The Mozilla Foundation has made steep cuts to its team. The 30 percent staff cuts will completely eliminate the nonprofit’s advocacy and global programs divisions, according to an internal email sent by Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Nabiha Syed. reported on the news, and Mozilla confirmed the cuts in a statement to the publication.

“The Mozilla Foundation is reorganizing teams to increase agility and impact as we accelerate our work to ensure a more open and equitable technical future for us all,” the statement read. “That unfortunately means ending some of the work we have historically pursued and eliminating associated roles to bring more focus going forward.” We’ve reached out to the Foundation and will update if we receive any additional comment.

The Mozilla Foundation is a nonprofit arm under the bigger Mozilla umbrella; Mozilla Corporation is the arm responsible for the Firefox browser. In February, Mozilla that about 60 workers would be laid off, primarily on the product development team.

Developing…

Many people who want to have children can’t, or shouldn’t, carry a pregnancy for a variety of reasons. Gestational surrogacy can be a great option for those individuals — if they can endure the lengthy wait times and afford to pay for the costly service. New York-based Nodal looks to make the process less expensive, more transparent, and faster.

Nodal is a marketplace for prospective parents to get matched with vetted surrogates. Nodal founder and CEO Dr. Brian Levine told TechCrunch that his company wants to fix the industry’s supply-and-demand problems.

Nodal takes the same technology-driven approach as life insurance companies to vet potential surrogates, Levine said, which speeds up the process and allows for more surrogates to be available. The marketplace approach also provides transparency for parents to have more control over which surrogate they work with. Nodal also cuts out middleman costs and works with fertility benefit companies like Carrot, Maven, and Progyny to lower the costs for prospective parents.

Levine said Nodal is designed to help lower costs, even for people who are paying out of pocket. Users pay a $500 monthly fee until they find a match. Facilitating the match is $15,000, and those monthly payments chip away at that total. If users want Nodal to serve as a case manager, those services start at an additional $10,000. While still expensive, Levine said prior to launching Nodal, his patients were spending up to $180,000 for all of this.

“We have saved our intended parents over $5 million in fees,” Levine said. “We have saved them over a century of waiting time because we are running 45 days on average to match. The average in America is nine to 18 months. You can have a baby on the Nodal platform before you get off the waitlist at a Nodal competitor.”

Levine knows the space well as a still-practicing physician with a speciality in obstetrics and gynecology. He got the idea for Nodal back in 2021 when New York became the 48th state to legalize gestational surrogacy; only Louisiana and Nebraska still don’t allow the practice. While Levine originally was excited that the ruling would open up opportunity for his patients in the state, that’s not exactly what happened.

“I was totally jazzed by this whole thing,” Levine said. “Very quickly I realized that it was truly a broken system. The cost had gone from $75,000 to $150,000 overnight. The reason it got so expensive is because supply and demand took hold. We are the largest fertility market in America; it literally drove up the price all over the country.”

The price increases weren’t benefiting the surrogates but rather padding the pockets of the matching agencies. Levine thought there must be a way to make this process better for both sides using technology, which led him to work on Nodal; it’s named after the protein that must be present in the uterus to be able to carry a baby.

The product officially launched in September 2022, is available in all 50 states, and has since matched 108 hopeful parents with a surrogate. The average clinic matches 25 a year, Levine said.

Now the startup is announcing a $4 million seed extension round led by NFX that gives the company a $15 million post-money valuation. The round also included Amplo, Liquid 2, and Myelin VC, among others. The company has raised $8.7 million in total.

Levine said that Nodal wanted to hit $10 million in annual recurring revenue before it raised their Series A round. He added that they didn’t really need to raise this round but thought it made sense as a reproductive health company amid the uncertainty surrounding the results of Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election.

“I didn’t know how this election was going to sway,” he said. “It would be myopic to not raise for women’s healthcare before the world potential changes into what could be a very challenging time for reproductive health.”

The company will invest the funds entirely into the technology, Levine said. Nodal wants to increase its partnerships with fertility clinics, too, so that more people can easily get referred to Nodal when they are looking to build a family.

Despite demand, there seemingly aren’t any direct competitors for Nodal beyond traditional surrogacy agencies, which are still just scratching the surface. Levine estimated that the current system fulfills less than 10% of overall demand for surrogates, which means Nodal can grab substantial market share. But it has a long way to go.

“From a big picture perspective, what I hope people take away is this is a company that is completely focused on transparency, speed, and safety,” Levine said. “It’s unfortunate that the industry has gotten where it is today. It’s opaque, analog, and clunky. We recognize that we have the opportunity to really help people.”

• A new leak hints at an RTX 5000 series reveal sooner than expected
• Previous leaks showcased the possible specifications of the RTX 5090
• The RTX 5090’s leaked price could be accurate based on rumored specs

There have been a plethora of rumors and leaks regarding Nvidia’s upcoming GeForce RTX 5000 series reveal, but according to a reliable leaker it could be much closer than anticipated.

Spotted by Wccftech, Kopite7kimi on X, hinted at Team Green’s inevitable announcement in a post that states ‘We will meet GeForce of Blackwell soon’ – the user accurately revealed some specifications of the RTX 4080 (and the RTX 5090 which isn’t officially confirmed), which suggests an announcement or teaser could be upon us before the end of the year.

The latest big update to Windows 11 has already caused its fair share of headaches. This time the trouble is with File Explorer. A new bug makes it difficult to open the File Explorer app as it makes the menu appear outside the screen, Windows Latest reports.

The latest bug impacts the “See more” menu, making it practically impossible to access when you select the ellipses. Instead, it only shows you a few of the available options. This error usually appears when you use File Explorer in full screen. When you’re able to see all the options in the “See more” menu, you’ll see options such as:

• Connect to a media server
• Add a network location
• Map network drive
• Select all
• Select none
• Invert selection
• Properties
• Options

Some users have reported this incomplete view regardless of the viewing mode. In theory, the menu is supposed to appear below the button for easy access to the options. But this bug is making various options inaccessible. To view all the options, ensure that the window is small enough, leaving space for the menu options.

The good news is that Microsoft is aware of the bug and will release a fix in a future cumulative update. There is no official confirmation as to when we might see this update, but it’s nice to know that it’s on its way.

This is far from the first problem Windows 11 24H2 users have faced. One of the most common problems is the update crashing PCs, causing slowdowns and blue screens of death (BSOD).

Windows 11 24H2 is off to a bumpy start, so much so that it forced Microsoft to stop the update on PCs such as Asus and configurations for software like Safe Exam Browser, Voicemeter, and older versions of Easy Anti-Cheat that are used mainly by PC gamers.

Right now you can pick up Samsung’s stellar Galaxy Buds FE true wireless earbuds for $59.99, and that’s a very good price for a pair of true wireless earbuds that are as good as these ones are. Even at their full retail price of $99.99, the Galaxy Buds FE are a pretty good value. So it’s always going to be an incredible value when they’re priced this low.

This is the lowest we’ve ever seen the Galaxy Buds FE cost and it’s also an all-time low price based on price tracking data from Camel Camel Camel.

The Samsung Galaxy Buds FE are Samsung’s budget option of the Galaxy Buds and yet, they come with a lot of the same quality features. During our testing time we found that the earbuds had great battery life and a range of decent EQ options. They also come with balanced sound for an enjoyable, well-rounded listening experience no matter what type of music it is.

These also come with Active Noise Cancellation and that’s probably our favorite feature. Have you ever been on public transit, or on an airplane and you’re surrounded by noisy people? If you had these earbuds with ANC that wouldn’t be an issue. You could just pop them in, turn the ANC on, and block everyone else out. It’s excellent. And it makes a big difference in travel. I personally like to use it while I’m out shopping at the grocery store or other stores and block out the ambient noise of the store and other shoppers.

These come in two colors, Graphite and White, and both colors are on sale for the $59.99 price point.

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