Author: GT

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks, has continued its about-face to earlier resistance to cryptocurrency in banking, issuing interpretive letters that say the institutions can — at their customers’ behest — buy and sell crypto assets in custody. The newly explained policy stance released by the OCC on Wednesday also clarified that the bankers can outsource crypto activities to third parties, including custody and executive services. As long as it all still checks the boxes of the watchdog’s safety-and-soundness requirements, the OCC is giving the banks more crypto freedom. This week’s move follows…

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban during their joint press conference at the Kremlin on July 5, 2024.Contributor | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesRussia’s allies in Eastern Europe say Brussels plans to end all Russian gas and energy imports in the coming years are tantamount to “economic suicide” and a threat to the region’s energy security and economy.The European Commission announced plans on Tuesday to phase out Russian gas, nuclear energy and liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports by the end of 2027, saying the move “paves the way to ensure the EU’s full energy independence from…

Rubrik co-founder Soham Mazumdar, who left in 2023, has a new data startup called WisdomAI. The company offers AI data analytics that can deliver business insights with structured, unstructured, and even “dirty” data, meaning data not cleaned of typos or errors. Working with data where and how it is, that’s essentially the holy grail for enterprise business intelligence software and why Coatue led the giant seed round of $23 million. Madrona, GTM Capital, Anthology Fund, and others also participated.  Rather than asking a data analytics team to run reports, business managers can ask WisdomAI questions and drill into the details. …

A human clearing junk out of an attic can often guess the contents of a box simply by picking it up and giving it a shake, without the need to see what’s inside. Researchers from MIT, Amazon Robotics, and the University of British Columbia have taught robots to do something similar.They developed a technique that enables robots to use only internal sensors to learn about an object’s weight, softness, or contents by picking it up and gently shaking it. With their method, which does not require external measurement tools or cameras, the robot can accurately guess parameters like an object’s…

Billionaire investor Tim Draper is hoping to have a fund focused entirely on crypto “in the next five years.” “I raise it completely in Bitcoin, I invest it in entrepreneurs in Bitcoin, all of them pay their employees and suppliers all in Bitcoin,” he said while speaking at the Financial Times Digital Assets Summit. Draper said that the fund would run on a smart contract in order to collect tax automatically. He said, “The blockchain keeps perfect records, and my friction items — my accounting, my legal, my auditing, my bookkeeping—all go to zero, or very close to zero.” Well-known for…

Photo and video editing platform VSCO on Wednesday launched an AI-powered collaborative moodboard to expand how its products are used by photographers and artists. Called Canvas, the moodboard lets you import and edit your photos using the standard VSCO editing tools — so you can tune settings like shadows, brightness, exposure, temperature, tint, grain, blur, vibrance, and hue. The AI chops come into play when you want to generate images using text prompts. The moodboard also lets you select parts of an image and use a “region prompt” menu to have AI recreate those parts with text prompts. The weights…

MIT engineers are getting in on the robotic ping pong game with a powerful, lightweight design that returns shots with high-speed precision.The new table tennis bot comprises a multijointed robotic arm that is fixed to one end of a ping pong table and wields a standard ping pong paddle. Aided by several high-speed cameras and a high-bandwidth predictive control system, the robot quickly estimates the speed and trajectory of an incoming ball and executes one of several swing types — loop, drive, or chop — to precisely hit the ball to a desired location on the table with various types…

President Donald Trump launched his own meme in January.Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto/Getty Images Democrats are pushing back on a bill that has been seen as an easy win for the crypto industry. The stablecoin bill has lost bipartisan support as Donald Trump pursues various crypto ventures. Democrats are pushing anti-corruption measures focused on crypto. President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures are getting in the way of his own agenda. The fate of a bipartisan stablecoin bill has fallen into doubt as congressional Democrats show frustration with the president’s crypto moves. The so-called GENIUS Act, once considered a quick win for the industry, is…

Games drove the creation of GPU processors back in the 1990s, so it’s only fitting that artificial intelligence — the technology that GPUs are used to power nowadays — is making its way into nearly every aspect of video game design. In keeping with that trend, on Wednesday a startup called Sett — which is building AI agents to build and run mobile games — is emerging from stealth with $27 million in funding.  The funding was raised in two tranches, the most recent of which was a $15 million Series A, led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Saga VC, vgames,…

For years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star program has helped consumers save a collective $40 billion in annual energy costs. Now, the Trump administration wants to wind it down, according to a report from CNN.  The Energy Star program, which has a budget of $32 million, is a public-private partnership that works with appliance and electronics manufacturers to certify energy-efficient products while also helping consumers find rebates to lower the purchase cost. “Eliminating the Energy Star program would directly contradict this administration’s promise to reduce household energy costs,” Paula Glover, president of the nonprofit coalition Alliance to…