NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the league plans to introduce an automated system for certain officiating decisions, including out-of-bounds calls. The system would use AI and cameras placed around the court to determine possession. Silver compared the approach to Hawk-Eye, the tracking technology used for line calls in tennis. Disputed call preceded Silver’s comments Silver’s…

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Insider Brief Novarc Technologies and Hanwha Ocean have signed a research collaboration agreement to explore AI-powered welding and manufacturing systems for commercial and naval shipbuilding applications. Hanwha Ocean will contribute large-scale shipbuilding expertise while Novarc brings its welding automation, machine vision and industrial physical AI technologies aimed at improving precision, efficiency and structural integrity. The…

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Insider Brief Cornell University researchers have developed a robotic collective that behaves more like a flowing material than a traditional machine, allowing groups of simple robots to self-organize and adapt without centralized control. The study, published in Science Robotics, explores “mechanical intelligence,” where coordinated behavior emerges from the robots’ physical interactions and structure rather than…

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Insider Brief American Rheinmetall and Harbinger have partnered to develop robotic and uncrewed ground vehicles for U.S. military modernization programs, combining military vehicle integration expertise with autonomy-ready commercial platforms. Initial efforts will target autonomous tactical vehicles, contested logistics resupply and robotic systems aligned with Army priorities around autonomy and manned-unmanned teaming. American Rheinmetall contributes combat…

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Insider Brief Niantic Spatial and Spexi Geospatial have partnered to turn drone imagery into large-scale 3D intelligence for physical AI applications by combining Spexi’s aerial data network with Niantic Spatial’s reconstruction technology. The collaboration makes Spexi a preferred drone imagery provider for training Niantic Spatial’s real-world foundation models and is aimed at expanding 3D reconstruction…

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Insider Brief Inbolt is expanding its AI vision platform with new robot programming and motion-control capabilities designed to reduce the lengthy manual tuning typically required to deploy industrial robots on factory floors. Inbolt Robot Programming allows engineers to generate robot programs directly from CAD models, while Inbolt Robot Control streams real-time motion corrections into robot…

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Farther, the AI-native wealth management platform, has raised $150 million in Series D funding led by General Atlantic, bringing total capital raised to over $272 million and cementing its unicorn status. CEO and co-founder Taylor Matthews and CTO Brad Genser built the platform from scratch to replace fragmented legacy systems with a single AI-driven ecosystem,…

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There’s a number that keeps coming up in conversations about AI investment right now, and it’s so large it barely sounds real. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, investors poured $300 billion into roughly 6,000 startups globally (Crunchbase, April 2026). That’s not a typo. A single quarter. One 90-day window. And it eclipses the…

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Universal Music Group and TikTok have renewed their global licensing agreement, placing AI governance at the centre of the partnership. The deal commits both companies to removing unauthorised AI-generated music from the platform while strengthening attribution systems for artists and songwriters. The agreement marks a significant thaw after a public falling-out in 2024, when UMG…

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AI gateway startup OpenRouter has raised $113 million in a Series B round led by CapitalG, Alphabet’s growth venture fund, lifting its valuation to approximately $1.3 billion — more than double the $547 million it commanded just a year ago following a Series A backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia. Founded in 2023, OpenRouter gives enterprises AI-powered…

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