Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on deeptech, startups, and government policy. Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on deeptech, startups, and government policy.
The UK has been told it won’t have to pay for the two years it had been out of the EU’s Horizon research programme — removing a big barrier to rejoining the €95.5bn scheme.
Britain had been locked out of Horizon because of a post-Brexit dispute over trade in Northern Ireland. The recent Windsor Framework deal had opened the door to reentry, but talks have stalled over the financial terms.
The British government argues that its contributions to the seven-year innovation scheme should be cut, because its late entry has reduced the potential returns.
A key concern involved the payments for 2021 and 2022, when the UK was blocked from Horizon. Officials were reportedly concerned that Britain would still have to pay for those two years. According to the European Commission, that will not be the case.
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“We are not being unreasonable. We are not asking them to pay for the years they were not associated,” an EU official told the Guardian.
“We are ready to work on it very quickly. But there is still that doubt about the willingness of the UK to take part.”
More at stake than money
Despite the EU’s officials, there may be further roadblocks ahead. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is said to be “sceptical” about Horizon’s value. The British government has also unveiled a backup R&D funding scheme, which will be activated if negotiations to rejoin the EU programme fall apart.
However, among UK scientists and technologists, support for rejoining Horizon is widespread. In addition to €95.5bn funding pot, they point to the benefits of international collaboration, common rules, and established research cycles.
“The government must also remember there is more at stake here than money,” Tony McBride, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the Institute of Physics, said last week.
“Should it be needed, any alternative to Horizon must also make up for the loss of the established networks, partnerships, and infrastructure the UK has benefitted from over many, many years, as well as for the disruption and uncertainty caused by these years of delay.”
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When Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, work stopped at thousands of Ukrainian businesses – including carbon capture-focused startup Carbominer.
As tanks approached the capital Kyiv, inhabitants of the city, including employees of the company, were forced to flee for their own safety.
Among them was Viktoria Oseyko, chief marketing officer, and her father Nick, founder and chief executive officer of Carbominer. But Ukraine soon retook control of the area.
“When the Russian forces were kicked out of the Kyiv region, it was like three or four weeks and the managing team decided to get back,” explains Oseyko.
Nick and Victoria Oseyko. Credit: Carbominer
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She and her colleagues have since completed a pilot trial of their machine that can capture CO₂ from the air so that it can be piped into greenhouses. This heightens plant photosynthesis, which helps farmers grow crops.
Carbon capture could prove essential component to halt pipeline warming
Carbominer is just one among many eclectic startups in Europe racing to develop technology that can capture carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that accounts for66% of global warming.
Although reducing emissions is generally viewed as the key to tackling climate change, the UN, in a report published last month, highlighted that CO₂ removal might be necessary if the world is to achieve net zero emissions and limit warming to 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels. This is due to what is called committed warming – the future warming in the pipeline as a result of the greenhouse gases we have already emitted.
It takes time for a shift in energy balance to show up. This means that even if we were to stop emitting CO₂ and methane – the leading contributors to climate change – tomorrow, global temperatures would still keep rising as the gases linger in the atmosphere.
New EU location to circumvent geopolitical challenges
The machines designed by the 10-strong team at Carbominer are still in development but Oseyko says that, by the end of the year, they hope to have a device that can capture 46 tonnes of CO₂ annually.
This is fairly small-scale but the firm, which has raised $900,000 (€822,000) in funding to date, hopes that it will be able to provide captured CO₂ to agricultural customers at a relatively low cost.
“We are going to place the machine on site and then bill per usage of CO₂,” explains Oseyko.
The team at Carbominer aims for their machine to capture 46 tonnes of CO₂ per year. Credit: Carbominer
She adds that among the challenges faced by Carbominer, and many other Ukrainian companies, is the difficulty of importing materials into the country at present. And the fact that, under martial law, male members of staffcannot currently leave Ukraine, which makes engaging with the industry and visiting potential clients difficult. To mitigate this, the firm plans to open an office in neighbouring Poland this year, where Oseyko will be based.
Carbominer’s device consists of two linked machines. One has a large fan that draws air towards a sorbent, which captures the CO₂, and the other machine uses electrochemistry to release the CO₂ again when needed.
But one of the key difficulties with direct air capture systems is the need to move air around in order to get at the CO₂ within it – this requires energy. Oseyko says that, when fossil fuel-based electricity is used to power Carbominer’s system, it stops being carbon negative — but the firm intends to use renewable energy only.
Hitching a ride on existing air flow
In Finland, the team at Soletair Power has been thinking about how to get around the energy consumption issue.
“You need to move quite a lot of air in order to capture the CO₂. In buildings, that air is already moving,” says chief executive officer Petri Laakso.
Soletair Power’s carbon capture tech essentially piggybacks on existing ventilation systems in buildings, which transport indoor air – rich in CO₂ breathed out by occupants. The firm has 10 employees and has received €1.5 million in funding to date, besides an undisclosed amount in grants.
The amount of CO₂ captured depends on various factors including the volume of air moved in each case but Laakso says systems already installed by the firm capture on the order of tens of kilos of CO₂ per day.
Will net-zero plans drive deployment?
Again, industry values the captured CO₂. Soletair Powerhas installed its technology in an office in the city of Vaasa, Finland, where the trapped CO₂ is eventually used in the manufacture of concrete so that it can be embedded permanently in building blocks.
“This is a valid technology,” says Dawid Hanak at Cranfield University. “It’s just how much you can capture and how scalable that is.”
Credit: Soletair Power
Laakso says his firm has already installed systems in Finland and Germany and will install another this summer. While individual deployments will not capture enormous amounts of CO₂, he adds, hundreds or thousands of buildings might eventually use the tech, vastly increasing its impact.
“There are many real estate companies promising that they will be carbon net zero by 2028 and they are turning to us,” says Laakso.
The cost? It varies depending on the installation but currently a large system can remove CO₂ for about €500 to €1,000 per tonne. Many firms are hoping to slash the cost of removal to $100 (€91) per tonne or below, eventually, so that CO₂ capture becomes affordable at the scales required to reach net zero.
Competitive advantage despite efficiency concerns
Carbon capture tech has its pros and cons. Stuart Haszeldine at the University of Edinburgh notes that there are easier methods of reducing humanity’s climate impact.
“The simplest way of addressing the climate issue is actually to become more efficient and get more value out of the same energy,” he says. Insulate buildings, for instance, so they require less energy to heat.
However, reducing one’s carbon footprint will become increasingly attractive commercially, argues Haszeldine as he suggests that firms able to lower their overall CO₂ output will have an advantage in terms of revenue and perception.
Plus, direct air capture helps to address CO₂ emitters that are spread over large areas and therefore hard to control, such as farming. If you can’t catch the CO₂ reliably at source, at least you can pull it out of the atmosphere later.
Using existing farming techniques to store carbon for millenia
Even some difficult-to-decarbonise industries could soon play a bigger role in seizing CO₂. In Ireland, a startup called Silicate has come up with a way of treating agricultural land so that it draws carbon out of the air and into the ground where a chemical reaction takes place, locking it down.
Silicate currently employs ten people and has not yet raised funding other than via grants, including $100,000 (€91,000) as a winner of the Thrive / Shell Climate-Smart Agriculture Challenge.
Surplus concrete is ground to dust before applying it to farmland. Credit: Silicate Carbon
Maurice Bryson, founder, explains that the process relies on unwanted or waste concrete, which can be crushed into a powdery material – “like a fine snowdust”, he says. By spreading this over a field, say every four years, farmers can maintain a high (more alkaline) soil pH, which is better for growing crops.
Farmers already de-acidify their soil usinga technique called liming but the difference with Silicate’s approach is that the concrete reacts withcarbonic acid in the soil, removing CO₂ from the air. The substances formed by this process, bicarbonate and calcite, ought to store carbon for many thousands of years.
Reduced costs with increased investment?
The firm aims to achieve removal rates of two tonnes of CO₂ per hectare, per 10 tonnes of crushed concrete applied to such an area – during the course of one year.
“The process is very passive, once you apply it to the field it gets to work itself,” says Bryson. “A key win, we think, for us is there is a possibility for the cost to fall below that $100 per tonne [of CO₂] price point.”
While direct air carbon capture technology is still in its infancy, investment in carbon capture and storage more than doubled over the past year, reaching an all time high of nearly €6 billion in 2022. With so many startups ploughing this field, and rising urgency over reaching net zero globally, these technologies will likely have a noticeably bigger role to play in the coming years.
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Virbela has grown a lot over time but they’ve had the same avatar system for nearly a decade. If you open the app today, you’ll see a whole new avatar system. As impressive as it is, it might still have some growing to do.
Long in the Making
Virbela is a platform for remote work, education, and events. The platform consists of an open campus that anyone can download and use for free, and private campuses co-created with clients.
There was nothing wrong with the old campus, but it got a whole lot of new features as well as a beautiful graphics upgrade showcased at the Hands In Enterprise Metaverse Summit last year. An upcoming avatar system was teased at the summit, but no release date was given.
“Avatars are important to the virtual experience because they add fidelity to the world,” Virbela Art Team Manager Nicole Galinato said at the event. “Our users love the playfulness of the current avatars, but they want more features that they can identify with.”
Since the summit, the old avatars roamed the new world. It wasn’t a glaring mismatch, but the avatars were definitely from a different generation. The new avatars certainly fit into the graphically updated virtual world a lot better.
Old avatar (left) vs new avatar (right)
The New You for the New Virbela
The next time that you boot up Virbela, whether you’re a first-time user or just returning after a while, you will be greeted by the first page of the new avatar generator. Just like with the old system, you can join immediately with a default avatar and personalize it later if you want. If you’re not in that much of a hurry, you have a lot of playing to do.
You select one of three “body types” rather than gender, so all clothing and cosmetic options are open to all users. There’s also a custom gradient for specific skin tones and a number of features have an “advanced settings” button that opens up menus of highly customizable sliders. The update also brings several more hair and facial hair options.
“What really pushed us to create this new avatar system was more about this idea of inclusion and equity,” Virbela co-founder and President Alex Howland told me on the XR Talks podcast. “We are working with a very global population of users and we know the importance of the avatar for people to express themselves and explore their identity through their avatar.”
The update also brings new clothing options and customizations. Many outfits consist of a “top” and a “bottom,” with the top consisting of several layers each with their own color combinations, similar to the system that AltspaceVR used (RIP Altspace). I went with the three-piece suite, which means color options for the jacket, vest, and shirt. (Neckties are under “Accessories”.)
“We also wanted much more variability in terms of the ability to customize the avatar because we sometimes have populations of many thousands in the same space and you’d find too many avatars that looked too similar to one another,” said Howland.
Even after you’ve toured your new avatar through the campus, you can change it at any time by selecting the gear icon in the upper right corner to open the settings dropdown menu and selecting the “change avatar” item at the top. And do keep checking back. According to Howland, more is coming.
“This is what I’ll call the [minimal viable product] of this new system. It’s a system that we can build upon and continue to add assets to, whether that be more hairstyles, more clothing options, more cultural garb, that folks can use over time – eventually leading to things like more facial expressions,” said Howland.
The Complete Package
To return to Galinato’s concept that the avatars contribute to the immersion of the world itself, the more detailed and more personal avatars do seem more at home in the more detailed and responsive Virbela campus. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to attend a large event with the new avatars, but I’m sure that they’ll be a lot more colorful now.
The European Commission has announced the results of the second round of Women TechEU — a programme designed to help women-founded deep tech startups scale.
The round, which has a budget of €10m, saw applications from 467 women-founded deep tech startups from across Europe, 134 of which have been selected to participate. It follows on from a successful pilot in 2021 which featured 50 startups.
The startups selected for the second round will now each receive an individual grant of€75,000. The female founders will also be offered mentoring and coaching under the European Innovation Council (EIC) Women Leadership Programme, and be afforded access to EU networking opportunities.
The startups operate in 16 different deep tech sectors, and have developed solutions ranging from new medical drugs and carbon capture technologies, to digital learning and autonomous robotics.
Among the participants is Sweden-based Norbite, which uses insects to recycle plastic waste, Netherlands-based Agurotech, which digitises farming using AI, and Lithuania-based Inobiostar, which has developed a waste paper-based material for removing oil spills.
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“By combining innovative ideas, female entrepreneurship, and excellent research and development, this year’s companies selected for WomenTechEU will contribute to enhancing the quality of life for the citizens of the EU and beyond,” said the European Innovation Council.
Deep tech makes up over a quarter of Europe’s startup ecosystem, with European deep tech companies valued at a combined €700bn in 2021.
Yet women remain chronically underrepresented: last year only 3% of VC funding in European deep tech went to women-founded startups.
These inequities are prevalent across the industry, but magnified in the deep tech sector. Deep tech startups tend to have longer R&D cycles, and require higher capital outlay than traditional startups, which makes it even harder for women-led and women-founded teams to scale up.
This is not just bad practice, it’s also bad for business. According to consulting firm McKinsey, the European tech ecosystem will only be able to remain competitive if it manages to attract and retain more female talent.
And investors seem to agree: “Diversity of thought, opinion and creativity is essential for our deep tech ecosystem to thrive,” said Christina Franzeskides, deep tech investor at Lakestar, in the 2023 European Deep Tech Report.
“To that end, we must strive towards inclusivity, across all backgrounds and genders, for the space to reach its full potential,” she added.
The European Commission believes that giving women-founded startups the right support and investment early on can help bridge deep tech’s gender gap, and strengthen the ecosystem as a whole.
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Martin Bryant is founder of Big Revolution, where he helps tech companies refine their proposition and positioning, and develops high-qualit Martin Bryant is founder of Big Revolution, where he helps tech companies refine their proposition and positioning, and develops high-quality, compelling content for them. He previously served in several roles at TNW, including Editor-in-Chief. He left the company in April 2016 for pastures new.
This story is syndicated from the premium edition of PreSeed Now, a newsletter that digs into the product, market, and founder story of UK-founded startups so you can understand how they fit into what’s happening in the wider world and startup ecosystem.
The burgeoning industry around space technology is based heavily on hardware, but the materials that hardware is built from need to undergo rigorous testing on Earth before they’re sent out into orbit and beyond.
Space DOTS is a startup that wants to transform material testing in the space industry by skipping the tests down here, and sending the materials straight up into space.
“What we do is a smartphone-sized version of a testing lab that anyone would use on ground to test materials’ properties before actually going into space. We have shrunk everything down so that it can be launched very quickly and easily at a lower cost, directly into orbit,” explains co-founder and CEO Bianca Cefalo.
“Instead of going through the entire process of iteration, failure, and iteration on the ground, you can just ‘fail fast, iterate’ faster, directly in space at a cost that is not going to break the bank of anybody doing so.”
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Space DOTS co-founder and CEO, Bianca Cefalo
Cefalo gives the example of graphene, the light, strong, and thin material that has excited a lot of people since it was first discovered in Manchester 20 years ago. Before it could be used in, for example, the panels of a spacecraft, you would need to understand its properties (for example its reaction to heat) and how they perform in space.
She explains that this tends to be done first via simulation software, and then in labs that simulate the conditions of space. These tests help to understand the material’s performance in a vacuum, in reaction to the radiation in space, and the like.
“All these different environmental conditions are all simulated on the ground, then you cross-correlate the results. And you have an estimated understanding of what’s going to happen to this material once it goes into space… However, the last mile of validation is to actually test it in space to see how it really behaves under real space conditions.”
London-based Space DOTS wants to cut out all the ground-based estimations with the 10x10x1 centimeter laboratory it is developing, inside which tests can be conducted onboard spacecraft.
A render of the tiny Space DOTS laboratory
The first test the startup has developed is a tensile test, where a small sample of a material can be stressed to breaking point.
“That’s going to tell us what happened to it from a structural perspective in the exact environment, with the cumulative effects of the vacuum of space, radiation, the atomic oxygen, everything. That’s something that you wouldn’t get on Earth.”
Cefalo says the alternative on Earth would be to test each of these conditions separately in washing-machine sized tensile testing machines. But separate tests create a cumulative margin of error for how the material would really behave under all those conditions at once.
Cefalo is understandably guarded about the secret sauce behind exactly how they have minaturised a materials testing lab to such a small size.
“All I can say is it’s a mechanism that doesn’t use any gears, motors, or bearings, because they wouldn’t work in space, they would freeze. What we’re doing is just based on pure physics.”
Cefalo argues that the impact Space DOTS technology could have on the industry is huge, as it’d reduce the cost and time of certifying a material for use in space.
Whereas a traditional approach could cost millions of pounds and take years, Space DOTS hopes to charge much less, with the specific pricing depending on many variables. “And you know, certainly, how it’s going to work and you don’t have to repeat anything again on the ground because you’ve been to space, which is the ultimate validation.”
So that companies no longer have to get in line to eventually get a testing slot on the International Space Station, or shop around the difficult-to-penetrate space industry to find someone else willing to carry their experiment, Space DOTS plans to become a full service testing provider.
Cefalo says they are partnering with commercial space companies so anyone who needs a material tested in space can simply engage with Space DOTS and not have to worry about how the material actually gets up there and how it gets back.
“We take that load off the customer and we say ‘okay, tell us what do you need to do, tell us what kind of materials you want to test, what kind of orbital conditions or applications you have in mind. And we do everything for you, from mission requirements to sending it into space, and you don’t have to talk with anybody else.”
The plan is to allow customers to get into space “in a framework of months rather than years.”
And Cefalo hopes the Space DOTS approach can help the space industry catch up with progress in materials science. She says many newer materials aren’t covered by bodies such as NASA and the European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS).
“You will find aluminium alloys, titanium, some plastics – a very basic database of materials. There are a whole lot of other materials and for those ones, there isn’t really a standardisation of how you should test them to be applied in space.
“Material sciences move very fast, and the space industry isn’t catching up quite as quickly as the material sciences moved. And we should be, because we think that space tech is sci-fi, but actually a Formula One car is more sci-fi than a spacecraft.”
The Space DOTS team. Photo provided by the startup
Cefalo grew up in Naples, Italy, where she studied aerospace engineering . She then interned with a German company where she assessed the impact of Martian dust devils on an instrument that was eventually sent to Mars.
From there she spent several years in Berlin as a thermal engineer in the space industry, before moving on to work for Airbus Defence and Space in the UK as a space systems thermal product manager.
“I had to look at methods, solutions, and materials that would make the next generation of telecommunication spacecraft lighter, more powerful, smaller, and cheaper,” she says.
But despite there being plenty of opportunity to use cutting-edge materials, customers baulked at the idea of being the first to use a material in their very expensive new spacecraft.
Cefalo and a colleague, James Sheppard-Alden, realised this was a common issue in the industry and identified ‘direct orbital qualification’ as a solution.
“As much as you wouldn’t test a rain jacket in the sun, you would not test materials for space on Earth. They need to be tested directly there.”
Cefalo saw this issue again in her next role with aerospace materials company Carbice, so she and Sheppard-Alden teamed up to address the problem. They founded Space DOTS in 2021.
They have signed up customers under memorandum of understanding agreements, as they work towards the target of initial commercialisation in 2025, following their first-in-orbit demonstration next year.
Cefalo says Space DOTS has been bootstrapped to date, with the exception of some financial support as part of the ESA Business Incubation Centre’s incubation programme.
The company is currently in the process of raising a £1.5 million pre-seed round.
Cefalo sees Space DOTS’ future as filling an essential gap to fulfil the space industry’s potential.
“If you’re thinking about where the space industry is going, it’s going well beyond spacecraft and rockets. It’s going to commercial space stations, it’s going to an ecosystem in space, habitats on other planets, manufacturing in space…”
She says this will require recycling debris from space, and even creating new materials or manufacturing from zero in space.
“The one thing that is missing at the moment is how to make sure that what’s being recycled in space or is being manufactured in space can be used in space without having a protocol or a quality control system in place. So far, nobody’s really thought about that.”
So Space DOTS aims to become the way materials are tested in orbit, on the Moon, on Mars, or beyond.
Aside from the obvious technical challenges of proving this thing works (yes, in-space testing needs in-space testing), Cefalo recognises the need to ensure the perceptions of what they’re doing are right.
“[We need to make sure] that what we’re doing is not seen as going against the status quo of qualification and testing in rounds.”
She doesn’t want Space DOTS to be seen as revolutionary.
“This creates a resistance with everything that has been done so far, especially when you go into the sales cycle. You may piss off people that think ‘oh, you’re coming in with this new technology with this new way of qualifying, or do you mean that everything I’ve done in my career so far is invalidated?’
“No. What we’re saying is that Space DOTS is just the organic evolution of where the industry is going and how we have to make sure to use the resources that we have, directly in space. We will never be the ones removing what has been done so far.
“The software simulation and the lab simulation will always need to happen. We want to facilitate the time to market of advanced materials by giving the extra mile of the validation in an easier, cheaper, and better way and making sure that these will be sustainable once an entire in-space ecosystem is built.”
“There are other companies who are doing very easy access to space high frequency testing, but they are focused on biotech, pharma, drugs, which is something that we don’t do because it’s that’s not our area of expertise, and it’s not something that we intend to do in the long term,” says Cefalo.
“So I think again, our main competitor is the status quo, which is how do we make sure that we are not going against them, but we’re actually helping them just as the next step of the evolution?”
The article you just read is from the premium edition of PreSeed Now. This is a newsletter that digs into the product, market, and story of startups that were founded in the UK. The goal is to help you understand how these businesses fit into what’s happening in the wider world and startup ecosystem.
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Linda Rosencrance is a freelance writer/editor/author. She has written about information technology since 1999. She is also the author of s Linda Rosencrance is a freelance writer/editor/author. She has written about information technology since 1999. She is also the author of six true crime books.
The DMA also requires these online platforms to permit sideloading, i.e., letting users install software that they download from the Internet. These platforms have until 2024 to comply with the DMA.
Passed in 2022, the goal is to prevent dominance of so-called “gatekeepers” within the market and ensure a level playing field for all EU businesses.
In particular, EU regulators have been concerned about the advantage Apple currently has in the market as it doesn’t allow the use of third-party app stores on iOS devices, as such Apple sets the rules and prices for app developers who want to reach its users (currently they have 34% of market share in Europe). In the past, developers who violated these rules have been banned from the App Store.
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While the consensus is that this provision of the law is good for users and even Apple, it’s unclear how the regulation will affect application developers.
The question is what do app developers think about these new regulations? Will they actually be beneficial to EU based developers and what will be the short and long term impact on the EU’s app market? We spoke with a few to find out.
More opportunities to innovate
Strict rules can be a barrier to innovation and not getting accepted into the Apple App Store can break a business, said Markus Müller-Simhofer, CEO of IdeasonCanvas, creator of MindNode, a visual brainstorming and mind mapping app.
“So developers are cautious and avoid crossing the lines defined by the App Store rules,” he said. “[Consequently], many interesting new features or apps will never get developed.”
Max Seelemann, co-founder and executive director at Ulysses, a writing app for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, agreed that Apple does impose a lot of rules on developers — rules that developers may be tempted to break. However, doing so could get them expelled from the App Store.
For example, in August 2020, Apple removed Epic Games’ Fortnite from its App Store because the developer tried to get around paying Apple’s 30% commission on in-app purchases.
How regulators and Apple decide to address security could have a major impact on user experience.
However, with third-party stores, developers will have a plan B if the Apple App Store doesn’t work out, Müller-Simhofer said. “This adds a much-needed safety net for developers who try to strive for more innovative features,” he said. “In the end, the App Store will also benefit from this.”
The DMA, therefore, allows developers to try out new business models and ways of selling/marketing their apps without the risk of losing Apple users. Mykola Savin, product lead at Setapp, a third-party app store that offers subscription-based access to a curated collection of apps on its platform, said that this provision of the DMA will create many more opportunities for developers to innovate.
“They will have the creative freedom to develop products,” Savin said. “And this will open up a system that will provide developers with more chances to experiment and to find what works for their users.”
For example, a number of app developers on Setapp (for macOS) who are focused on creative professionals have found new ways to attract users when offered as part of a suite of productivity apps, rather than as a standalone application. This reach could expand as the platform becomes available on iOS.
Müller-Simhofer said, “What I like about Setapp is that it offers a curated selection of quality apps. When we first joined [in 2018], it was also an excellent way for us to try out a subscription model for our app. As a result, we’ve moved our App Store version to a subscription business model.”
Security and privacy concerns
Müller-Simhofer added that he has some concerns about security and privacy related to this change — issues that Apple has also raised.
“Apple does a lot of good things in this area,” he said. “They don’t catch every scam or malicious app, but at least they try to uncover most of them and remove them once they’re uncovered.”
Philip Young, founder of Session, a pomodoro style productivity app that blocks distractions and tracks progress, shares these security and privacy concerns as they relate to third-party app stores.
“While the App Store isn’t perfect, it does shield end users from low-quality apps, predatory pricing from bad developers who target vulnerable demographics, and user tracking without consent,” he said.
As we discussed previously with experts on EU and tech policy, how regulators and Apple decide to address security when implementing the provisions could have a major impact on usability and user experience.
It took me over six months and more than 30 tries to register.
Overall, Young’s opinion is that opening up Apple devices to third-party app stores will have a big impact on the EU’s app marketplace. He said that more developers will be willing to release their apps on third-party stores on iOS devices so they won’t have to deal with the Apple App Store’s arduous review process.
The issue is about money, not security and privacy
Not having to rely on Apple’s App Store, will also allow app developers to shop the market for app stores that will provide better customer service and more beneficial pricing options. This could help push both Apple and third party stores to improve their offering to developers.
“Bug fixes can be released faster compared to when they’re released on the App Store,” he said. “Waiting up to 20 days for bug fixes is frustrating, especially when it’s out of my control and I can’t contact Apple about it,” Young said.
In addition, developers won’t have to pay the 15%-30% Apple tax any longer.
“Imagine losing 30% of your gross revenue, then losing another 10%-60% of your net profit to pay the state tax wherever you live,” Young said. “You end up with almost nothing.”
Seelemann noted that many developers are also upset about the transaction fees that Apple charges.
“[Money] is at the core of the battle,” he said. “I can imagine that Apple is concerned that they’re going to lose a significant amount of revenue. They say it’s about safety, security, user experience, and what have you. But I would say these are only secondary concerns.”
It’s unlikely to topple the dominance of the App Store.
Seelemann said that he’ll likely put Ulysses on all the platforms that make sense for his company.
“And if the transaction fees are low on other platforms, we might even direct the users that come through our channels to the alternative [app stores] because they’re cheaper for us,” Seelemann said.
Young also said that some developers have had bad experiences with the App Store and as such have avoided building on the platform.
“My previous experience came from building web apps that are permissionless,” he said. “The App Store review has been a painful experience for me.”
Young explained that it took him three months to build Session, but he couldn’t release it because he couldn’t register for the Apple Developer Program.
“I couldn’t contact [Apple] for any reason, and it took me over six months and more than 30 tries to register,” he said. “Multiple calls to Apple Singapore proved useless. I was only able to register when I emailed them with my credit card and CVV number, so they could bill me directly. I know that’s not safe, but it worked, and now I’m registered.”
The long-term impact on the EU’s app market
While Apple initially seemed to be somewhat resistant to the requirements of the DMA, experts believe it’s unlikely to topple the dominance of the App Store.
And Seelemann said he isn’t even sure that this will be a major change for developers — at least in the short term.
“The [Apple] App Store right now is such an essential place,” he said. “And I don’t see that alternative app stores will overtake it in a short time. Maybe in [a few years] or even a decade things might change but, even when alternative app stores are installed, people will still go to the Apple App Store first to find apps. I don’t think when the gates open, there will be a flood coming.”
It remains to be seen what the full impact of the DMA will be on the EU’s app market but what we can say is that Apple isn’t going anywhere. As the App Store continues to be preinstalled on Apple’s devices, to reach these users, app developers will still need to contend with the company’s rules. However, more options may give newbie app developers more room to experiment, innovate, and grow their user base.
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After the COVID-19 pandemic made most event organizers cancel their live AR/VR events or host them virtually, in the past year more and more live events are making a comeback. Even the immersive industry needs a real-life environment to discover gadgets and try AR/VR content.
And we will tell you exactly where you should go if you want to try the most exciting discoveries and devices. Also, we know that if you work in this industry, you should not miss these AR/VR events, either. You have the great opportunity to network with peers or even discover new business or employment opportunities.
The Most Relevant AR/VR Events in 2023 You Should Not Miss
Here are some of the most important AR/VR events that are taking place until the end of this year.
1. AWE USA 2023
When: May 31 – June 2
Where: Santa Clara, CA, US; and virtual
Late spring/early summer is a great time to be in California. This year, it is made even better by one of the top AR/VR events: AWE USA. This is one of the most comprehensive fairs for professionals, stakeholders, and tech enthusiasts focused on immersive technologies.
They will be able to test various gadgets, discover content trends, and attend insightful keynote presentations. Attendees will be able to hear from a vast number of XR professionals, such as Peggy Johnson (the CEO of Magic Leap), Hugo Swat (Vice-President and General Manager of XR at Qualcomm), Chi Xu (CEO of Nreal), Elizabeth Hyman (CEO of XR Association), John Riccitiello (CEO of Unity), Kavya Pearlman (Founder & CEO of XR Safety Initiative), and many more.
For those who can’t attend in person, there’s also the option to access some parts of the event online through the awe.live platform.
As AWE USA 2023 media partner, ARPost offers its readers a 20% discount code. Use the code 23ARPOSTD during registration.
2. XR Expo 2023
When: June 15-16
Where: Stuttgart, Germany
If you happen to be in Germany this summer for business, you can also put aside two days to attend XR Expo 2023. This B2B event will bring together industry users, technology providers, content service providers, and XR researchers, and will focus on professional applications of extended reality technologies in health, industry, architecture, and trade and craft.
Right now, registration for XR Expo 2023 is open, but the event’s program is still under development.
3. Enterprise Metaverse Summit
When: June 28-29
Where: London, UK; and virtual
Another AR/VR event taking place in Europe, Enterprise Metaverse Summit is hosted by the British weekly newspaper The Economist. The event audience includes senior executives focused on XR, automation, IoT, 5G, the future of work, AI, machine learning, and edge computing.
This year’s event will cover a vast number of topics, from how the metaverse is expected to replace or improve human experiences at work, and how VR is making surgeries safer, to how the metaverse can help businesses become more sustainable and reduce their carbon footprint, and the benefits of VR as an engine to catalyze diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Attendees will be able to hear from speakers such as Meta Reality Labs’ VP Christine Trodella, Wallart’s Head of 3D Creative Technology Cynthia Maller, MetaVRse co-founder Alan Smithson, and EndeavorXR founder and CEO Amy Peck.
For all those who cannot attend, the event organizers offer a free virtual pass for full access to all virtual sessions on the first day of the event.
4. XR:WA
When: July 20-23
Where: Perth, Western Australia
Australian winter is mild compared to the summer heat in many parts of the US, so it’s a great moment to attend one of the best AR/VR events of the year. XR:WA is for everyone, from those curious to try immersive experiences for the first time to seasoned professionals.
The event aims to discuss the impact and opportunities for XR across a number of industries including architecture, design, medicine, education, training, science, art, and entertainment.
Back for its fifth edition, the event activities include talks, panels, various AR and VR experiences, workshops, a trade floor, and exhibition.
5. Industrial IMMERSIVE Week
When: August 28-30
Where: Houston, TX
Industrial IMMERSIVE Week is one of the AR/VR events for professionals interested in XR, spatial computing, digital twins, AI, IIoT, 5G, 3D models and simulations, and connected workforce solutions.
Touted as the event “where industry goes for real-world use cases, best practices and emerging tech for your enterprise to launch, pilot and deploy metaverse programs,” Industrial IMMERSIVE Week is intended for professionals from diverse industries, including manufacturing, construction, oil and gas, engineering, mining, automotive, aerospace, and logistics.
From C-suite leaders, to department leaders and professionals, Industrial IMMERSIVE Week brings together seasoned specialists and decision-makers. Some of the most important Fortune 500 companies will be represented at the event, including Boeing, Canon, Shell, Amazon, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
6. Augmented Enterprise Summit
When: October 24-26
Where: Houston, TX; virtual
As its name suggests, this AR/VR event is aimed at enterprises. Augmented Enterprise Summit is dedicated to the business and industrial applications of XR and other metaverse-related emerging technologies.
This year, the event boasts an impressive line-up of speakers including NASA’s Simulation and Graphics Capabilities Manager Angelica Garcia, CocaCola’s Director of Technical Training and Development Michael Whatley, Airbus Head of Augmented Worker Product Andreas Oeder, and Amazon Web Services Principal Spatial Computing Solutions Architect Kurt Scheuringer.
Among the sponsors and exhibitors, you can find a number of XR companies such as Mytaverse, RealWear, Strivr, and Vuzix.
Aside from more than a thousand expected attendees, the 10th Augmented Enterprise Summit will also feature over 50 exhibitors and sponsors, and more than 50 educational sessions.
The event also offers a virtual pass, with access to a virtual event app, digital exhibitor zone, exclusive post-event resources, and all sessions and on-demand recordings. As Augmented Enterprise Summit media partner, we can offer our readers 15% off for event tickets with the code arpost15.
Fossil-free though it may be, hydropower comes with its specific set of challenges. It has a high initial cost, and can often be invasive and destructive to local communities and biodiversity. Furthermore, it will, in all likelihood, become increasingly susceptible to droughts. But what if we could harness the power of the oceans themselves?
This is what Scotland-based Orbital Marine Power is aiming to do with its 2MW+ O2. Its developers say it is the world’s most powerful tidal turbine under commercial operation and a result of 15 years of refinement.
Now, Orbital has just won an Option Agreement from Crown Estate Scotland for a new tidal energy project in the Westray Firth. This is an area of water in the Orkney islands where tidal speeds can reach over 3m/s.
Adding more tidal turbines to marine energy centre
The low-carbon energy startup has already deployed one unit of the O2 at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), supplying energy to the UK grid since July, 2021. Following the award of contracts for difference (CfDs) – the UK government’s main mechanism for supporting low-carbon electricity generation – from allocation round 4 last year, it is getting ready to install a further three turbines.
Essentially, tidal turbines work the same way a wind turbine does, only it is streams of water that move them, not air. Orbital’s floating O2 platform is 243 feet long and placed in tidal streams and moored to the seabed via strong anchors that hold it in place. It is connected to the local electricity grid via a subsea cable.
The satellite will blast off atop Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket. Due to the intricacies of the trajectory that will take Juice to Jupiter, the rocket has to lift off during a one-second window. Fortunately, additional one-second launch windows will be available every day until the end of April, should today’s launch be unsuccessful.
The Ariane 5 rocket will blast Juice into orbit. The launch will be the penultimate flight for the heavy-lift Ariane 5, which is soon to retire after more than 30 years in service. Credit: ESA.
If all goes to plan, Juice will separate from the upper stage of Ariane 5 at 14.42 CEST, before sending its first signal down to the Earth’s surface by 14: 51 CEST. The space agency expects solar arrays to be completely deployed by 15: 55 CEST.
Juice is equipped with two monitoring cameras that will capture parts of the solar array deployment following launch, and a few days later the deployment of the 16 m-long radar antenna. If suitable images are acquired, they will be made available for publication at the earliest possibility, said ESA.
In the two weeks after launch, the satellite will deploy all of its antennas and instrument booms. This will be followed by a three-month long period where all of the spacecraft’s scientific instruments will be commissioned.
Just 28 minutes after liftoff, the Ariane 5 (left) will release Juice into space. Credit: ESA.
It will take even longer for its first fly by, which is only set for August 2024. At that time, it will fly by the Moon and then Earth about one and a half days later. The satellite will take advantage of the Earth-Moon gravitational field to sling itself on course for Jupiter.
Juice is set to arrive at Jupiter in July 2031.
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