Designing for children is certainly not child’s play. While adults lead the design process, the end-users are often children, as seen in kindergartens, schools, and parks. Architects have the responsibility to create built environments that provide children with opportunities to play, explore, and learn, even in today’s digital age.
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In educational environments, adapted architecture plays a crucial role in shaping how children learn and interact with their surroundings. Adapted furniture, designed specifically for young learners, ensures that each child can engage comfortably with their space. Adjustable chairs, low tables, and modular designs encourage independence while fostering a sense of ownership over their learning. These elements are complemented by the use of soft materials, like cushions and rugs, which provide safe and comfortable zones for relaxation and informal learning moments.
Natural lighting is another essential factor in creating effective learning spaces. Naturally lit classrooms not only enhance children’s concentration and mood but also support their overall well-being. Large windows, skylights, and open layouts allow natural sunlight to flood the spaces, reducing the need for artificial lighting and creating a calm, welcoming atmosphere. These well-lit environments are often paired with organic playgrounds, where natural elements like wood, grass, and sand stimulate children’s senses and connect them to the outdoors. Such playgrounds encourage physical activity while offering endless opportunities for imaginative play.
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Children’s Furniture for Healthy and Safe Environments: Miniature Beds, Chairs and Tables
Courtesy of HIBINOSEKKEI
Beyond safety and comfort, well-adapted educational spaces include creative and challenging spots that push children to explore and problem-solve. Climbing structures, interactive walls, and flexible spaces with various levels or hidden corners promote curiosity and experimentation. These areas are designed to inspire creativity while allowing children to test their limits in a secure environment. When architecture is adapted to meet the developmental needs of children, it creates spaces that both support and challenge them, leading to a richer, more engaging educational experience.
Advances in DNA sequencing and the vast amounts of genomic data being produced by next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology have created a startup opportunity to build software for biologists so they can more easily analyze this big data and take the next leap. It could help when it comes to developing new vaccines, cancer treatments and so on.
For the last four years, MiLaboratories, a San Francisco-based startup with an R&D facility in Bilbao, Spain, has been building a computational biology platform to make it easier for biologists to process, analyze and aggregate their data. It incorporates features like data visualization and generative AI to boost usability.
Its platform is also designed to be a marketplace for other scientists so that they can distribute more specialized computation tools in the form of apps to keep expanding the utility for the genomics research community. MiLaboratories target scientists whose skillsets span biology, computer science and math — so-called bioinformaticians.
“It’s a ‘no code’ style approach for biologists and we also release an [open source] SDK — software development kit — allowing bioinformaticians to build real applications,” CEO Stan Poslavsky tells TechCrunch.
“During my and our founders’ scientific career, we saw a huge inefficiency . . . in how modern therapies, how modern drugs, are developed,” he explains. “Because of this friction between the data — the big data, generated by the biologists, the sequencing data — and the data analysis which is not available for them.”
While there are “thousands” of software programs and tools that can do analysis of NGS data, he says most have been developed within academia, where the focus tends to be on utility rather than usability.
There’s also a need for biologists to aggregate and integrate results from multiple analyses, he says. “In a unified picture, allowing you to understand what’s going on. And that’s the place where our platform helps dramatically,” he suggests.
The startup hopes its platform will free up bioinformaticians from being called upon to deal with the grunt work of genomic data processing so these multidisciplinary scientists can apply their skillset to the more complex tasks of building algorithms that might help advance cutting-edge science.
“Bioinformaticians are actually spending a lot of time just doing a monkey job of running the software for biologists,” says Poslavsky. “To process this data, you need to have Linux machines, go over SSH, run complicated software tools to get the analysis done and get the insight from the data.”
“[A doctor] has no skills to do this on Linux, on HPC [high performance computing] cluster, because he has other things to do. And that’s what most bioinformaticians in the companies and academia are doing, actually, just this monthly job of running the tools.”
MiLaboratories founding team, with Stan Poslavsky second from leftImage Credits:MiLaboratories
On Thursday, MiLaboratories officially took the wraps off its SDK, Platforma.bio, which lets third-party developers contribute apps — although it’s been in alpha and beta testing for several years. (Poslavsky says “around 300 labs” have been using the beta, and “around 20” apps have been made available through the platform, so far.)
“The first applications that are available in the platform are built around our biological and bioinformatic applications, which are very popular . . . [with] companies and people involved in immune therapy developments. But we already have . . . a good selection of collaborations and people willing to bring their applications on the platform, both from academia and from the industry,” he adds.
The 2021-founded startup is also announcing a $10 million Series A funding round to continue development, with a focus on investing in community building.
“The key reason for raising money is just to plug more hands into the development of our platform. We are hiring more engineers. We are hiring what is called developer advocates, who are propagating the technology around — primarily — the academic community, because most bioinformatics software is developed in academia.”
“For the upcoming year [we will] focus on the propagation of the technology around the community, and engaging community to build their apps, to wrap their existing software, to deliver them through the platform,” he adds.
MiLaboratories’ Series A is led by Madrid-based Kfund, with participation from Acrobator Ventures, EGB Capital, Courtyard Ventures, Somersault Ventures, Speedinvest and Ten13.
Commenting in a statement, Miguel Arias, general partner of Kfund, said: “Investing in platforms that bridge the gap between developers (in this case bioinformaticians) and business users (in this case biologists) is at the core of what we want to do in our fund. There is tremendous potential in democratizing access to complex data enabling the delivery of immunological insights.”
MiLaboratories offers its software for free to academics but it’s also taking revenue via a paid model for commercial users. Per Poslavsky the startup is approaching 100 paying customers at this stage.
“Many of the big pharma companies — like Moderna, Bristol-Myers Squibb — they are our customers,” he notes, adding: “We have revenue — good revenue — allowing us to not be so dependent on venture money.”
At the start of 2022, the startup raised a $2.5 million seed round. It also previously took in a small pre-seed from a few angels.
Discussing the challenges of developing the computational biology platform, Poslavsky says the staggering amount of data being generated by NGS meant startup had to pay very careful attention to ensuring processing efficiency to avoid generating “crazy costs”.
“The amount of data generated in the space are actually, well, crazy,” he emphasizes. “Big pharma companies, our customers . . . they have petabytes of genetic data generated so far. So that’s huge scale.”
MiLaboratories has developed what Poslavsky couches as a “very sophisticated” and “mathematically proven” technology which allows for many sorts of calculations to be performed in “a very optimized way.” He suggests this tech — which it has patented — enables the platform to reach 10x efficiency compared to some other types of computational workflow.
“That’s a very important thing. It’s hidden from the eyes of the biologist — because the valuable proposition for the biologist is ‘I want to click buttons and get insight’ — but it’s very important for the business owners.”
Competition wise, Poslavsky names Seqera (and its Nextflow software) as the closest rival — in terms of popularity and value proposition. There are also open source tools for NGS processing, such as Galaxy, but MiLaboratories reckons its platform offers researchers a more accessible route to data insights.
Good Bones Written by James Ijames, directed by Saheem Ali, set design by Maruti Evans The Public Theater 425 Lafayette Street New York Extended through October 27
A short walk from my apartment, a 17-story housing tower rises up from a sea of two-and three-story apartment buildings. For a long time, its canary-yellow insulation was exposed to passersby, but slowly the facade has come into place, replacing its treacly hues with silver and salmon-colored metal panels. Soon, its green construction shed will come down to make way for a brand-new Burlington Coat Factory.
No matter how many bike lanes with their oddly pungent green paint or beige cafe-by-day-wine-bar-by-night popups might signal rising rents and displacement, perhaps these are mere chromatic harbingers of displacement. The color of gentrification is new-construction gray in Good Bones, a new play by James Ijames on stage at The Public Theater, now through October 27. The play’s title seems to riff off of the HGTV series of the same name, which ran for nine seasons from 2016 through 2024.
The play takes place during a luxe kitchen renovation in an unnamed American city. The context at times feels awfully like New York but could just as easily be San Francisco, Philadelphia, or Washington, D.C. Maruti Evans’s set design references the historic architecture of The Public’s Martinson Theater on Lafayette Street: On stage, he creates a grand home from a similar fin-de-siecle era, but nearly every surface is awash in gray paint. The kitchen could easily have been featured on the HGTV show.
Mamoudou Athie, Susan Kelechi Watson, and Khris Davis in the New York premiere production of Good Bones, by James Ijames and directed by Saheem Ali (Joan Marcus)
Evans told me he found inspiration from walking around San Francisco, where many of the city’s Victorian pastel houses have been graywashed. “These beautiful colors are all gone, all completely different. And what you don’t see is, of course, all the people that have left, or the parts of those neighborhoods that made them neighborhoods.”
“Let It Sink Into the Earth”
The play’s central couple, homeowners Travis and Aisha, recently moved into the historically Black and systematically disinvested neighborhood where Aisha grew up. Travis is a restauranteur, selling historically Black cuisine at elevated prices. Aisha works in real estate development, meeting with community members to encourage them to support a new stadium project that would tear down public housing and offer questionable “relocation packages.”
They’ve moved into a massive home recalling the brownstones of Harlem or Brooklyn with deep history as the home of a beloved community figure from the early-20thcentury that later became a hangout for neighborhood kids. These kids included their contractor, Earl, who is excited by the prospect of restoring the space to its former glory.
The kitchen seems to hold special significance for him, as it has for many homeowners and architects throughout history. (FLW’s hearth, anyone?) “If I go to a house party, I inevitably find myself in the kitchen, talking to people. It’s really a powerful space. People gossip in the kitchen. People gather in the kitchen at holidays.” Ijames said. For him, the kitchen—at once a status symbol and a hearth—seemed a perfect space to site the play.
Set design was by Maruti Evans (Joan Marcus)
Like Aisha, Earl grew up in the neighborhood, but instead of leaving to work for real estate developers, Earl has remained and contributed to his community, building Little Free Libraries and organizing block parties. (Though his work as a contractor, upselling clients on $40 drawer pulls, also indirectly helps the gentrification process along.) Where Earl sees community solidarity, Aisha sees the violence she experienced as a child. Where Earl sees histories of perseverance, Aisha sees decades of disinvestment and death.
For Earl, the way to repair the wrongs of segregation and ghettoization is to strengthen community relationships. For Aisha, it’s by turning the neighborhood into a blank slate. In the play’s final moments, she says: “I want it gone because all I have ever known it do is take and steal and kill and drain. Let it sink into the earth.” The neighborhood is haunted by the sins of the past—the “bones” in the play’s title might be more than architectural underpinnings.
“Saran-wrapping people and places”
A challenge for set designers on a play like Good Bones is transforming the space throughout a relatively short running time. Kitchen remodels can take weeks or even months, but in this play, the work has to take place within two hours. In addition to the prefabricated cabinets that Evans sourced from IKEA (another central player in gentrification-core aesthetics) he employs plastic sheeting to obscure parts of the set: sheets slowly are removed throughout to play to reveal more gray cabinetry and appliances.
Evans referred to the plastic sheeting, a disposable product designed to insulate people from the mess of construction, as “the ultimate capitalist material, Saran-wrapping people and places.” The sheeting also serves as a persistent reminder of the kitchen’s unfinished state. Evans remarked on the uncomfortable feeling of living amid this uncertainty: “It’s dusty with gross plastic everywhere, and your family hates you because there’s plastic everywhere.”
But in the play’s final scene, the enormous, glorious kitchen has come fully into view. In one moment, Aisha climbs onto the counter and looks dwarfed by the scale of the cabinetry. (Evans remarked that to contend with the scale of the theater space, he had to look beyond the small brownstone kitchens of New York City to cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco where much larger kitchens are realistic.)
Téa Guarino in the New York premiere production of Good Bones (Joan Marcus)
Just as the full extent of the kitchen’s gray design comes into focus, so too does the full extent of the harms of both disinvestment and gentrification. The neighborhood has suffered decades of segregation and insufficient public services, and the families that live there are dealing with the consequences. But a large megaproject moving in and displacing residents doesn’t seem to offer much hope for a more equitable future.
While a previous production of Good Bones in Washington, D.C.’s ending scene jumped three years ahead to show audiences a joyful future where everything worked out, this one features an entirely new ending that offers no easy solutions, leaving its characters sorting through gentrification’s moral gray muck.
Kevin Ritter-Jung is a researcher and writer in Queens, New York. He is the managing editor of Urban Omnibus.
From Keith Rabois to Ethan Kurzweil, a lot of VCs have switched firms or spun out of storied VC institutions to launch their own funds this year. These employment changes are surprising because unlike in many other fields, venture capitalists don’t traditionally move around very much — especially those who reach the partner or general partner level.
VC funds have 10-year life cycles, and partners have good reason to stay that course. In some instances, there may be a “key man” on a firm’s fund, meaning that if they leave, the fund’s LPs have the right to pull their capital out if they choose. Many partners and GPs also have some of their own money invested in their firms’ funds, which gives them further reason to stick around.
So, while big-name investor moves in venture capital aren’t common, they seem to have become so in recent months. So far this year, there have been notable instances of investors returning to old firms, striking out on their own, or taking a pause from investing entirely.
Here’s who we know of so far:
September
James da Costaannounced on September 17 that he was joining Andreessen Horowitz as a partner focused on B2B software and financial services. This marks da Costa’s first foray into venture investing; he was previously the co-founder of Fingo, an African neobank.
On September 11, Jacob Westphalannounced that he was leaving Andreessen Horowitz. Westphal was a partner at a16z for three and a half years. He left to become the portfolio lead at Will Ventures.
August
Freestyle VC announced on August 15 that Maria Palma had joined the firm as a general partner based in San Francisco. Palma was most recently a general partner at Kindred Capital, based in London. Palma has backed companies such as Moov, Novo, and Lottie.
July
After nearly seven years, Alex Cook is getting ready to leave Tiger Global, sources familiar with the matter tell TechCrunch. While at Tiger Global, Cook led deals including TradingView, Scalapay and TrueLayer, among others. Prior to Tiger Global, Cook worked at Apollo.
Bessemer Venture Partners announced it added Lauri Moore as a partner on July 22. Moore was previously a partner at Foundation Capital for two years and an operator at LinkedIn before that. Moore will be focused on early-stage investments in sectors including data, AI and developer tools.
On July 17, DCVC announced it had brought on Milo Werner as a general partner to lead the firm’s climate investing practice. The firm is currently raising its first dedicated climate fund. Werner was most recently a general partner at Engine Ventures for two and a half years. Werner was a partner at Ajax Strategies prior to that.
Anne Lee Skatesannounced on July 11 that she had left Andreessen Horowitz where she had been a partner on the consumer team since 2019. She added that she’s off to do her “life’s work” and will post more about her future plans soon. At Andreessen, she backed companies including Whatnot, Kindred and Prisms, among others.
June
On June 17, Spencer Petersonannounced that he’d left Bedrock, where he served as partner for five years, to become a general partner at Coatue. Peterson is an investor in companies including OpenAI and Rippling, among others.
Amanda “Robby” Robson announced her departure from Cowboy Ventures in a LinkedIn post in early June. Robson had been at Cowboy Ventures since October 2019 and at Norwest Venture Partners for three years prior to that. Robson plans to launch a fund of her own.
May
Serena Ventures founding partner Alison Stillmanannounced she’d stepped back from the firm on May 14 after a nearly six-year run working with tennis star Serena Williams. Stillman did not announce her next step.
Terri Burnsannounced on May 13 that she was launching a new venture firm called Type Capital. Burns was previously the first Black woman partner at GV and left the firm back in 2022. Her new fund will focus on pre-seed and seed-stage startups.
Last week TechCrunch scooped that Fika Ventures co-founder Eva Ho was going to transition out of the firm after Fika finished deploying its current fund. Ho is stepping back for personal reasons. The move was confirmed by the firm in a blog post on May 9.
On May 9, Alison Lange Engelannounced she was taking on the role of CEO at Ceros, an AI-powered design company. Lange Engel left Greycroft in December, where she had been a partner since 2019, to take the role.
After 15 years, Vic Singhannounced on X that he was stepping down from Eniac Ventures on May 1. Singh helped launch the firm in 2009 and is planning to launch a new firm of his own.
April
On April 30, Ethan Kurzweil announced he was leaving his role as partner at Bessemer Venture Partners after 16 years. Kurzweil will be launching an early-stage-focused investment firm, according to reporting from Axios. Kurzweil will launch the firm with Kristina Shen, who left Andreessen Horowitz after four years on March 29, and Mark Goldberg, who left Index Ventures after eight years last fall.
On April 1, Christina Farr announced that she’d be leaving OMERS Ventures, where she has served as a principal investor and the lead of the firm’s health tech practice since December 2020. Farr announced on X that she’d be working on her health tech newsletter, writing a book focused on the power that storytelling can have on businesses, and consulting health tech founders.
March
After six years as a partner at Accel, Ethan Choi announced that he’d be leaving the firm to head to Khosla Ventures in March. Choi will be focused on growth-stage investing at his new firm and has backed such companies as Klaviyo, Pismo and 1Password.
While many of the recent VC moves have been by folks looking to start something new, or take on a different opportunity, not all of them have been. On March 13, Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social Capital announced that it fired partners Jay Zaveri and Ravi Tanuku. Bloomberg reported that this was due to a matter involving raising money for AI startup Groq.
Rabois was not the only person looking to boomerang back to an old haunt in this recent rise of investor reshuffling. On March 5, Miles Grimshaw announced that he’d be returning to Thrive Capital as a general partner after serving the same position at Benchmark Capital for three years. Grimshaw originally started at Thrive Capital in 2013 and has backed such companies as Airtable, Lattice, and Monzo, among others.
While transitioning from operator to VC is a common career progression in the startup ecosystem, it isn’t for everybody. On March 4, Sam Blond announced he had come to that conclusion and would be leaving Founders Fund, where he had been a partner for about 18 months. Blond said he would return to operating and has held roles at companies such as Brex, Zenefits and EchoSign.
January
After 12 years at Andreessen Horowitz, Connie Chan announced she was leaving the firm on January 23. Chan had served as one of the firm’s general partners the last five years and has backed companies such as Cider, KoBold and Whatnot.
Famed venture investor Keith Rabois announced on January 9 that he was leaving Founders Fund to return to Khosla Ventures. Rabois had been a general partner at Founders Fund for nearly five years; he returned to Khosla as a managing director, his prior role.
TechCrunch is monitoring the recent venture moves and will continue to update this article as they happen. If you have any tips or callouts to bring to our attention, contact me here: rebecca.szkutak@techcrunch.com.
This post was originally published on May 1. It has since been updated on May 13, July 12, August 15 and September 23 to include additional moves within venture.
This post has been updated to better reflect Anne Lee Skates’ investments at Andreessen Horowitz.
When on vacation, you probably don’t want to heft around a 10-lb vintage Les Paul. A compact travel guitar could be an attractive alternative, but will you need to compromise on built-in tech? Not with the latest model from Mogabi.
The first version of the Mogabi travel guitar was successfully crowdfunded in 2022, and the company has returned to Kickstarter for the launch of the V3.
During travel, the whole thing collapses down into a supplied fabric gig bag that can be taken as airplane carry on luggage. At your destination, it folds out to a length of 41.6 inches (105.8 cm), before wings are mounted top and bottom for a hollow body look reminiscent of Yamaha’s Silent Guitar.
The body block is home to a single-coil magnetic pickup at the neck position and a humbucker at the bridge, controlled by a 3-way switch plus volume/tone knobs. Cooked-in reverb offers room ambiance, and the guitar features a headphone jack for quiet play, plus there’s an instrument output for cabling to full rigs at rehearsal or venue – or plugging in headphone amps like Fender’s Mustang Micro.
The Mogabi V3 electric travel guitar ships with a fabric case
Mogabi AMT
There’s also a built-in 10-W sound system rocking full-range speakers and a passive radiator in a fan-shaped configuration for tones on the go that disperse over a wide area. The makers are promising a marked improvement in sound quality compared to the 100 and 200 series models, and 15 volume levels are available to help you dial in the best output level for your location.
Chops and noodles can be recorded to 32 GB of onboard storage, too. The company also reckons that these multi-track recordings can capture the sound of the guitar and any floor stomps that are cabled in, which is reported to be a first for such instruments. A microphone pre-amp comes as standard for simultaneous vocal/guitar recording.
Players can also connect to a smartphone or laptop over USB-C to copy over creations for editing and sharing. And the system can pair to a smartphone over Bluetooth for mixing in backing tracks.
The electronics are powered by a 2,600-mAh battery for 6 hours of play for every 3 hours on charge, and interestingly, the battery compartment is accessible to the user for replacements – potentially extending the operational life of the instrument.
The Mogabi V3 travel guitar is also available as an electric/acoustic
Mogabi AMT
Elsewhere, the guitar features a 20-fret maple neck and rosewood fingerboard with a 25.5-inch scale length that ends in an angled headstock for this outing, instead of the odd-looking open circle of the original, making for more traditional vibes.
The standard electric V3 with an alder body weighs in at 8.15 lb (3.7 kg), but a 648M electric-acoustic version with a mahogany neck and single piezo pickup is also available – which tips the scales at 6.39 lb (2.9 kg).
Kickstarter pledges for the V3 electric currently start at US$749, while the V3-648M comes in a little cheaper at $699 – representing savings of 48% on the expected retail prices. The usual crowdfunding cautions apply, but if all goes to plan for the already funded campaign, shipping is estimated to start from January 2025.
MOGABI V3 Guitar: Unleash Your Creative Power Anywhere
Apple Watch Series 10 come with new speakers that support music and podcasts for the first time. To dispel any confusion, its predecessor had speakers, too, but only for beeps, tones, and taking calls from loved ones and friends.
The new-generation Apple Watch Series 10, however, can actually play music. The recently dropped smartwatch comes with new sleep apnea monitoring, larger sizes, a thinner chassis, faster charging, brighter, more visible viewing angles, a new titanium casing that echoes the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro lines, and stunning new colors — but it’s the new music-playing speakers that piqued my interest the most.
Why?
Because when I heard “music-playing Apple Watch,” I immediately thought, “OMG, I can take it into the shower with me and blast my favorite tunes!”
Credit: Kimberly Gedeon / Mashable
Yes, I’m one of “those people” who brings their phone into the bathroom — andjams out to their favorite Apple Music playlists while standing under the cascading waters of their shower. Sue me! And I know I’m not the only one who does it.
The best solution for music-loving shower takers is waterproof bluetooth speakers — like these JBL speakers from Amazon. But the question is, could the Apple Watch Series 10 serve as an alternative? I put it to the test.
Apple Watch Series 10: How does it fare in the shower?
I set up the Apple Watch Series 10 and eagerly tapped on the Apple Music app.
Apple Watch Series 10 Credit: Rentalhunters/Shutterstock.com
I played a radio station curated just for me and it launched a classical music tune called “Piano Sonata No. 18 in D Major” by Yeol Eum Son. Since the Apple Watch Series 10 is so small and compact, I expected a tinny, metallic sound.
To my surprise, the song sounded richer, smoother, and more lush than I thought it’d be. I don’t know how I could expect any different. If there’s anything Apple gets right, it’s nailing warm, full-bodied, balanced audio, whether it’s on a MacBook, a pair of AirPods, the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
Mashable Light Speed
Keep in mind, however, that I tested this in a quiet room, so my expectations were still high going into this quick experiment.
Before hopping the shower, I decided to switch gears and play some Frank Ocean. (Before using your Apple Watch Series 10, I suggest curating a shower playlist so that you can easily play your favorite song right from your wrist.)
I played “Thinking Bout You,” swayed to the chill tune, and turned on the faucet to start the shower. I stepped in, but noticed one tiny little problem: the water droplets hitting the shower floor were overpowering Frank Ocean’s crooning.
Even when I tried to turn the digital crown to increase the volume to the max, I could barely hear the song while showering. Bummer!
The Watch Series 10’s speakers aren’t tinny, but they are definitely quiet. So if you had plans of purchasing the Apple Watch Series 10 for shower parties (and yes, you can wet it because it’s swimproof), you need to temper your expectations.
It can handle a wide variety of environments, but one that involves loud splashes of water simply isn’t one of them.
Apple Watch Series 10: What can I use the music-playing speakers for?
We already established that the Apple Watch Series 10 isn’t ideal for dance sessions in the shower, but the question is, what can you use it for? I’ve compiled a list here:
A quiet, relaxing bath
Walking on a treadmill
Dancing in front of a mirror
Listening to podcasts in a quiet room
Sleeping with music that lulls you into a slumber
Doing chores in a low-noise home
Floor exercises
You get the picture here.
As long as there isn’t any loud noise in your environment, the Watch Series 10 music-playing speakers are pretty good.
For anything else, jogging alongside a clamorous street, for example, or a boisterous room with kids, the smartwatch’s quiet tunes won’t stand a chance.
The Apple Watch Series 10 starts at $399 and it hit store shelves on Sept. 20.
While some pet owners may disagree, it’s widely accepted that around 80% of dogs will engage in fetching ‘play’ behaviors with their humans. But scientists have now found out that almost half of domesticated cats will also chase and return objects to their owners.
In a massive study of more than 8,000 cat owners, Purdue University researchers assessed whether their feline companions would exhibit this behavior more commonly recognized in dogs. Some 78% of almost 74,000 dog owners said their four-legged friends “played fetch,” but the real surprise was that 41% of cats also enjoyed this activity.
“Fetching was reported in 40.9% of cats and 77.8% of dogs,” the researchers noted in the new paper. “In cats, fetching was correlated with play and activity. In dogs, fetching was correlated with overall trainability. In both cats and dogs, being female, older, living with (other) dogs, and having health problems decreased the likelihood of fetching.”
This study follows on from a December 2023 paper in Nature that found that felines (Felis catus) expressed specific fetching behaviors without explicitly being trained to do so, leading researchers to ponder if this has become a natural part of a cat’s life rather than one taught through repetition and reward.
There were specifics found in the data gathered between 2015 and 2023, such as cats that lived indoors were more likely to play fetch, and the behavior is more common in breeds such as Burmese, Siamese and Tonkinese. Yet the researchers, led by Purdue’s Mikel Delgado, say it’s remains a mystery as to how this more common dog-like behavior came to be.
“The greater prevalence of fetching in this population could be due to a founder effect, genetic drift, or be the result of increased local selection pressures for the tendency to engage in fetching behavior in this region of the world,” the researchers noted.
And while age, breed and personality played a role in this behavior, 40.9% is a figure that far outweighs previous estimates of cats that would sometimes, frequently or always chase after and return toys or objects thrown towards them or nearby.
Interestingly, the researchers believe this behavior is more to do with play than predation or hunting, something cats are normally more associated with – yet it has its roots in primal hunting behaviors and is more prevalent in active and ‘playful’ animals now.
“Although cats and dogs are very different in many aspects of their behavior and in how they ended up being companion animals, we find it fascinating that so many of them share this very interesting behavior – fetching!” the researchers added. “We hope that our study will encourage further exploration of how fetching is related to play, hunting and social interactions in both cats and dogs.”
An earlier study looked at the intricacies of cats and miaows – and also how poorly humans are able to grasp just what their pet is trying to express. So it comes as no surprise to cat lovers that there’s still a lot of research needed to accurately decode the specific communication and behaviors among domesticated cats and dogs. (However, pet owners who have their cat or dog hovering around the refrigerator treat cupboard or food bowl may disagree.)
AMD, the chipmaker hot on the heels of Nvidia in the AI race, today announced a big acquisition to boost its position as an “ecosystem” partner for companies building big AI businesses: it is acquiring ZT Systems, which provides compute design and infrastructure for AI, cloud and general purpose computing, for $4.9 billion. The deal is a mix of cash and stock and includes a contingent payment of up to $400 million if certain performance metrics are met.
The plan is to incorporate ZT Systems’ computing infrastructure design business. AMD said it will look to sell ZT Systems’ data center infrastructure manufacturing business to “a strategic partner.”
Based in New Jersey, ZT Systems has been privately-held since it was founded in 1994, and has disclosed only one external funding round — it raised $850 million in debt in 2023, according to PitchBook. It works closely with big chipmakers such as Nvidia and Intel across areas such as server solutions for storage, GPU/accelerators, high-performance computing, 5G, and edge computing.
AMD said the deal will give it a deeper bench of expertise in AI systems design involving not just silicon, but software and systems — that could help AMD sell more of its chips (and systems powered by its chips) to customers. AMD said it has already invested about $1 billion in building its broader ecosystem.
There is a need for that enhanced approach: As AI systems grow more complex, one major priority for big tech companies building and operating them will be to increase the efficiency of their systems for the most compute-heavy aspects such as AI model training and inferencing.
“Our acquisition of ZT Systems is the next major step in our long-term AI strategy to deliver leadership training and inferencing solutions that can be rapidly deployed at scale across cloud and enterprise customers,” AMD chair and CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, said in a statement. “ZT adds world-class systems design and rack-scale solutions expertise that will significantly strengthen our data center AI systems and customer enablement capabilities. This acquisition also builds on the investments we have made to accelerate our AI hardware and software roadmaps. Combining our high-performance Instinct AI accelerator, EPYC CPU, and networking product portfolios with ZT Systems’ industry-leading data center systems expertise will enable AMD to deliver end-to-end data center AI infrastructure at scale with our ecosystem of OEM and ODM partners.”
ZT Systems does not disclose the names of its clients, but it appears to have increased its profile in recent years for providing specialist support in some of the thorniest and most expensive aspects of AI computing architecture design.
Its CEO Frank Zhang will lead AMD’s manufacturing business. ZT Systems will become a part of AMD’s Data Center Solutions Business Group.
“We are excited to join AMD and together play an even larger role designing the AI infrastructure that is defining the future of computing,” said Zhang, CEO of ZT Systems, in a statement. “For almost 30 years we have evolved our business to become a leading provider of critical computing and storage infrastructure for the world’s largest cloud companies. AMD shares our vision for the important role our technology and our people play designing and building the computing infrastructure powering the largest data centers in the world.”
ZT President Doug Huang will lead the design and customer enablement teams, and both will report to AMD executive vice president and general manager, Forrest Norrod.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2025.
Text description provided by the architects. Children from Prague now have one more reason to play outside: among the apartment blocks stands the circular Nami Play Pavilion – an experimental playground full of free elements. Created as one of the installations for the Prague Landscape Festival, its goal is not only to expand play options for local residents but also to spark discussion about the current state of children’s play in the city. ‘Today’s playgrounds are standardized and composed just of colorful, fixed equipment on a rubber surface. We have nothing against swings, but we believe children deserve a bit more, both functionally and aesthetically,’ says Eduard Herrmann, one of the duo behind Nami ñami studio, the creators of the project.
Few Rules and Many Free Elements – Eduard and his wife Klára Koldová have been focusing on the topic of play in the city for a long time, so they decided to make their installation for the festival interactive and complemented it with an informational part (which envelops the entire pavilion). While children play, their adult caregivers have the opportunity to learn more about play, specifically free play. In fact, one of the panels asks adults to refrain from intervening too much in children’s play and avoid giving unsolicited advice and help.
“Free play is based on giving children space to express themselves and make decisions as they see fit. It sounds simple, but unfortunately, today’s children constantly have their parents behind them, always advising them, or directly forbidding or commanding them. How are children supposed to learn to recognize their wishes and needs if they always have to listen to someone?” says Klára. A quality play environment offers enough opportunities to develop various types of play and is not one-sided. Today’s typical playgrounds with a swing and a slide do not offer much for developing children’s creativity, especially when they are all almost identical. The Nami Play Pavilion primarily works with the theory of loose parts – objects that children can manipulate, move, organize, and use to change their immediate surroundings and engage in imaginative play.
The floor of the pavilion is covered with fine sand, which provides fun for even the youngest visitors. For further play, various open-ended elements can be used – materials that do not have a clear purpose, such as colorful fabrics, a collection of stones, large plastic pipes, or ropes. And because the pavilion is also an art installation, it features custom-designed and handmade quirky sand tools made from recycled plastic and a minimalist oversized wooden construction set. The pavilion’s structure is made from spruce wood treated only with natural oils. Its dimensions are based on a concrete circular wall that has stood abandoned on the site for years. Around it are built-in benches, hiding spots, storage spaces, drawing boards, climbing ropes, ladders, and stages, all made of wood in a simple form.
If you ever played with interlocking brick toys as a kid, or even as an adult, you’re instantly qualified to build a house with Plaex blocks, according to the team behind a strong, recycled construction material that appears to have a lot of people rather excited.
The brick in question is one made out of “Plaex-crete,” a strong composite made up of more than 90% recycled plastic, which is shredded and cleaned and put through an extruder to produce a cement-style paste. The finished product is essentially this paste, plus some extra stuff for the remaining 10% (colorants plus UV and flame inhibitors). The final block is 35% lighter than a traditional brick its size.
🏗️ Build with Confidence: Discover the Quality and Ease of PLAEX Bricks! 🌟
But, back to the easy no-fuss building method, as the bricks click into place without cuts or mortar. The company says a double-story build would take 11-12 days with minimal equipment, which means it’s either aimed for ambitious yet novice DIYers, or a whole different market completely – such as our future humanoid robot bricklayers.
“We believe that automation is about to transform our world, in a shift bigger than the Automobile and the smart phone combined,” the team writes. “The Future of automation is here today. From 3D printing to robotic placing arms to humanoid robots. There are many companies now beginning deliveries of humanoid robots to warehouses and factory floors near you. Automation and cooperative robots are no longer science fiction.
“We Look forward to one day soon having fleets of robots assembling and modifying truly circular and affordable buildings,” they add.
Plaex creator Dustin Bowers is a carpenter by trade, but had a reckoning in 2017 when he became a father and took stock of how wasteful the construction industry is. That year he had another lightbulb moment while reading a research paper on the use of plastic as an aggregate in concrete. (PL-astic, A-ggregate and EX-truder then provided the startup’s name.)
Plastics including PETE, LDPE, PP and HDPE (but not PVC or PS) types are sourced from “extended producer responsibility” (EPR) partners, most often in the form of farm and agriculture waste. The waste is then processed and pressed into LinX blocks for landscape walls and circular angling, and Brick&Panel blocks for wall builds.
According to their form guide, they measure up against a range of materials.
The sustainable bricks measure up well (figures in Canadian dollars)
Plaex
They’re apparently hard to break, too (however, you wouldn’t really need a ‘demo-day’ to take down a wall, since the bricks can be disassembled much like a Lego tower).
Discover the Unmatched Strength of Our Sustainable Bricks! 💪🌍
They measure up well in a tractor-ramming test, too…
🚜 Watch as we put our PLAEX Bricks to the test against a tractor! 🚜
While the blocks are available to order now, the company is working towards permits for use in houses; at the moment, they’re only approved for use in storage, walls and landscaping. The team recently collaborated with JOT Design to show how the products could be used in home design, as they head towards full certification.
