Weekly Roundup: 14 Tech Press Releases You Need to See

A roundup of the week's most newsworthy tech announcements from PR Newswire, including updates in flying and autonomous vehicles, IBM's partnership with Penn State, and a new gaming monitor from LG.

NEW YORK, Feb. 21, 2025 /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. Saronic Raises $600M Series C to Take on Autonomous Shipbuilding
   With this funding, Saronic plans to build Port Alpha, a next-generation shipyard capable of delivering new classes of unmanned ships at the speed and scale needed to protect and defend the maritime domain.
2. Flying Cars Are Here: Alef flies a car in a city
   An ultralight version of Alef Aeronautics flying car was tested by flying over a closed-off city road in a non-densely populated area. What is the historical significance of this? Alef released the video of the test, making it a first-ever video in history of a car driving and vertically taking off. 
3. Penn State Taps IBM to Develop AI Virtual Assistant to Foster Success for Student Body
   The generative AI-powered assistant is meant to streamline details about campus resources and how to seek them when it launches, expected in the fall semester, to the nearly 90,000 Penn State students. The project stems from Penn State student leaders identifying a need for improved access to campus services, such as academic advising, health and wellness, and financial aid.
4. Illumina unveils first-of-its-kind spatial transcriptomics technology
   "With this innovation, we are setting a new bar that will drive the next wave of scientific discoveries and unlock a deeper understanding of biology—from the impact of cell interactions on disease to the mechanisms needed to solve them," said Steve Barnard, PhD, chief technology officer of Illumina.
5. Costco Travel Signs New Deal with Travelport to Drive Membership Value with Modern Retailing Technology
   Travelport normalizes multi-source content and delivers an intelligent search experience with enriched retail-ready travel content. These solutions will make it easy for Costco members to shop and compare the company's carefully selected travel options.
6. Hightouch Announces $80M Series C at $1.2B Valuation to Bring AI Decisioning to Marketers
   The investment will help drive adoption of the company's AI Decisioning product, which allows marketers to simply identify a business goal and then lets AI agents deliver the optimal 1:1 marketing experiences that will achieve that goal.
7. Deepwatch Acquires Dassana to Advance Cyber Resilient Security Operations with Continuous Threat Exposure Management
   "Cyber resilience requires deep visibility into an enterprise's exposure risk, as well as tools that detect unusual activity and deploy security defenses. The integration of Deepwatch and Dassana offers enterprises incomparable security protection," said Ajay Nigam, CEO, Dassana.
8. GoDaddy: AI is a Job Creator, Not a Job Threat
   Artificial intelligence (AI) is already reshaping America's economy, and for the first time, GoDaddy reveals how small businesses—not only tech giants—are leading the charge with measurable job creation and local growth.
9. LG Display Targets Gaming Market with OLED Monitor Panel featuring World's Best Picture Quality
   This product not only features key gaming monitor specifications such as top-tier resolution, refresh rate, and response time, but it also delivers perfect black levels in any environment, providing the ultimate gaming experience.
10. TIER IV conducts robotaxi pilot tests in Tokyo
    Featuring JPN TAXI vehicles equipped with TIER IV's autonomous driving system, these vehicles were navigated through approximately 500 complex scenarios in Odaiba and Nishi-Shinjuku, including executing right and left turns at intersections and avoiding parked vehicles. The outcomes confirmed the adaptability of operational design domains (ODDs) in dense traffic conditions and identified critical technical challenges that must be addressed to enable autonomous driving across a wide range of routes.
11. LightBox Unveils 'True Owner'--Breaking Down Barriers to Commercial Real Estate Decision-Makers
    Unlike existing tools, which often provide incomplete or unverified contact details, True Owner goes deeper, identifying the real individuals behind ownership entities and verifying their contact information. The result? A dramatic reduction in research time, improved outreach success, and faster deal-making.
12. Americans Are Ready to Sue AI: New Pearl Study Finds 39% Willing to Sue for Mistakes
    As AI becomes deeply woven into everyday life, consumers are speaking up: they want trust, accuracy, and accountability. According to the report, 57% of U.S. adults hold AI platforms legally responsible for inaccuracy and 47% of people would feel more confident if AI answers were validated by actual humans.
13. SkillUp Coalition Launches SkillUp AI: A Human-Centered AI Agent to Guide Non-Degree Workers Toward High-Opportunity Careers
    SkillUp AI offers a transformative approach to career exploration that reduces search fatigue, increases user confidence and accelerates economic mobility for non-degree workers across the country. The tool is actively in beta to collect user inputs and is expected to be fully integrated into the SkillUp platform this spring.
14. Integem Launches K-12 AI Space Drone Program--Build, Fly, Explore
    The program brings aerospace and AI technology to life through interactive projects that teach students to design, build, and program autonomous drones. They will gain real-world engineering experience while tackling AI-driven navigation, stratospheric exploration, and drone applications in planetary research, environmental monitoring, and disaster response.

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

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