Get in the KNOW
on LA Startups & Tech
X
Astroforge Raises $13M To Mine Asteroids
Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Y Combinator startup Astroforge wants to use its new $13 million seed round to mine asteroids.
The Huntington Beach-based company aims to become the first company to bring asteroid resources back to Earth, TechCrunch reported Thursday. Initialized Capital led the funding round and was joined by investors Seven Seven Six, EarthRise, Aera VC, Liquid 2 and Soma.
“When you look at the opportunity here—and the opportunity really is to mine the universe—this is such a huge opportunity that investors are willing to make the bet on a longer time horizon,” Astroforge co-founder Matt Gialich told TechCrunch.
Virgin Orbit veteran Gialich launched the company alongside his co-founder, SpaceX and NASA alum Jose Acain, in January; the four-person firm, which Gialich said is now hiring for seven more positions, hopes to successfully mine an asteroid by the end of the decade. The seed money will fund Astroforge’s first two missions, with its first being a demo flight scheduled for a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare launch next year.
While Astroforge is keeping the specifics of its technology close to the vest, the company told TechCrunch that it involves a “high-rated vacuum” and requires a zero-gravity environment, but won’t involve actually landing on the asteroid itself. The company is eyeing asteroids ranging from 20 meters to 1.5 kilometers in diameter that carry high concentrations of platinum-group metals, which limits its potential targets to less than 1 million of the 10 million asteroids near Earth.
Astroforge wouldn’t be the first to attempt this science fiction-esque endeavor, though commercial space mining has faced financial and logistical obstacles that no company has yet overcome. NASA, for its part, is counting on the private sector to realize the U.S.’s space mining ambitions, then-deputy administrator Jim Morhard told dot.LA in 2020.
From Your Site Articles
- NASA's Plans to Create a Free Market in Space - dot.LA ›
- Mining Asteroids, Space Contracts and How NASA Hopes to Create ... ›
- Astroforge Targets April for Test Asteroid Refining Mission - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db
Why The George Floyd Protests Feel Different — Lots and Lots of Mobile Video
03:48 PM | June 12, 2020
In the aftermath of George Floyd's death, the worldwide protests, corporate condemnations and reflections on racism in America have sparked a common impression: 'This time could be different.'
An L.A.-based analytics and digital rights management firm now has data it says backs up that sentiment.
Pex, which helps creators and rights holders audit, measure and monetize their audio and visual intellectual property across the web, has found that 80% of the 100 most-viewed videos on Twitter in the 12 days following George Floyd's death were related to Black Lives Matter. Another 10% were related to race or racism more broadly.
Among the top 10 are incidents of police aggression, guidance for protesters and the arrest on live television of a CNN reporter and his production crew.
In all, the data that Pex aggregated from Twitter show that between May 25 and June 5, race- and BLM-related videos were watched over 1.4 billion times. Their analysis isn't able to detect whether some of that activity is being fomented by bad actors or bots. But Pex's head of business development, Wilson Hays, argues that such a high concentration of viewing around one subject matter is remarkable.
"Not only have the recent uploads related to Black Lives Matter received more views than any other societal moments in recent years, but it has completely dominated the sheer volume of videos being uploaded and viewed," said Hays. "With so much content constantly battling for our attention, this has shown us that this anti-racism movement was not going to be ignored and demanded the attention of audiences everywhere."
Comparing these data to a handful of recent examples provides a striking indication of how abnormal it is to have one topic capture so much attention.
In the week following the January 2017 Women's March, for example, Pex estimates that just 13% of the top 100 Twitter videos pertained to the protest and women's rights.
In the time between The Washington Post's September 2018 publication of Christine Blasey Ford's allegation that then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had raped her and Kavanaugh's October Senate confirmation, the figure was just 4%.
And an analysis by the New York Times reports Twitter said that by May 28 of this year over 8 million tweets had been tagged with the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag. That's over 50-times the number of similarly tagged tweets in the five months following Eric Garner's death in 2014. (The phrase "Black Lives Matter" came into widespread use in 2013 following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin.)
Minnesota police arrest CNN reporter and camera crew as they report from protests in Minneapolis… https://t.co/lblKo2Nh0d— CNN (@CNN) 1590748012
Historians, organizers and protesters have offered reasons why this time feels different: the evident cruelty of the video footage of George Floyd's death, pent-up anxiety from the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that lockdowns have meant many have more time to watch and participate in what's happening on the streets. There's also the fact that 2020 is an election year, which may be spurring politicians to take a stand.
Pex's data suggest another reason: the high volume of video footage and the fact that the footage has truly captured our attention.
"We can say that for the first time," Hays said, "we've all been watching this together."
From Your Site Articles
- George Floyd Update: Disney will donate $5M to Social Justice ›
- George Floyd Protests: Scooters Are Pulled Off Streets - dot.LA ›
- George Floyd Update: Los Angeles County and City Lift Curfews ... ›
- George Floyd Protests: L.A.'s Tech Community Reacts - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read moreShow less
Sam Blake
Sam primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Previously he was Marjorie Deane Fellow at The Economist, where he wrote for the business and finance sections of the print edition. He has also worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, U.S. Government Accountability Office, KCRW, and MLB Advanced Media (now Disney Streaming Services). He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, an MPP from UCLA Luskin and a BA in History from University of Michigan. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake
https://twitter.com/hisamblake
samblake@dot.la
Here's How To Get a Digital License Plate In California
03:49 PM | October 14, 2022
Photo by Clayton Cardinalli on Unsplash
Thanks to a new bill passed on October 5, California drivers now have the choice to chuck their traditional metal license plates and replace them with digital ones.
The plates are referred to as “Rplate” and were developed by Sacramento-based Reviver. A news release on Reviver’s website that accompanied the bill’s passage states that there are “two device options enabling vehicle owners to connect their vehicle with a suite of services including in-app registration renewal, visual personalization, vehicle location services and security features such as easily reporting a vehicle as stolen.”
Reviver Auto Current and Future CapabilitiesFrom Youtube
There are wired (connected to and powered by a vehicle’s electrical system) and battery-powered options, and drivers can choose to pay for their plates monthly or annually. Four-year agreements for battery-powered plates begin at $19.95 a month or $215.40 yearly. Commercial vehicles will pay $275.40 each year for wired plates. A two-year agreement for wired plates costs $24.95 per month. Drivers can choose to install their plates, but on its website, Reviver offers professional installation for $150.
A pilot digital plate program was launched in 2018, and according to the Los Angeles Times, there were 175,000 participants. The new bill ensures all 27 million California drivers can elect to get a digital plate of their own.
California is the third state after Arizona and Michigan to offer digital plates to all drivers, while Texas currently only provides the digital option for commercial vehicles. In July 2022, Deseret News reported that Colorado might also offer the option. They have several advantages over the classic metal plates as well—as the L.A. Times notes, digital plates will streamline registration renewals and reduce time spent at the DMV. They also have light and dark modes, according to Reviver’s website. Thanks to an accompanying app, they act as additional vehicle security, alerting drivers to unexpected vehicle movements and providing a method to report stolen vehicles.
As part of the new digital plate program, Reviver touts its products’ connectivity, stating that in addition to Bluetooth capabilities, digital plates have “national 5G network connectivity and stability.” But don’t worry—the same plates purportedly protect owner privacy with cloud support and encrypted software updates.
5 Reasons to avoid the digital license plate | Ride TechFrom Youtube
After the Rplate pilot program was announced four years ago, some raised questions about just how good an idea digital plates might be. Reviver and others who support switching to digital emphasize personalization, efficient DMV operations and connectivity. However, a 2018 post published by Sophos’s Naked Security blog pointed out that “the plates could be as susceptible to hacking as other wireless and IoT technologies,” noting that everyday “objects – things like kettles, TVs, and baby monitors – are getting connected to the internet with elementary security flaws still in place.”
To that end, a May 2018 syndicated New York Times news service article about digital plates quoted the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which warned that such a device could be a “‘honeypot of data,’ recording the drivers’ trips to the grocery store, or to a protest, or to an abortion clinic.”
For now, Rplates are another option in addition to old-fashioned metal, and many are likely to opt out due to cost alone. If you decide to go the digital route, however, it helps if you know what you could be getting yourself into.
From Your Site Articles
- 8 Alternatives to Uber and Lyft in California - dot.LA ›
- Automotus Will Monitor Santa Monica's New Drop-Off Zone - dot.LA ›
- Metropolis CEO Alex Israel on Parking's Future - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read moreShow less
Steve Huff
Steve Huff is an Editor and Reporter at dot.LA. Steve was previously managing editor for The Metaverse Post and before that deputy digital editor for Maxim magazine. He has written for Inside Hook, Observer and New York Mag. Steve is the author of two official tie-ins books for AMC’s hit “Breaking Bad” prequel, “Better Call Saul.” He’s also a classically-trained tenor and has performed with opera companies and orchestras all over the Eastern U.S. He lives in the greater Boston metro area with his wife, educator Dr. Dana Huff.
steve@dot.la
RELATEDTRENDING
LA TECH JOBS