In March 1975, The Eagles' Best of My Love, was the number one song, the top box office movie was The Godfather Part II, and All in the Family was the most popular TV show. However, I was most excited about the MITS Altair 8800 microcomputer, arguably the first PC. At Gordon French's garage in Menlo Park, California on March 5, 1975, a small group of electronic enthusiasts gathered to look at the computer for the first time and the world would never be the same again. Little did they know that this modest meeting would spark a technological revolution that would change the world. The Homebrew Computer Club, founded by French and Fred Moore, quickly became a nexus for innovation, collaboration, and the democratization of computing technology.

Undeterred by its many detractors, Meta is still trying to make the metaverse happen. This week, the company held its annual Connect developer conference at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage to announce a new mixed reality headset, the Meta Quest 3, as well as new smart glasses made by Ray-Ban that let the wearer livestream videos and interact with an AI-powered voice chatbot. Meta also showed off an array of celebrity-infused AI chatbots that can mimic big-name folks like Snoop Dogg and Kendall Jenner. You'd be forgiven for thinking all this feels a little bit like an episode of Black Mirror.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the tech giant's Connect developer conference on Wednesday with new AI products for consumers, including smart glasses that can answer questions and stream directly on Facebook, as well as bots that create photo-realistic images and an updated virtual-reality headset. Standing in a courtyard at his company's Menlo Park, California, headquarters, Zuckerberg told the audience of developers, employees and journalists that Meta is "focused on building the future of human connection" – and painted a near-future where people interact with hologram versions of their friends or coworkers and with AI bots built to assist them. Zuckerberg described the products as bringing together virtual and real worlds and underscored that part of what Meta offered was low-cost or free AI that could be integrated into daily routines. "Soon the physical and digital will come together in what we call the'metaverse'," he said. The company unveiled the next version of its virtual-reality headset, the Quest 3. It will cost $499 and begin shipping on October 10.

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A few bright spots remain in the autonomous vehicle industry even amid macroeconomic headwinds that have nearly shut off the spigot of venture capital and led to further consolidation. Helm.ai, a startup developing software designed for advanced driver assistance systems, autonomous driving and robotics, is one of them. The Menlo Park, California-based startup recently raised $31 million in a Series C round led by Freeman Group, just one year after it snagged $26 million in venture funding. This latest round, which included ACVC Partners, Amplo and strategic investors Honda Motor Co., Goodyear Ventures and Sungwoo Hitech, has pushed Helm.ai's valuation to $431 million. Brandon Freeman, founder of the Freeman Group, is joining the Helm.ai board of directors as part of this financing.

The ESM Metagenomic Atlas database contains structure predictions for 617 million proteins.Credit: ESM Metagenomic Atlas (CC BY 4.0) When London-based Deep Mind unveiled predicted structures for some 220 million proteins this year, it covered nearly every protein from known organisms in DNA databases. Now, another tech giant is filling in the dark matter of our protein universe. Researchers at Meta (formerly Facebook, headquartered in Menlo Park, California) have used artificial intelligence (AI) to predict the structures of some 600 million proteins from bacteria, viruses and other microbes that haven't been characterized. 'It will change everything': DeepMind's AI makes gigantic leap in solving protein structures "These are the structures we know the least about. These are incredibly mysterious proteins. I think they offer the potential for great insight into biology," says Alexander Rives, the research lead for Meta AI's protein team.

Levita Magnetics said it has raised $26 million to fund regulatory and commercial progress on its Magnetic-Assisted Robotic Surgery (MARS) platform. The Menlo Park, California-based robotic surgery system developer also appointed Maria Sainz as chair of its board of directors. The MARS platform is designed to help surgeons perform more high-volume abdominal procedures using fewer incisions and less personnel. Levita won FDA de novo classification for its Levita Magnetic Surgical System in 2015. That handheld device uses a magnet placed outside of a patient's abdomen to control a magnetic grasper inside the body during surgery, requiring only one incision instead of two.

RIOS Intelligent Machines, Inc. ("RIOS") is a technology company helping enterprises automate their entire factories, warehouses, or supply chain operations – by deploying AI-powered end-to-end robotic workcells that integrate within existing workflows. RIOS is the leader of fullstack AI-powered robotic workcells for factory automation and deploys its robotic fleet at scale to transform labor-intensive factories into "lights-out" factories of the future powered by robotics and AI. RIOS was founded by former Xerox PARC engineers and is headquartered in Menlo Park, CA. More information is available at www.rios.ai. RIOS is building one of the largest real-world datasets for model development.

In its drive to help supply-chain-heavy businesses become more data-driven, while helping their non-technical data employees strive to make better decisions in real-time, not months, collaborative data analytics platform Promethium announced recently that it raised $26 million in Series A funding to help further expand its business initiatives. "Our first and immediate need is to build out our sales and marketing customer support functions," said Kaycee Lai, CEO and founder of Promethium in an interview with ZDNet. Proceeds from the financing will be used to expand customer growth, sales and marketing, and innovation. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based AI data analytics provider said the Series A financing was led by private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners, along with investors .406 The latest round of financing now brings the total amount of funding to $34.5 million.

Roughly a year ago, Latent AI, a now three-year-old, Menlo Park, California-based startup, pitched a handful of investors during TechCrunch's Battlefield competition. It didn't win that contest, but that hasn't kept it from winning the interest of investors elsewhere. It just closed on $19 million in Series A funding in a round co-led by Future Ventures and Blackhorn Ventures, with participation from Booz Allen, Lockheed Martin, 40 North Ventures, and Autotech Ventures. The company has now raised $22.5 million altogether. Steve Jurvetson, the veteran investor and co-founder of Future Ventures, says of possible applications to think of "face-detection algorithms running locally within security cameras or appliances, or Siri-like voice interfaces working instantly," even when there's no network connectivity.