2026-08-07

NavVis raised €73.7M to build the spatial data layer that factories need before they can deploy AI

NavVis, a Munich-based spatial twin platform, raised €73.7 million ($85 million) in a Series D round led by US private equity firm The Jordan Company. Existing investors Yttrium, KOZO KEIKAKU ENGINEERING, and Cipio Partners also participated. The company, a 2013 spin-off from the Technical University of Munich, builds photorealistic digital replicas of factories, plants, and […]<br /> Th [...]

2026-08-07

Disney+ and ESPN are testing AI-powered search that lets users describe what they want in plain language

Disney is testing AI-powered search inside both ESPN and Disney+, the company announced on Wednesday. ESPN Search lets a small group of users ask sports questions in natural language and receive answers, stats, related content, and recommendations drawn from decades of ESPN’s articles, videos, research data, and internal knowledge repositories. On Disney+, a separate beta […]<br /> This [...]

2026-08-07

The team behind Paddington 2 could’ve made a Star Wars droid movie

Paul King and Simon Farnaby, the directing and writing team behind Paddington 2, were approached by Lucasfilm to make a Star Wars film. The pair pitched a story centered entirely on a droid, with none of the franchise’s established characters. It did not happen. Farnaby revealed the project in a Variety interview promoting his latest […]<br /> This story continues at The Next Web [...]

2026-08-07

BMW challenged students to build an EV that makes more energy than it uses. They covered it in 1,700 solar cells and it works.

BMW challenged graduate students at Clemson University to build an electric vehicle that generates more energy than it consumes in a day of urban commuting. Two years later, they have a working prototype. Deep Orange 17, which BMW calls the Luminetta, is a two-seat solar EV covered in more than 1,700 photovoltaic cells developed with […]<br /> This story continues at The Next Web [...]

2026-08-07

Malicious AI ‘skills’ turned agents into credential thieves, at scale

Security researchers at Zenity Labs uncovered a credential-stealing campaign on skills.sh, a public registry of add-ons for AI agents run by Vercel. They unveiled the research at the Black Hat conference. Attackers had cloned real skills into typosquatted look-alikes. One tainted family racked up over 1.7 million installs, though Zenity stresses that is aggregate downloads, […]<br /> This [...]

2026-08-07

AI boom forces companies to rethink how they measure business value

Artificial intelligence has quickly become a boardroom priority, inspiring significant investment across industries. Yet conversations about return on investment often remain tied to familiar software purchasing habits, where success is judged by logins, subscriptions, or the performance of an individual application. That perspective may overlook the broader operational influence AI can have acros [...]

2026-08-07

OpenAI is slowing down its next model over ‘critical’ cyber risk

OpenAI tested Astra, one of its upcoming models, over the past few days. In a post on Friday, it said the results were strong enough that it “cannot rule out” critical cyber capabilities. So it is pausing some internal work on the model and scaling up security while testing continues. “Critical” is the top rung […]<br /> This story continues at The Next Web [...]

2026-08-07

Harvey is raising at $15.5bn, up 40% in five months

The legal-AI startup is in talks to raise at least $500m at a $15.5bn valuation, including the new money, The Information reported. That is a 40% jump on the $11bn it set only five months ago, when it raised $200m. Lightspeed Venture Partners is keen to lead the round. The raise follows a revenue surge. […]<br /> This story continues at The Next Web [...]

2026-08-07

My Life with the Walter Boys season 4: release window and everything we know so far about the hit Netflix show's return

After that shocking season 3 finale, I'm thrilled that My Life with the Walter Boys season 4 has already been confirmed. But what do we actually know about it? [...]