Tootfinder

Palona, which uses AI agents to automate real-time workflows in brick-and-mortar businesses, raised a $20M Series A, following a $10M seed in 2025 (Mike Wheatley/SiliconANGLE)
https://siliconangle.com/2026/08/17/palona-r…

Palona raises $20M in funding to bring AI automation to brick-and-mortar businesses - SiliconANGLE
Palona raises $20M in funding to bring AI automation to brick-and-mortar businesses - SiliconANGLE

Damn! spent the whole evening reading articles and not editing photos (as planned) ...
Ah well - then I invite you to a walk we did recently on a sunny day along some nice blooming bushes.
#hiking #flowers #outdoors

"3 in 4 Britons (74%) concerned about climate change today following heatwave summer"
#UK #UnitedKingdom #Climate

3 in 4 Britons (74%) concerned about climate change today following heatwave summer
London, UK. New polling data from Ipsos in the UK, conducted 31st July – 4th August 2026, reveals a significant shift in public concern following a summer of elevated temperatures.

Michael Roberts on why 'Rentier Capitalism' is a misleading understanding.
EU companies: a ‘capitalism of rent’? – Michael Roberts Blog
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2026/07/20/eu-companies-a-capitalism-of-rent/

EU companies: a ‘capitalism of rent’?
Why is Europe falling behind in investment and growth compared with the US, let alone China and India?  In a new report, Labour Squeezed, Investment Stalled – the renowned economist Mariana Mazzuca…

Abby Care, which runs a clinically led, AI-powered platform to train and certify family caregivers, raised an $82M Series C led by Transformation Capital (Allie Garfinkle/Fortune)
https://fortune.com/2026/10/15/startup-abby-care…

Startup Abby Care raises $82 million to turn family members into paid caregivers
Transformation Capital and CVS Health Ventures join the novel bet on filling the caretaking gap.

Google unveils Operation Blue Skies, a £5M trial to re-route North Atlantic aircraft to reduce contrail-induced warming using Google's AI atmospheric forecasts (Madeleine Cuff/New Scientist)
https://www.newscientist.com/article/25850

Planes flying over the Atlantic will be re-routed to avoid contrails | New Scientist
Operation Blue Skies is the world’s first trial to deploy contrail avoidance measures across an entire airspace, aiming to lower the climate impact of flights on a large scale 

Sources: the USPTO and US Copyright Office were surprised by the DOJ's brief supporting OpenAI and Microsoft in their dispute with the New York Times (Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/09/19/justice-department-openai-new-york-times

Scoop: DOJ's copyright filing took key agencies by surprise
The department argues copyrighted works to train models should be considered fair use because that practice is new and transformative.

Filing: US prosecutors say OpenAI suspect Abdulrahman Alfozan maintained frequent WhatsApp contact in 2025 and 2026 with an unnamed Saudi Royal Family member (Dan Mangan/CNBC)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/19/openai-bugging-suspect-alfozan-saudi-royal-fa…

OpenAI bugging suspect WhatsApp'ed Saudi royal days before arrest, feds reveal
Saudi national Abdulrahman Alfozan is accused of planting a recording device in an executive conference room at OpenAI headquarters in San Francisco.

Apple unveils new EU business terms from October 1, resolving disputes with the EU, including a new Core Technology Commission and App Store commission tiers (Apple)
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-announces-changes-for-apps-in-the-…

Apple announces changes for apps in the European Union
Apple today announced changes to its business terms for apps in the European Union, following close collaboration with the European Commission.

Survey of 94 economists: 54% expect AI's gains to spread across the G20 over the next decade, not just the US and China; 32 see African countries falling behind (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/c6aeb3a1-1874-4947-8ffc-4d993301244a