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Xiaomi to preinstall PhonePe’s app store on smartphones sold in India

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi said on Thursday that its Android smartphones sold in India will come preinstalled with Indian fintech company PhonePe’s app store. Xiaomi’s Android smartphones usually come preinstalled with Google’s Play Store and the Chinese company’s own GetApps. Xiaomi said that it has signed a multi-year deal with PhonePe to replace GetApps with […]

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No, that’s not a cosmic cone of shame—it’s NASA’s newest space telescope

Satellites come in all shapes and sizes, but there aren't any that look quite like SPHEREx, an infrared observatory NASA launched Tuesday night in search of answers to simmering questions about how the Universe, and ultimately life, came to be.

The mission launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 8:10 pm local time (11:10 pm EDT) Tuesday. Less than 45 minutes later, the Falcon 9's upper stage released SPHEREx into a polar orbit at an altitude of roughly 420 miles (675 kilometers). Ground controllers received the first signals from the spacecraft, confirming its health after reaching space.

As soon as next month, once engineers verify the observatory is ready, SPHEREx will begin a two-year science mission surveying the sky in 102 colors invisible to the human eye. The observatory's infrared detectors will collect data on the chemical composition of asteroids, hazy star-forming clouds, and faraway galaxies.

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Estonia-based Blackwall raises €45 million Series B to protect SMBs from malicious online traffic

A huge chunk of online traffic now comes from bots, both good and bad — but AI is boosting the latter. From DDoS attacks to scraping, there’s a renewed barrage of threats that companies have to deal with. According to cybersecurity entrepreneur Nikita Rozenberg, the impact is more severe for SMBs. “The main difference is […]

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Vento rolls out new €75M fund for Italian founders, no matter where they live

Over the last 15 years or so, as European venture capital shifted into a higher gear, one way to help a nation’s ecosystem flourish was to invest in founders from that country, regardless of where they were based. This would help re-patriate the entrepreneurial mindset back home. In Europe, the approach was pioneered in part […]

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Revisiting Windows 1.0: how Microsoft’s first desktop gracefully failed

Editor’s note: Ahead of Microsoft’s 50th’s anniversary, we’ve fixed the layout on this story — which we originally published in 2012 when Windows 8 launched. Now’s a good time to revisit our look at an operating system that helped shape personal computing over the years.

Two years ago today, when Windows 1.0 celebrated its 25th birthday, we didn’t yet know what the future of Windows would hold. Now that Windows 8 is on the market, the original is more relevant than ever before. Today, Windows 1.0 turns 27, and despite the many ways computing has changed since its debut, the two operating systems have some surprising similarities. Let’s take a look at just how far we’ve come since Windows 1.0… and where Microsoft is retracing its own footsteps with the latest version of Windows.

On November 10th, 1983, Microsoft announced Windows. For $99, it came with a notepad, calendar, clock, cardfile, terminal application, file manager, a game of Reversi, Windows Write, and Windows Paint. The original press materials, prepared using Windows Write, had this quote from Bill Gates:

“Windows provides unprecedented power to users today and a foundation for hardware and soft …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Europe’s Leading Start-up Hubs 2025

This year’s list covers 150 hubs in 25 countries. Plus: Trump policies are a wake-up call for European climate tech; Spain’s smaller hubs play to their strengths; Germany’s stagnant economy dents investment in consumer start-ups; and how a Paris-based hub is at the vanguard of AI
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