tech:

taffy

GE Makes Patents Available, Gets Into Social Product Development

GE is partnering with social product development company Quirky, to  crowdsource development of new products based on existing GE patents.

In May, GE will make thousands of U.S. patents available to the global Quirky community. Quirky community members may use the patents as basis for creating new consumer product ideas.

GE’s partnership with Quirky will consist of two parts: a new platform where GE will open thousands of its patents and new technologies to the Quirky community for the development of new consumer products; and a co-branded product development initiative.

The product development is aimed to build a full line of app-enabled connected devices for the home, in areas such as health, security, water, or air. The new line of products will be co-branded Wink: Instantly Connected.

The partnership represents a marriage between what GE has dubbed the  Industrial Internet,  or the Internet of really big things — with the Internet of everyday things.

Some of the first technologies that GE will open up include optical systems, barrier coatings and telematics:

[Image courtesy: Quirky]

Just in

Tembo raises $14M

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Tembo, a Postgres managed service provider, has raised $14 million in a Series A funding round.

Raspberry Pi is now a public company — TC

Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, valuing it at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate, writes Romain Dillet. 

AlphaSense raises $650M

AlphaSense, a market intelligence and search platform, has raised $650 million in funding, co-led by Viking Global Investors and BDT & MSD Partners.

Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6B to take on OpenAI — VentureBeat

Confirming reports from April, the series B investment comes from the participation of multiple known venture capital firms and investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Kingdom Holding, writes Shubham Sharma. 

Capgemini partners with DARPA to explore quantum computing for carbon capture

Capgemini Government Solutions has launched a new initiative with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate quantum computing's potential in carbon capture.