Lifeboat Foundation

French Gates and Scott, who were formerly married to Seattle-based tech founders Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, respectively, have become powerful philanthropists in their own rights. Both women, who are among the richest people in the world, have signed The Giving Pledge, promising to give away the majority of their wealth in their lifetimes.

In a powerful philanthropic pairing, Melinda French Gates and McKenzie Scott have teamed up to direct $40 million to advancing the power and influence of American women over the next decade.

The donation is being awarded to winners of the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, a competition hosted by French Gates’ investment firm Pivotal Ventures, with financial support from Scott and her husband, Dan Jewett, as well as from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies. The challenge billed itself as “the first competition centered on gender and equality in the U.S. with an award of this magnitude and … an opportunity to invest in and empower women leaders.”

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Austin-based Silicon Labs has sold its infrastructure and automotive business for $2.75 billion to California-based semiconductor maker Skyworks Solutions. Plans for the all-cash deal was initially announced in April.

Silicon Labs primarily designs semiconductors and other silicon devices. CEO Tyson Tuttle said the deal will allow the company to focus on its growing Internet of Things business. Internet of Things, or IoT as it is known in industry shorthand, refers to a range of non-computing devices —from kitchen devices to security systems — that connect to the Internet.

Silcon Labs’ IoT business already serves tens of thousands of customers and works in thousands of applications, but the deal narrows Silicon Labs focus exclusively to that technology.

Risky business.

With chip shortages ongoing, some companies are having to change their plans, but could these gambles really pay off?

Big shift in the making.

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Money will be used to ramp up the rollout of battery-free sensor tags and novel, AI-based sensing as a service business model.

Wiliot — the IoT startup that has developed a new kind of processor that is ultra thin and light and runs on ambient power but possesses all the power of a “computer” — has picked up a huge round of growth funding on the back of strong interest in its technology, and a strategy aimed squarely at scale.

The company has raised $200 million, a Series C that it will use toward its next steps as a business. In the coming months, it will make a move into a SaaS model — which Wiliot likes to say refers not to “software as a service,” but “sensing as a service,” using its AI to read and translate different signals on the object attached to the chip — to run and sell its software. This will be combined with a shift to a licensing model for its chip hardware, so that they can be produced by multiple third parties. Wiliot says that it already has several agreements in place for the chip licensing part. The plan is for this, in turn, to lead to a new range of sizes and form factors for the chips down the line.

Softbank’s Vision Fund 2 led the financing, with previous backers — it’s a pretty illustrious list that speaks of the opportunities ahead — including 83North, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), Avery Dennison, Grove Ventures, M Ventures, the corporate VC of Merck KGaA, Maersk Growth, Norwest Venture Partners, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures LLC, Samsung Venture Investment Corp., Vintage Investment Partners and Verizon Ventures.

Now businesses, start-ups and their backers are eyeing an even bigger bonanza in the form of the next generation of seniors. The market opportunities will shift to the development of products and services through a greater adoption of emerging technology to provide preventive health care, and help people to live in their homes for longer, plus increase independence and well being.

Opportunities in China’s elderly health care will shift to the development of tech-based products and services to help people live longer in their homes and increase their independence and well being.

Be it large enterprises or small medium-sized businesses, Quantum Computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are two of the biggest buzzwords in IT today.

Google’s parent Alphabet unveiled a new “moonshot” project to develop software for robotics which could be used in a wide range of industries.

The new unit, dubbed Intrinsic, will “become an independent Alphabet company,” and seek industrial partners to advance their work helping to make everything from solar panels to cars, the new unit’s chief, Wendy Tan-White, said in a blog post.

“Intrinsic is working to unlock the creative and economic potential of industrial robotics for millions more businesses, entrepreneurs, and developers,” she said.