This Week in Tech News: 14 Stories You Need to See

A roundup of the most newsworthy tech announcements from PR Newswire this week, including our own expanded AI suite, new molecular tech to authenticate spirits and AstroRad's space radiation vest.

NEW YORK, Dec. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- With thousands of press releases published each week, it can be difficult to keep up with everything on PR Newswire. To help tech journalists and consumers stay on top of the week's most newsworthy and popular releases, here's a recap of some major stories from the week that shouldn't be missed.

The list below includes the headline (with a link to the full text) and an excerpt from each story. Click on the press release headlines to access accompanying multimedia assets that are available for download.

1. Gen Extends its Financial Wellness Offerings with the Acquisition of MoneyLion
   "Gen has a family of consumer brands that's dedicated to protecting people's privacy, identity and financial assets so they can live their digital lives securely and without worry," said Vincent Pilette, CEO of Gen. "By bringing MoneyLion into the Gen family, we're not only helping people protect what they already have, we're extending our capabilities to enable people to better manage and grow their financial wealth."
2. PR Newswire Unveils Expanded AI Solutions Suite with Additional Features for Strategic Communicators
   Initially providing readability metrics, AI Insights now boasts the groundbreaking "Press Release Score," which thoroughly analyzes each release for readability, formatting, structure and engagement potential and then provides specific recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of the press release. 
3. Coinbase's Project Diamond Strategically Integrates the Chainlink Standard To Scale Institutional Adoption of Digital Assets
   By natively integrating the Chainlink standard, Coinbase's Project Diamond platform can now offer data and cross-chain connectivity in a secure way that helps meet the compliance needs of institutional adopters.
4. Raptor Technologies Acquires SmartPass
   This strategic acquisition expands the reach of Raptor's holistic safety solutions for K-12 schools, addressing every aspect of school safety from crisis prevention and preparation to emergency response and recovery, and now, efficient student movement management.
5. Arbitrum, Sequence, and Ubisoft's Player-Guided Experience, Captain Laserhawk: The G.A.M.E., Set to Launch on December 18
   Captain Laserhawk: the G.A.M.E. is a competitive top-down multiplayer shooter set in the dystopian world of Eden, inspired by the Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix series, streaming on Netflix. Immediately upon launch, the title will play a genre-defining role in its approach to community involvement, bringing forward the next generation of gaming experience for players around the world.
6. Bond by Solana Labs Partners with Baxus and Iridia to Debut Onchain Molecular Authentication Tech
   Using Iridia tech, irreplicable digital molecular signatures are embedded into spirit bottles. Each spirit is tokenized via Bond as a unique NFT that permanently records and verifies its origin, age, and distillery details on the Solana blockchain. This dual-layered approach provides an unprecedented level of security and transparency in spirits authentication.
7. IBM Brings the Speed of Light to the Generative AI Era with Optics Breakthrough
   The new co-packaged optics innovation could replace electrical interconnects in data centers to offer significant improvements in speed and energy efficiency for AI and other computing applications.
8. Message Received: Viasat Continues Direct-to-Device Showcase with First Demonstration in United Arab Emirates
   The tests used a commercial Android smartphone enabled for non-terrestrial network (NTN) connectivity with an over-the-top messaging application. Separate messages were successfully sent over two of Viasat's highly reliable L-band satellites which orbit above Asia.
9. LexisNexis Risk Solutions Announces Definitive Agreement to Acquire IDVerse
   The acquisition will expand LexisNexis Risk Solutions' capabilities in risk and fraud solutions and enhance digital identity onboarding and identity verification through IDVerse's AI-powered technology.
10. Innovative AstroRad Vest Poised to Safeguard Astronauts from Space Radiation
    NASA astronaut Kayla Barron, who evaluated the vest on the space station, describes it in Upward as "like a gravity blanket in space," noting the balance it aims to strike between protection and mobility. She emphasized the importance of wearable, customized solutions for astronauts, calling the vest "an elegant solution to a challenging engineering problem."
11. Deloitte's 16th Annual 'Tech Trends' Report Reveals AI is Quickly Becoming Foundational to the Modern Enterprise
    Today's AI technology is being embedded everywhere to create the tech capabilities businesses will rely on for decades to come. As such, solid fundamentals are critical. A barrier to entry? Modern architecture capable of supporting the tomorrow's processes, talent, and systems at scale.
12. NPS Launches World's First AI-Powered Hyper-Definition Radar
    "Our mission is to provide Crystal-Clear Visibility for life-saving applications," said Dr. Behrooz Rezvani, Founder and CEO of NPS. "Utilizing a groundbreaking mathematical framework and AI, our radar delivers unparalleled clarity and responsiveness, enabling vehicles and robotaxis to confidently navigate complex roadways with reliability and precision."
13. SonicWall and CrowdStrike Partner to Protect SMBs with All-New Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Offering
    This collaboration combines SonicWall's trusted Managed Security Services (MSS) with the Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) capabilities from the CrowdStrike Falcon^® cybersecurity platform, providing a powerful and scalable AI-native security solution designed for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) serving SMBs.
14. Saudi Arabia Launches Sand and Dust Storm Monitoring Initiative to Expand Global Early Warning System Capacity
    Based in Jeddah, the Sand and Dust Storm Warning Advisory and Assessment System (SDS-WAS), increases the number of global World Meteorological Organization-affiliated nodes to four, part of an international network including Beijing, Barcelona, and Barbados.

For more news like this, check out all of the latest technology-related releases from PR Newswire.

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