DoorDash is introducing drone delivery to Charlotte, N.C. for the first time. Starting Wednesday, May 14, 2025, eligible DoorDash customers within about four miles of The Arboretum Shopping Center in southern Charlotte can order from a selection of local and national restaurants and choose to have their items delivered by a drone from Wing, the on-demand drone delivery provider supported by Google parent company Alphabet. Participating restaurants include Panera Bread, the city’s first national partner available for drone delivery, as well as local banners such as Curry Junction, Matcha Cafe Maiko, and Joa Korean food. In addition to food delivery, Charlotte residents in select locations can now obtain drone delivery from DashMart by Drone, a specialized offering of the DoorDash DashMart banner which operates online storefronts with inventory provided by third-party partners. Eligible residents browsing the DoorDash app can tap the “Drone” icon on the homepage to browse restaurants eligible for drone delivery. If the items they choose meet the size and weight criteria, shoppers will have the option to select drone delivery during checkout. After confirming their delivery location, they will receive live tracking updates as the drone approaches. Charlotte consumers who aren’t currently eligible can join the waitlist to be notified when drone delivery expands to their neighborhood.
Tensor9 helps vendors deploy their software into any environment using digital twins to help with remote monitoring
Tensor9 looks to help software companies land more enterprise customers by helping them deploy their software directly into a customer’s tech stack. Tensor9 converts a software vendor’s code into the format needed to deploy into their customer’s tech environment. Tensor9 then makes a digital twin of the deployed software, or a miniaturized model of the deployed software’s infrastructure, so Tensor9’s customers can monitor how the software is working in their customer’s environment. Tensor9 can help companies deploy into any premise ranging from cloud to bare metal servers. Michael Ten-Pow, Tensor9’s co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch that Tensor9’s ability to transfer software to any premise, and its use of digital twin technology to help with remote monitoring, helps Tensor9 stand out from other companies, like Octopus Deploy or Nuon, that also help companies deploy software into a customer’s environment. He said the timing is right for Tensor9’s tech due to tailwinds from the rise of AI. “An enterprise search vendor might go to, let’s say, J.P. Morgan and say, ‘hey, I need access to all your six petabytes of data to build an intelligent search layer on top of it so that your internal employees can have a conversation with their company’s data,’ there’s no way that’s going to work,” Ten-Pow said. “We have a simple model but underneath the covers there’s a lot of complexity that makes that happen, hard technical challenges that we’ve solved to make that happen,” Ten-Pow said.
AlphaEvolve coding agent built on Google’s Gemini LLMs, tests, refines, and improves algorithms automatically
Google DeepMind today pulled the curtain back on AlphaEvolve, an artificial-intelligence agent that can invent brand-new computer algorithms — then put them straight to work inside the company’s vast computing empire. AlphaEvolve pairs Google’s Gemini LLMs with an evolutionary approach that tests, refines, and improves algorithms automatically. The system has already been deployed across Google’s data centers, chip designs, and AI training systems — boosting efficiency and solving mathematical problems that have stumped researchers for decades. “AlphaEvolve is a Gemini-powered AI coding agent that is able to make new discoveries in computing and mathematics,” explained Matej Balog, a researcher at Google DeepMind. “It can discover algorithms of remarkable complexity — spanning hundreds of lines of code with sophisticated logical structures that go far beyond simple functions.” One algorithm it discovered has been powering Borg, Google’s massive cluster management system. This scheduling heuristic recovers an average of 0.7% of Google’s worldwide computing resources continuously — a staggering efficiency gain at Google’s scale. The discovery directly targets “stranded resources” — machines that have run out of one resource type (like memory) while still having others (like CPU) available. AlphaEvolve’s solution is especially valuable because it produces simple, human-readable code that engineers can easily interpret, debug, and deploy. Perhaps most impressively, AlphaEvolve improved the very systems that power itself. It optimized a matrix multiplication kernel used to train Gemini models, achieving a 23% speedup for that operation and cutting overall training time by 1%. For AI systems that train on massive computational grids, this efficiency gain translates to substantial energy and resource savings.
BIS and NY Fed study says central banks could deploy smart contracts when commercial banks have widely adopted tokenisation for wholesale payments and securities settlement
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) have published a joint research study that explored how central banks could continue to implement monetary policy operations in tokenised wholesale financial markets. Dubbed Project Pine, the study found that central banks could deploy policy implementation tools using programmable smart contracts in a potential future state where commercial banks have widely adopted tokenisation for wholesale payments and securities settlement. The project generated the prototype of a generic monetary policy implementation tokenised toolkit for potential further research and development by central banks across jurisdictions and currencies. The BIS and the Fed say the prototype can fulfil a common set of central bank implementation requirements, including paying interest on reserves, open market operations, and collateral management. The toolkit was tested against ten hypothetical scenarios that applied historical data inputs on past market events, such as interest rate tightening and easing cycles, quantitative easing and tightening cycles, and periods of strained market liquidity or broader market disruptions. “The prototype successfully responded and instantaneously carried out the intended operation under the varying market conditions,” states the BIS. “Project Pine’s findings highlighted areas for further research and analysis related to interoperability and data standardisation.”
Study: U.S. shoppers pull back from Temu, Shein; shift spending to Old Navy, Ulta Beauty, Nordstrom Rack and others known for affordability
New data from Consumer Edge showed a sharp deceleration in U.S. consumer spending growth in April on ultra-discount Chinese retailers Temu and Shein. In the three weeks leading up to April 27, American brands including Old Navy, Ulta Beauty, Nordstrom Rack and Savers Value Village picked up a significant amount of redirected consumer dollars from former Temu and Shein shoppers. According to the data, Temu’s U.S. year-over-year spend growth slowed sharply in April 2025, decelerating from nearly 50% growth at the start of the month to almost zero growth by the end. Shein experienced a similar deceleration, with year-over-year spend growth declining from approximately 30% to around 20% during the same period. “This dramatic slowdown coincides with rising U.S.-China trade tensions, the elimination of the duty-free de minimis treatment for low-value imports and a reduction in advertising spend that had previously fueled both platforms’ rapid growth,” noted Consumer Edge. To identify where consumers spent their money, Consumer Edge analyzed shoppers who made at least two purchases at Temu or Shein in January or February 2025 but no purchases in March or April. Key findings include: Old Navy regains market share: Long known for its affordability, Old Navy is reclaiming cost-conscious shoppers and capturing spending from those moving away from ultra-discount platforms. Its broad assortment of clothing for all age groups and genders continues to resonate. Legacy department stores reclaim value shoppers: Bloomingdale’s, Kohl’s and Nordstrom Rack are pulling in significant dollars from ex-Temu and Shein shoppers, benefiting from their wide selections across categories. Resale gains ground: Savers Value Village is also seeing momentum as resale becomes the new value frontier. Beauty shoppers shift: Retailer Ulta Beauty and brand SpoiledChild are benefiting from consumers looking to make personal care swaps.
Uber Eats “Savings Slider,” lets shoppers compare prices for items on their grocery list within stores, or even get recommendations for nearby stores offering better deals
Uber has rolled out a series of products designed to help customers save money. Among the new offerings is Route Share, which offers pickups every 20 minutes along busy corridors during weekday commute hours with up to two co-riders, with fares up to 50% cheaper than the cost of an UberX. There are also Ride Passes, which let riders pay $2.99 per month to lock in a price for a set route and save up to $50 a month, or pay upfront for five, 10, 15 or 20 rides on regular routes to access even larger discounts. Meanwhile, the company is also introducing a product for Uber Eats called “Savings Slider,” which lets shoppers compare prices for items on their grocery list within stores, or even get recommendations for nearby stores offering better deals. The new offering comes amid signs that Americans are feeling increasing financial pressures. “We’re hearing it more and more these days — life just feels like a lot. Too complicated. Too uncertain. And above all, too expensive,” the tech giant said in announcement. “That’s why at Uber we’re building practical products to make life a little more affordable — and a lot easier.”
Expedia adds APIs to B2B platform to help build travel packages- Car API, Activities API, Insurance API, and Air APIs
xpedia Group enhanced its B2B segment, Private Label Solutions, by adding APIs that help its partners build travel packages. The new offerings will provide access to rental cars, bookable experiences, trip protection insurance and air travel. Car API will offer access to cars from 110 brands in 190 countries and territories, Activities API will provide 170,000 bookable experiences worldwide, Insurance API will allow partners to offer trip protection during booking, and Air API will integrate air travel with lodging and car rentals to enable an all-in-one booking experience. “We’ve built the largest connected B2B travel network in the world, and it’s the strength of those connections that drive real results,” Alfonso Paredes, president of Private Label Solutions at Expedia Group, said. “Our newly announced APIs take that even further, making it easier for partners to access more supply and leverage our intelligence.” Expedia Group also announced that it added a new Reservation Management API that helps hoteliers with their bookings, management, data recovery, payments and traveler experience. The company also unveiled Expedia Trip Matching, which will launch in early June on Instagram and enable travelers to share a travel-related Reel with Expedia and receive customized itineraries, destination ideas and travel tips based on that Reel. In addition, Expedia Group Advertising introduced tools that help travel advertisers co-create shoppable travel content and use the company’s first-party data to target high-intent audiences.
Qlik launches Open Lakehouse offering 2.5x–5x faster query performance and up to 50% lower infrastructure costs, while maintaining full compatibility with the most widely used analytics and machine learning engines
Qlik announced the launch of Qlik Open Lakehouse, a fully managed Apache Iceberg solution built into Qlik Talend Cloud. Designed for enterprises under pressure to scale faster and spend less, Qlik Open Lakehouse delivers real-time ingestion, automated optimization, and multi-engine interoperability — without vendor lock-in or operational overhead. Qlik Open Lakehouse offers a new path: a fully managed lakehouse architecture powered by Apache Iceberg that delivers 2.5x–5x faster query performance and up to 50% lower infrastructure costs, while maintaining full compatibility with the most widely used analytics and machine learning engines. Qlik Open Lakehouse combines real-time ingestion, intelligent optimization, and true ecosystem interoperability in a single, fully managed platform: Real-time ingestion at enterprise scale; Intelligent Iceberg optimization, fully automated; Open by design, interoperable by default; Your compute, your cloud, your rules; One platform, end to end. As AI workloads demand faster access to broader, fresher datasets, open formats like Apache Iceberg are becoming the new foundation. Qlik Open Lakehouse responds to this shift by making it effortless to build and manage Iceberg-based architectures — without the need for custom code or pipeline babysitting. It also runs within the customer’s own AWS environment, ensuring data privacy, cost control, and full operational visibility.
Monzo’s new ‘Undo Payments,’ holding window feature offers a configurable delay, ranging from 10 to 60 seconds, before a payment is finalised, during which the sender can halt the transaction
Monzo has started rolling out a new feature that allows users to cancel a bank transfer shortly after initiating it. The tool, known as ‘Undo Payments,’ offers a configurable delay, ranging from 10 to 60 seconds, before a payment is finalised, during which the sender can halt the transaction. The launch follows internal research by the bank showing that around 30% of UK adults have sent money to the wrong person or entered the incorrect amount in the past year. More than three-quarters of those who made a payment error reportedly realised the mistake within one minute. The Undo Payments feature acts as a brief holding window after a transfer is authorised. During this time, users can reverse the transaction directly from the payment confirmation screen, the home screen, or the specific transaction detail page. If the undo option is selected within the chosen time frame, the funds remain in the user’s account and the intended recipient is not notified of the attempted transfer. The default setting gives a 15-second window, though users can adjust this to 10, 30, or 60 seconds, or disable it entirely. According to Monzo’s data, simple mistakes such as typing errors, often involving an extra zero, were responsible for 68% of misdirected payments.
Keyfactor acquires InfoSec Global and CipherInsights for quantum-safe security expansion
Keyfactor has acquired InfoSec Global and CipherInsights to further expand cryptographic posture management and quantum readiness. The acquisitions enable Keyfactor to deliver deep cryptographic asset discovery, real-time risk monitoring, and seamless transition to quantum-safe standards. With these acquisitions, Keyfactor is addressing the critical gap in cryptographic observability, helping organizations take control of their non-human identities and prepare for the next era of secure infrastructure. Key capabilities include AgileSec Analytics for deep cryptographic visibility, AgileSec Agility for managing and updating cryptography without source code changes, and CipherInsights for real-time passive network monitoring of cryptographic risks. Customers will benefit from enhanced capabilities that will empower security teams to take control of their cryptographic landscape including Comprehensive Visibility; Actionable Intelligence; Risk Remediation.