tech:

taffy

Happy 50th Birthday, Cassette!

casette_50Remember the cassette? Perhaps you have heard about it? The cassette is celebrating its 50-year anniversary. 

You can read more about the cassette and how it managed to change the world, here.

In the meanwhile, here are some fun facts:

  • The Rolling Stones’ song “Satisfaction” (the band’s signature track) and Nirvana‘s Nevermind may never have been heard without Philips compact cassette technology.
  • The romance, impact and nostalgia of the compact cassette can be seen in many popular movies and books, including High Fidelity (both the book and film), Wayne’s World, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Clockwork Orange, Electrick Children and Say Anything.
  • The 1979 Iran revolution was fueled by the audio cassette tape. Recorded tapes of Ayatollah Khomeini’s sermons in Najaf were distributed through the underground, to undermine the brutal and secular regime of the Shah. 
  • In addition, The Cassette Scandal of 2000 was one of the main political events in Ukraine’s post-independence history. 

[Image courtesy: Philips]

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.