tendencies could simply make technocrats’ honest mistakes harder to detect or remedy.

4) AI could trigger widespread cognitive atrophy, as humans outsource an ever-larger share of cognitive labor to machines. Over time, this could erode the public’s capacity for reason, leaving it more vulnerable to both fully-automated demagogy and top-down manipulation.

5) AI could wreck the sources of authority that make it effective. LLMs might be good at distilling information into a consensus answer, but that answer is only as good as the information feeding the models.

Already, chatbots are draining revenue from (embattled) news organizations, who will produce fewer timely and verified reports about current events as a result. Online forums, a key source for AI advice, are increasingly being flooded with plugs for products in order to trick chatbots into recommending them. Wikipedia’s human moderators fear a future in which they’re stuck sifting through a tsunami of low-quality AI-generated updates and citations.

LLMs may prize accurate information. But if they bankrupt or corrupt the institutions that produce such data, their outputs may grow progressively impoverished.

For these reasons, among others, AI models’ ultimate implications for the information environment are highly uncertain. What Matthews and Williams convincingly establish, however, is that this technology could facilitate a more consensual and fact-based public discourse — if we properly guide its development.

Of course, precisely how to maximize AI’s capacity for edification — while minimizing its potential for distortion — is a difficult question, about which reasonable people can disagree. So, let’s ask Claude.

Source link

Tech

From lab to market: Rose Rock Bridge fast-tracks energy innovation in Tulsa

Published

28 minutes ago

23 March 2026

NewsAdmin

Presented by Tulsa Innovation Labs

As the global energy system evolves, companies are racing to adopt technologies that can deliver real-world solutions, especially in hard-to-abate industries. Oklahoma, long known as the oil capital of the world, is a center for energy innovation, with Rose Rock Bridge at the forefront.

A non-profit based in Tulsa, Rose Rock Bridge is a pilot deployment studio that connects early-stage energy startups with corporate energy partners, non-dilutive funding, and pilot opportunities that accelerate commercialization. Now accepting applications for its Spring 2026 cohort through April 6, it is seeking early- and growth-stage startups developing practical, scalable solutions to today’s most pressing energy challenges.

Rose Rock Bridge gives startups access to real-world commercial workflows and pilot opportunities through energy partners with more than $150 billion in market capitalization, including Devon Energy, H&P, ONEOK, and Williams. Backed by one of the strongest coalitions of strategic partners and investors of any energy-focused accelerator, incubator, or venture studio, the program enables startups to move quickly from development to real-world testing and deployment.

Here’s how it works:

Discover opportunities for energy innovation

Rose Rock Bridge starts by working directly with corporate innovation teams to identify high priority technology solutions for their businesses, pinpointing which solutions will carry the most impact. Focus areas are formed around these findings.

“We don’t just chase the latest tech and hope to find a use for it. Our process starts at the asset level — identifying the specific operational bottlenecks and unmet requirements our partners are actually facing,” says Nishant Agarwal, Innovation Manager. “By leveraging our background in CVC and engineering, we run technical deep dives alongside partner subject matter experts to define the requirement first. We then source technologies as a direct response to those needs. This ensures we aren’t just presenting ‘interesting research,’ but delivering solutions with a validated deployment pathway and a clear line of sight to a business case.”

Tapping into its network of 40+ universities, 10+ energy incubators, and Fortune 500 companies, Rose Rock Bridge then determines emerging opportunities in the energy ecosystem. Rather than just selecting companies or ideas that might bring in capital, the studio chooses startups that have real potential to commercialize quickly in order to solve the industry’s most pressing challenges.

This year’s focus areas include:

“We’re evaluating deployment probability from day one,” says Andrada Pantelimon, Innovation Associate at Rose Rock Bridge, who manages sourcing strategy and startup operations. “Can this technology deliver a measurable bottom-line impact? Can it realistically pilot within 12 months? Is your team equipped to commercialize? Show us you’ve quantified your value proposition in operator terms and understand which business unit within a corporation might own this solution. If you can articulate those pieces clearly, you’re the kind of startup we want to support.”

Derisk technologies for early-stage startups & energy companies

The benefit is tangible for leading energy corporations seeking proven solutions to complex operational challenges. Rose Rock Bridge provides its corporate partners with validated, field-tested technologies while significantly reducing deployment risk. At the program’s conclusion, partners gain direct access to emerging innovations that have already undergone technical validation and operational feasibility assessment, with identified procurement pathways and pilot plans designed for commercial deployment.

Each cohort cycle, up to 15 startups are selected to enter a six-week virtual accelerator focused on pilot deployment. Founders participate in reverse pitch sessions with oil and gas partners, one-on-one clinics with industry and capital mentors, and hands-on commercialization workshops. Founders have the unique opportunity to refine their solutions, assess pilot feasibility, and build industry relationships. This approach derisks adoption and investments through iterative customer feedback, in-field testing, and pilots, enabling breakthrough technologies to reach commercial viability quickly and effectively.

“Our curriculum is singularly focused on preparing startups for the realities of corporate partnerships.,” says Devon Fanfair, Rose Rock Bridge Manager and former Techstars Managing Director who is scaling the RRB program. “Founders aren’t just learning, they’re actively testing their assumptions with the exact customers who might deploy their technology. That rapid feedback loop is what transforms promising technologies into deployment-ready solutions with clear commercial pathways.”

At the culmination of the accelerator, teams participate in the Rose Rock Bridge showcase with the unique opportunity to pitch their startup to the energy corporate partners they’ve worked alongside for the past six weeks. Four startups are selected to receive up to $100,000 in non-dilutive funding and opportunities for business support services, joining a one-year cohort designed to prepare technologies for market adoption.

“Rose Rock Bridge is a cornerstone of Tulsa Innovation Labs’ strategy to showcase our region as a national hub for energy innovation,” added Jennifer Hankins, Managing Director of Tulsa Innovation Labs. “By linking emerging technologies with some of the nation’s largest energy leaders, we help move innovation from concept to market faster, drawing new businesses to the region, enhancing our existing businesses, and reinforcing Tulsa’s role in the global energy economy.”

Deploy viable energy solutions

Once selected to become members of Rose Rock Bridge, startups then pilot their technology with relevant energy partners and grow their venture in Tulsa. Support includes pilot design, execution, and go-to-market strategy, connections to follow-on investment opportunities, subsidized access to services including legal, marketing, PR, and support establishing a Tulsa presence for partner access.

Rose Rock Bridge’s success is measured not just in pilot deployments, but in lasting commercial relationships. Multiple portfolio companies have progressed from initial field tests to multi-year contracts with Fortune 500 operators. By derisking the path from proof-of-concept to procurement, RRB has helped establish procurement pathways that might otherwise take years to develop, if they materialize at all.

Launched in 2022 with support from Tulsa Innovation Labs, the studio has helped companies advance new technologies, secure patents, launch products, and attract capital. It has derisked 33 startups, supported 16 active or in-development pilots, and invested more than $2 million in early-stage companies, generating a combined portfolio valuation of over $55 million.

Examples of the studio’s success include Safety Radar, an AI-powered risk management platform, which secured its first contract with a Rose Rock Bridge partner, expanded to additional energy and aerospace clients, raised over $2 million, and established a Tulsa office. Kinitics Automation, a Canadian company, successfully piloted with one partner, resulting in deployments across multiple sites, effectively using RRB as their gateway to the U.S. market.

Backed by corporate partners with more than $150 billion in combined market capitalization, Rose Rock Bridge reflects both the scale of the opportunity and Tulsa’s rising influence in energy innovation.

Devon Fanfair is Manager of Rose Rock Bridge.

Sponsored articles are content produced by a company that is either paying for the post or has a business relationship with VentureBeat, and they’re always clearly marked. For more information, contact sales@venturebeat.com.

Source link

Tech

DHS Takes Out Its Funding Frustrations On Millions Of Americans By Sending ICE Agents To Do TSA Work

Published

42 minutes ago

23 March 2026

NewsAdmin

from the america:-never-greater dept

With the partial shutdown still ongoing and no budget resolution in sight because the GOP is simply unwilling to endure any oversight of its anti-migrant programs, the TSA is leaking personnel. A whole lot of TSA agents walked off the job the moment their paychecks failed to arrive, leaving travelers to deal with scenarios that are somehow even worse than being manhandled by the TSA.

Folks, it’s yet another Long National Nightmare!

Yep, that’s the Atlanta airport, which has never been known for expeditious service, filled to the horizon with unhappy people that bears more than a slight resemblance to USSR grocery store photos from the mid-70s. (Making the resemblance even more uncanny is the amount of visible food.)

Well, the TSA may be temporarily out of money, but guess who isn’t! I’ll leave it to Dr. America to deliver the news — a cure that’s worse than the disease!

President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to send federal immigration agents to airports across the country on Monday if Democrats don’t agree to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, now approaching five weeks.
“If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country,” he wrote.

I totally believe ICE will “do Security like no one has ever seen before.” I mean, they’ve already been doing civil enforcement like no one has ever seen before. And what better way to handle a travel crisis then by sending in a bunch of under-trained racists who just spent their ICE signing bonuses on emissions defeat devices and wraparound sunglasses subscription services to our nation’s airports, where they can apply all the skills they never learned during ICE training with the professionalism we’ve come to expect from people who like yelling and brandishing firearms.

What could possibly go wrong? I mean, they’re already not trained to do the job they’re supposed to be doing, so doing a job they’ve never been trained to do can’t be that much of step up on the “promoted to highest level of your incompetence” scale.

Of course, that was just Trump saying some shit on social media because he apparently has nothing better to do with his time now that he’s (again) the Leader of the Free World. Trump says a lot of stuff. He quite frequently says the opposite thing only hours or minutes or seconds later.

It brings me no pleasure to report that this horrendous brain fart will apparently be A Real Thing:

Immigration agents will deploy to airports on Monday under the direction of border czar Tom Homan, President Donald Trump said Sunday, as talks to fund the Department of Homeland Security have yet to yield a breakthrough.
[…]
Homan told CNN on Sunday that the move is about “helping TSA do their mission and get the American public through that airport as quick as they can while adhering to all the security guidelines and the protocols.”

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. If you don’t need to travel, then maybe don’t? Sending a bunch of over-funded, under-trained, trigger-happy federal officers into crowded airports is a recipe for disaster. And even Homan doesn’t seem to know what ICE will be doing to actually help expedite passenger screening — not when he’s promising they won’t be doing anything they’re not trained to do.

“We’re simply there to help TSA do their job in areas that don’t need their specialized expertise, such as screening through the X-ray machine. Not trained in that? We won’t do that,” Homan told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
“But there are roles we can play to release TSA officers from the non-significant roles, such as guarding an exit so they can get back to the scanning machines and move people quicker,” he added.

“Guarding an exit?” What the hell does that even mean? TSA agents don’t “guard exits.” No one “guards exits.” Travelers and terrorists alike are interested in boarding planes. They’re not interested in exiting airports to, I don’t know, wander around the tarmac or wonder how the hell exactly they ended up on the outside of a building they 100% intended to remain on the inside of.

This is going to end up being a case of Your Tax Dollars Trying To Look Busy. And that’s the best case scenario. The worst case scenarios begin directly after that. And I don’t think travelers are going to feel any safer or more secure when there are a bunch of twitchy, camouflaged dudes in masks wandering around like they’re about ready to raid Entebbe, rather than just looking for an exit to guard.

We’re in the midst of pretty hellish times. This… this just seems like we’re being trolled by a Higher Power that’s decided to amuse itself while the rest of the world falls apart.

Filed Under: cruelty is the point, dhs, ice, tom homan, tsa

Source link

Tech

Apple’s WWDC 2026 Developer Event Is Set for Early June

Published

55 minutes ago

23 March 2026

NewsAdmin

Apple announced that its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will be June 8-12 this year, beginning with a keynote on Monday, June 8.

Each year, WWDC is used to unveil the company’s latest slate of software coming to iPhones, iPads, Macs and more. The news comes after the company released the iPhone 17E, iPad Air M4, and a number of new Macs, including the $599 MacBook Neo earlier in March. While we have seen some hardware announced during previous WWDC keynotes, like the Vision Pro in 2023, the developers conference has recently been focused on software and Apple Intelligence.

At the 2026 event, we expect Apple to introduce new versions of operating systems, like iOS 27, MacOS 27, iPadOS 27, WatchOS 27, VisionOS 27 and TVOS 27.

“WWDC is one of the most exciting times for us at Apple because it’s a chance for our incredible global developer community to come together for an electrifying week that celebrates technology, innovation and collaboration,” Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of worldwide developer relations, said in a statement.

Source link

Tech

GeekWire’s AI summit is Tuesday: What to know if you’re attending our ‘Agents of Transformation’ event

Published

1 hour ago

23 March 2026

NewsAdmin

There’s still time to grab a last-minute ticket for GeekWire’s Agents of Transformation, a half-day summit in Seattle on Tuesday that will explore how agentic AI is redefining work, creativity, and leadership.

Keep reading for details about our speaker lineup, the schedule, logistical information and more.

We look forward to seeing you at the event!

When: Tuesday, March 24, 1 – 6:30 p.m.

Location: Block 41 | 115 Bell St., Seattle, 98121

Schedule:

1:00 PM – Doors open: check-out the AWS Marketplace AI Innovator Spotlight Studio, Startup Zone and grab your barista bot coffee.
1:40 PM – Main stage program begins.
5:00 PM – Reception – appetizers, drinks, and networking while exploring the Startup Zone demos and robotic cocktail bar.
6:30 PM – Event concludes.

Parking: Multiple parking lots are available within a 3-block radius of Block 41.

What’s included:

Four fireside chats featuring leaders from Microsoft, AWS, OpenAI, and more.
Expert panel on practical uses of AI agents.
Startup Zone with live pitches from emerging AI companies.
AWS Marketplace AI Innovator Spotlight Studio (live thought leadership recordings).
Networking reception hosted by Nebius with appetizers and beverages.

Speakers:

Charles Lamanna, President of Business & Industry Copilot, Microsoft.
Julia White, VP & CMO, AWS.
Vijaye Raji, CTO of Applications, OpenAI.
Deepak Singh, VP of Kiro, AWS.
Expert panel: Angela Garinger (Outreach), Jeremy Tryba (AI2), Liat Ben-Zur (LBZ Advisory).

Tickets: A limited number of tickets are available here.

Questions? Contact us at events@geekwire.com.

This event builds on an ongoing GeekWire editorial series, underwritten by Accenture, spotlighting how startups, developers and tech giants are using intelligent agents to innovate.

Thanks to presenting sponsor Accenture; gold sponsors Nebius and AWS Marketplace; and silver sponsors Prime Team Partners, Astound Business Solutions, Pay-i and Cascade for helping to make the event possible. For sponsorship opportunities or any other inquiries about the event, contact events@geekwire.com.

Source link

Tech

OnlyFans Owner Dies At 43

Published

1 hour ago

23 March 2026

NewsAdmin

Computershack shares a report from NBC News: Leonid Radvinsky, the owner of adult-content platform OnlyFans, has died of cancer at the age of 43, the company said in a statement on Monday. “We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Leo Radvinsky. Leo passed away peacefully after a long battle with cancer,” an OnlyFans spokesperson said. “His family have requested privacy at this difficult time.”

Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur, acquired Fenix International Limited, the parent company of OnlyFans, in 2018 and served as its director and majority shareholder. He also runs Leo, a venture capital fund he founded in 2009 that focuses primarily on investments in technology companies. According to Reuters, OnlyFans is valued at around $5.5 billion, including debt.

Source link

Tech

Walmart: ChatGPT Checkout Converted 3x Worse Than Website

Published

2 hours ago

23 March 2026

NewsAdmin

Walmart found that purchases made directly inside ChatGPT converted at only one-third the rate of traditional website checkouts, leading it to abandon OpenAI’s Instant Checkout in favor of routing users through its own platform. Search Engine Land reports: Starting in November, Walmart offered about 200,000 products through OpenAI’s Instant Checkout. Users could complete purchases inside ChatGPT without visiting Walmart’s site. Daniel Danker, Walmart’s EVP of product and design, said those in-chat purchases converted at one-third the rate of click-out transactions. He called the experience “unsatisfying” and confirmed Walmart is moving away from it.

Instant Checkout was designed to let users complete purchases directly inside ChatGPT without visiting a retailer’s website. However, earlier this month, OpenAI confirmed it was phasing out Instant Checkout in favor of app-based checkout handled by merchants. Walmart will embed its own chatbot, Sparky, inside ChatGPT. Users will log into Walmart, sync carts across platforms, and complete purchases within Walmart’s system. A similar integration is coming to Google Gemini next month. In other Walmart-related news, the retailer announced plans to roll out “digital price tags” to all U.S. stores by the end of the year.

Source link

Tech

Irish hiring rates stalling, but ‘green shoots’ evident in some sectors

Published

2 hours ago

23 March 2026

NewsAdmin

A LinkedIn report shows that while the rate of people starting new jobs in Ireland is falling, the decline is softer than other European markets.

Workplace social media platform LinkedIn has released new data exploring Ireland’s current hiring market. What was discovered is that Irish hiring rates stalled during the month of January and recorded a “moderate” 7.2pc year-on-year decline.

In Ireland, the rate of decline was shown, however, to be less harsh than that of European counterparts, with the wider EMEA-LATAM grouping experiencing a year-on-year average decline of 12.2pc. Worse still, Italy and the Netherlands reported a decline of more than 16pc and France a decline of more than 17pc year-on-year.

Commenting on the data, LinkedIn Ireland’s country manager Cara O’Leary said: “Despite the stall in hiring, Ireland remains more resilient than many of our European peers. While some sectors might be seeing a lull in new hires, there are other industries that are on the front foot like financial services and healthcare, where opportunity abounds despite the broader cautious jobs market.”

Financial services (up 5.9pc), and hospitals and healthcare (up 5.4pc) are examples of what the report noted as numerous industries displaying ‘green shoots’ evident throughout Ireland.

Mobility and AI

The demand for flexible working opportunities was also shown to have increased, as Ireland saw the highest level of remote job postings offered (10.9pc), coming second in Europe for the proportion of hybrid positions advertised. The report said that despite accounting for 10.9pc of all job postings, applications for remote roles accounted for 18.5pc of all applications, highlighting the pulling power of flexibility for attracting talent.

O’Leary said: “Our latest data continues to show the magnetic power of flexible work to attract prospective talent. Ireland dominates the European ranks for remote job postings and coming a close second for hybrid roles. The volume of applications for remote positions underlines their desirability and sends a clear signal that flexibility is a key differentiator to hiring companies.”

LinkedIn’s data also highlighted a demand for specialised talent in a landscape where it found the ability to work with AI agents among the fastest growing AI engineering skills of 2025. This, the report stated, is reflective of a shift toward autonomous execution for certain tasks.

Similarly, a growth in AI strategy and large language model (LLM) operations was found by the platform to be underscoring organisations’ investments into specialised workflows, noting that the net result is that AI engineering talent now hold a mobility premium, and due to highly portable skills are eight times more likely to move across borders than the average LinkedIn member.

O’Leary said: “Employers are eying up specialist talent, particularly professionals with expertise in AI agents, AI strategy and LLM ops. Given that many of these roles did not exist five years ago, AI professionals are in a position to command a clear premium.

“For example, AI engineering professionals are significantly more mobile than the wider workforce, with our previous data showing Ireland to be a net beneficiary of AI migration.”

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Source link

Tech

I Tested Coleman’s Snap ‘N Go, the World’s First Collapsible Hard Cooler

Published

2 hours ago

23 March 2026

NewsAdmin

Hard coolers are easier to manage once you get where you’re going. It’s the getting there with those bulky, portable ice boxes that proves challenging.

If you’ve ever packed a car or camper for a camping trip, you know that space is precious. Tents, clothing, snacks and other outdoor essentials take up the bulk of the room inside your vehicle before you and your companions even jump in your seats. Now throw your bulky coolers into the mix, and you’re left with even less space.

a blue Coleman cooler on a wooden floor — When it is folded down, the Coleman cooler is easy to slide in tight spaces.
Corin Cesaric-Epple/CNET

Soft coolers have always been better for keeping in your car since most can squish down to the size of a throw pillow, but that notion might be changing.

With the release of its first-ever collapsible hard-cover cooler, Coleman is looking to flip the script on hard versus soft coolers. I got my hands on a test unit to see if this foldable hard cooler does what it’s meant to.

How it works

I knew the Snap ‘N Go was a heavy-duty cooler when I picked up the package from my front porch. It wasn’t a large package, but it was decently heavy, as the cooler weighs 20 pounds when empty. While cooler bags have been around for some time, and they’re lighter and easy to fold into a small square, the Snap ‘N Go is the first ever hard-shell cooler that can collapse to a smaller size — up to one-third its size.

snap 'n go cooler on wooden floor. — The 55-quart cooler can hold up to 93 cans.
Corin Cesaric-Epple/CNET

It is available in three colors (light blue, black and dark blue) and in sizes 35-quart, 45-quart and 55-quart, which can hold up to 93 cans without ice. The 55-quart version is less than 5 inches tall when collapsed, making it easy to fit in tight spaces or store away when not in use.

A blue Coleman cooler open — The waterproof liner folds down just as easily.
Corin Cesaric-Epple/CNET

Using the handles on the outside of the cooler, it takes about a second to pop the cooler into its upright position. When it’s in this position, it’s hard to tell it apart from other hard-shell coolers, and the 55-quart can keep the items inside cool for up to 64 hours, according to the company. The 35-quart keeps them cool for 48 hours, while the 45-quart keeps them cool for 55 hours.

To pop it back down to its more compact size, it takes only a couple of seconds to pull the strap up toward you, and it closes in on itself, accordion-style. The waterproof liner is also removable, making it easy to clean.

snap n go cooler open showing water inside — I filled the bottom with water and left it for 30 minutes to make sure there was no leaking.
Corin Cesaric/CNET

To ensure the cooler was leakproof, I filled the bottom with water and left it for 30 minutes. It aced the test with not a single drop of water escaping.

When is the Snap ‘N Go available for purchase?

The Coleman Snap ‘N Go is available for purchase now. It’s priced between $200 and $240, depending on the size, and comes with a three-year limited warranty.

The top of a blue cooler on a wooden floor — It is available in three colors and three sizes.
Corin Cesaric-Epple/CNET

Final thoughts

Name-brand coolers don’t typically come cheap, so I’m not sticker-shocked by this one’s price, especially since it’s a hard-shell option. I was impressed by how quick and easy it is to pop up, and I especially like that it isn’t bulky to store. Although we haven’t put this brand-new Coleman cooler through our rigorous lab testing, my initial experience with the Snap ‘N Go was promising.

If you’re an avid outdoor enthusiast or camper, this quality cooler could be a great addition to your summertime activities.

Source link