Latest news with #Lego-style
India Today
2 days ago
- Business
- India Today
Builder.ai used 700 engineers in India for coding work it marketed as AI-powered, after hype now goes bust
calls itself 'an AI-powered composable software platform' that allows anyone to produce web and mobile applications 'at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional software development.' The no/low-code tech startup, which was founded and headquartered in London by Imperial College graduate Sachin Dev Duggal in 2016, made waves early on sparking great interest and drawing investments from several high-profile conglomerates including Microsoft in 2023. At its height, (which was previously called was valued at an astounding USD $1.5 Billion. A week ago, it filed for the tireless efforts of our current team and exploring every possible option, the business has been unable to recover from historic challenges and past decisions that placed significant strain on its financial position,' posted from its official handle on professional networking website LinkedIn. 'Our immediate priority is to support our employees, customers, and partners through this difficult time.'AI was a big reason behind fall. As more and more coding work at companies (both big and small) goes to AI and gets done, possibly at the same speed or even faster, you can say that the writing was on the wall. One of its big backers, Microsoft, itself has gone on record to say that about 30 percent of the company's code was being written by AI at the time of writing. Redmond has been firing software engineers left, right, and centre under the guise of improving efficiency and streamlining But you must be wondering, a company which was using AI to write code well before it became the hot viral sensation that it has become today after major breakthroughs from OpenAI and Google, would be better prepared – and seemingly more immune to the changing tech landscape – to not only come out and face it, but to fight back hard and show some resilience. Turns out there was another side to that we – meaning clients and investors – did not know of: a deeper and darker issue, responsible for its fall, or rather, fall from startup that made great song and dance about AI and its in-house virtual assistant, Natasha, to 'make building an app so easy, anyone can do it' was apparently outsourcing its job to an office in India where 700 human engineers painstakingly worked to write the code claimed was generated by its Lego-style artificial intelligence tech platform. 'Everything was like real artificial intelligence — except that none of it was,' Ebern Finance founder Bernhard Engelbrecht wrote on X, the platform previously known as 'buggy, dysfunctional, and difficult to maintain' end products gave some of it away, the real whistleblower act came after one of its investors, Viola Credit, seized a part of its USD $50 million investment even as regulatory restrictions in India froze further funding, leaving without enough money to pay its employees and eventually, stop operations, according to a Bloomberg report. was also allegedly involved in 'round-tripping' of funds with Bengaluru-based Indian social media startup VerSe, to inflate sales figures, something which was then reportedly used to attract investment from other will work closely with the appointed administrators to ensure an orderly process and to explore all available options for parts of the business, where possible,' post collapse is a cautionary tale for today's AI-first startups: hype can draw investors, but unsustainable practices and reliance on smoke-and-mirrors outsourcing can't replace real tech innovation.
Fast Company
29-05-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Nike and Lego made a kids' sneaker together
Lego makes shoes for humans now. The Danish toymaker announced a cobranded bright Lego yellow kids sneaker today in collaboration with Nike. The Nike Air Max Dn x Lego was designed in a 'Tour Yellow' colorway with Lego-style studs on the upper, Lego's red block logo on the tongue, and hybrid Nike-Lego logo on the back. The shoes will be available for sale in August following a 1,180-piece Lego Nike Dunk set to be released in July that includes a rotatable brick basketball toy. Together, the shoes and basketball-themed Lego set are the first releases in a joint multiyear partnership between Nike and Lego that the companies announced last year and said would span 'products, content, and experiences.' The LEGO Group says in a study of parents it found 59% of respondents worried their children don't have sufficient fun activities or playtime. To respond to those concerns, Nike said the partnership would 'bring to life the many ways sport and creative play can help all kids be the best versions of themselves.' Online, reaction to an early look at the Nike x Lego shoe was mixed, but remember, this is a shoe for kids, not grown sneakerheads. It's about taking an inside toy brand and extending it to physical play, and showing the connection between creativity in play as well as in success in other areas of life. To do that, Nike and Lego tapped A'ja Wilson, the WNBA Las Vegas Aces center and Nike signature athlete, to appear on the brand's digital channels to promote the partnership. The brands are also opening a pop-up Lego Play Arena at Legoland California Resort from June 7 to 11 to mark International Day of Play. A Nike Dunk Low x Lego collection is to come. 'I have loved playing with Lego bricks since I was a kid and know that my creativity and play helped me not only in sports but also at school and in life,' Wilson said in a statement. Lego has made partnerships a central part of its business model by releasing branded sets for outside intellectual property, like Marvel, Harry Potter, and Star Wars, as well as adult sets based on art history and architecture. By collaborating with Nike, these brands extend their reach into new product categories, capturing likely new customer bases. Nike similarlly benefits from attaching itself to a product aimed at young people who will grow into Nike buyers. As Nike aims to increase its market share, it's doing so, in part, one demographic group at a time. Earlier this year, it announced a new brand in partnership with Skims to puncture the women's athleisure market. With Lego, kids are next.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Detroit City Council shoots down RenCen historic review, paving way for GM, Bedrock plan
The Detroit City Council on Tuesday rejected a request to make the Renaissance Center a historic district amid talks of redevelopment plans. Since reports about transforming the RenCen have surfaced — including proposals that include demolishing portion of the tower campus — residents, preservationists and public officials have begun to act to preserve the structures. That included a letter from preservationists urging the city to consider adapting the existing buildings, and several residents stunned by the potential of losing a portion of their iconic skyline, and asking the city council to consider a historic designation study, which would allow the Historic District Commission to review permit applications for any work within a proposed historic district for one year. On the other side are stakeholders and supportive residents who view any future plans for the RenCen — even demolishing portions or all of it — as a viable path to create jobs and opportunities, and a flourishing riverfront. During Tuesday's council session, members overwhelmingly voted 8-1 to deny the historic review, with Councilwoman Angela Whitfield-Calloway being the lone vote supporting it, making room for Dan Gilbert's Bedrock team to proceed with its proposal to conceptualize a different future for one of Detroit's most iconic buildings. Calloway said she is not against development, but prefers to see more public input on the project, suggesting a town hall at Huntington Place. "I don't think we have to demolish to build. I really don't. I think we can preserve and build at the same time. I think they can coexist. And I've watched with a broken heart, all of our buildings be demolished, and then what's being built now downtown are Lego-style buildings. They don't have any kind of architectural flavor or design. They are all cookie-cutter designs," Calloway said. "We are destroying our history. ... That skyline will be forever destroyed" if the city allows the developer to move forward. During last Thursday's planning and economic development committee meeting — where stakeholders outlined the proposal and addressed questions — Jared Fleisher, vice president of Dan Gilbert's Rock Family of Companies, said demolishing two towers and maintaining the rest of the properties is the 'only viable path to preserving the Renaissance Center." 'Just because something can't be the same, doesn't mean it can't be spectacular, and our vision is to make this and to make the riverfront spectacular,' Fleisher said. 'It should be something that Detroiters cannot just see as a stale icon from afar, but can actually experience and enjoy directly. It should be something that is inclusive, not designed to exclude; that is open, inviting, accessible, and easy to navigate. It should be something that connects and integrates the rest of the city with its riverfront, doesn't divide it. It should be something that anchors a thriving riverfront that is not just based on Navy Pier in Chicago, but that is the envy of Navy Pier in Chicago.' By the end of the committee meeting, Councilman Fred Durhal III recommended denying the historic review. City Council President Pro Tem James Tate supported Durhal. "I wanted to preserve as much as possible. Nothing in this denial does that. It does not now give a green light to a total demolition of the Renaissance towers," Tate said at Tuesday's formal session. "There's multiple discussions that has to happen prior to that taking place. And then, even if there's a request to demolish that, there has to be approval to do so." Tate, who initially opposed the plan, citing a lack of nuance in conversation surrounding demolition, questioned whether mothballing was a viable option. Fleisher said it would repeat the 'mistakes of the past' of letting buildings sit and deteriorate. 'If you think about the success of the project that we presented today and the vision presented today, that's a thriving, active destination, it's very difficult to reconcile that with two ghost towers looming over it. So, the fact that the economics won't change, we'll just delay the inevitable. And by delaying the inevitable, we will hurt today. Those are the reasons why we do not believe mothballing is the answer.' Jennifer Stallings, legal counsel for General Motors, outlined some of the building's structural details and tenancy over the years, implying that the whole campus is unable to be economically viable. The RenCen can accommodate 17,000 people. But at its peak, it held 10,000, which was not intended to be strictly GM employees, she said. At most, GM would have about 5,400 employees in the building, requiring more tenants to fill it up. 'This building was built to be a city within a city. It was built to be self-contained, to be separate. That is one of its biggest challenges,' Stallings said. 'It's hard to get in and out of, and then once you're inside of it, it has this difficult-to-navigate looping structure. If you've ever worked at the RenCen or even attended an event, you've probably gotten lost inside of it.' More: Mayor Mike Duggan delivers $3B Detroit budget with tax cuts, DDOT boost, homeless outreach Stallings emphasized it would be difficult to conceptualize the size of the building. The towers are 5.5 million square feet, "the size of two times the Empire State Building, and the podium is 1.5 million square feet of retail space," which is about the same size as Somerset Mall," Stallings said during the committee meeting. She added that the massive retail space is not accessible from outside foot traffic and relies almost entirely on tenants. 'These issues compound upon one another, and this building, more and more, just isn't viable in this day and age. So, we are just faced with this building that just can't exist, and can't be used and be effective in this day and age,' Stallings said. 'A reconfiguring, a reimagining, a redevelopment, is our only option. And historic preservation would make that nearly impossible. So, we're looking to find a solution that works. And a project of this size, of this complexity, is something we cannot do alone.' After the vote, Mayor Mike Duggan said in a statement that designating the site as historic "would have killed any realistic hope of redevelopment and pretty much guaranteed Detroit would have five empty towers sitting on the riverfront for the next 30-40 years." The property is zoned as planned development, which requires work to line up with the city's Master Plan, according to the city. Alterations of the property would be under the purview of the City Planning Commission and the City Council, according to Marcell Todd, director of the planning commission. "We anticipate, at least as has been discussed as part of the presentation, that there may be a community benefits agreement in order to advance this one," Todd said. "That will, once again, put an opportunity to bring aspects of this proposal before your honorable body, and opportunities for agreements, potentially, to be crafted that could go beyond or even complement zoning that could achieve, in a different way, some of what could be achieved through historic designation." Dana Afana is the Detroit city hall reporter for the Free Press. Contact: dafana@ Follow her: @DanaAfana. This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit City Council denies RenCen historic review, paving way for redevelopment
BBC News
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Micro art sets new record with tiny Lego sculpture
Have you ever come across art so small, you need a microscope to see it?Micro artist David Lindon recently set a new Guinness World Record for the smallest handmade artwork of a red Lego piece measures just 0.02517mm by 0.02184mm, which David says is about the same size as a human white blood cell!The Lego art is so tiny, it can't be seen by just the human said his teeny tiny sculpture took months of planning and creating to bring to life. The artist created three different sizes of a Lego-style brick using his own handmade microscopic tools. He worked six to 10 hours at night to avoid the vibrations of daytime eight-spot Lego brick was measured as the narrowest structure ever made, while the smaller four-spot brick broke the original record which was set in artist also created a smaller, one-spot brick and broke his own record within 20 sculpture was made from a piece of red Lego brick and was measured by a team at Evident Scientific using a light creation was then checked by Spectrographic Limited in Leeds who confirmed it as the smallest sculpture made in history. It's four times smaller than the previous record held by micro artist Dr Willard Wigan MBE who he says inspired him to have a go a micro art. "It's madness I know. I love the challenge, I love the discipline," David said about his work. "I love the look of wonder and surprise on people's faces when they see my art for the first time. To see it in person, it blows your mind." David's Lego artwork isn't the only microscopic creation from the artist which has caught people's attention. He's become known for the unique style of art which includes creations in needles and three microscopic re-creations of Van Gogh masterpieces which sold for £90,000."The challenge to create tiny objects that can't be seen without a microscope is demanding both physically and mentally," David explained. "I have trained myself to slow my breathing and work between the beats of my heart. Even the pulse of my heart beating through my fingers creates too much movement."David is now working towards opening a brand new exhibition, called the Smallest Zoo in the World, in Poole this Summer.
