Thanks to climate change, wildfires are getting worse. And as the fires grow more severe and more common, firefighters are stretched thin.

Policy-makers, activists, and experts are pushing for a number of both long-term and immediate changes to try and alleviate this situation, from decarbonizing the economy to improving forest management in at-risk areas.

In recent years, tech startups have entered the fray as well, claiming that emerging tech like AI, machine learning, drones, and sensors can help firefighters do more with less, or with the same.

• These startups—like Pano, which offers hardware and software solutions solely for firefighters, or Cornea, a wildfire-focused disaster management platform—have raised tens of millions of dollars to date.
• Many are still in the early stages, running pilots with various fire departments in the American West in an attempt to both gain footholds and refine their models for the wider community.

“We learned that actually there were calls from many areas, like the Gavin Newsom administration, from the firefighting community, from the utility industry, from universities, from nonprofits—there were numerous reports and events where thought leaders were calling for more technology to help better detect and respond to fires,” Sonia Kastner, founder and CEO of Pano, told Emerging Tech Brew. “They were calling for cameras and drones and satellites and AI.”

One example...

Pano positions networks of cameras throughout high-risk fire areas, which aim to identify and track wildfires at their source. The company says it has raised $6.5 million since its 2020 founding, and it has deployed its cameras in 22 locations throughout Oregon, California, Colorado, and Montana.

Pano wants to put its cameras in high vantage points, whether it be mountains, radio towers, or—even better—radio towers on top of mountains. This would provide a wide overview of at-risk forests. Its cameras can then monitor these areas 24/7, feeding video to an AI system trained to flag smoke plumes and conflagrations on a minute-by-minute basis.

• Human reviewers are in the loop, too, confirming what the AI flags and ultimately making the call to notify fire departments.
• Pano hopes its tech can simplify a confirmation process that, historically, can be cumbersome and time-consuming.

Zoom out: Effective technology could make all the difference when it comes to fighting fires, but throwing an abundance of tech to firefighters isn’t a solution in and of itself. The tech needs to be easy to use, and effective.

“The goal is to make the output as simple as possible,” Margot Preuss, CEO of Cornea, told us. “They don’t need to know what’s happening in the background of the machine-learning algorithms, but they need to know, as a first responder, where is this fire heading, what’s the scale, and how do I most efficiently put it out?”

Click here to read the full story.—JM

How’s this for meta: Facebook is shutting down its facial-recognition program...but its newly rebranded parent company may not be.

On Tuesday, the tech giant announced that in the coming weeks, it will shutter the use of facial-recognition tech (FRT) on Facebook, deleting more than 1 billion “individual facial recognition templates” and discontinuing automatic recognition of users in photos and videos.

But, but, but: Meta can’t say the same. Though privacy advocates have celebrated the announcement as a step in the right direction after years of controversy over FRT’s potential harms, Meta has left the door open to the use of FRT more broadly.

• The company’s blog post is careful to repeat, for instance, that it’s ending use of its face-recognition system on Facebook—but it’s already experimenting with biometrics in its metaverse products.

And although Facebook spun its decision as a societal one, the announcement follows years of fighting tooth-and-nail, in and out of court, for its use of FRT.

• In 2020, Facebook settled a class-action lawsuit for $650 million in Illinois that alleged the company violated state legislation—specifically, a law prohibiting the use of Illinois residents’ biometric information without their consent.
• And in 2019, Facebook’s FRT was cited in its $5 billion FTC settlement.
• In the years before that, Facebook used an “NRA approach” to help prevent FRT laws on the state level, one source told Slate in 2017.

In other words...Though Meta’s blog post said the company needs to “weigh the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules,” it’s possible that lawsuits, fines, and bad press might be its chief concerns.

Click here to read the full story.—HF

At this point, GPT-3 could probably write an accurate piece about VC funding in 2021. The big-picture story has been the same each month, and for the year as whole: VCs are spending money at a blistering pace, and valuations are soaring.

October was no different. VCs invested $54 billion in 2,000 companies globally across October, per Crunchbase, up 84% from last year and an uptick from August ($50 billion) and September ($51 billion).

There were 43 new unicorns—private companies with $1+ billion valuations—added in the month, bringing the 2021 total to 460 new unicorns. There were just 165 new $1+ billion companies in 2020.

Here’s a look at some of the biggest emerging-tech rounds of the last month:

• HT Aero is a China-based flying car (ok, technically: “urban air mobility”) startup that raised a $500 million Series A in October. The company says it intends to officially roll out a low-altitude flying vehicle in 2024.
• Magic Leap, an augmented reality hardware- and software-maker, raised $500 million last month. It’s raised $3.5 billion in total so far, and recently pivoted to an enterprise focus after a hype-betraying failure on consumer AR in 2018.
• ProLogium is a Taiwan-based solid-state battery-maker that raised $326 million. It’s been around since 2006, and originally worked on consumer electronics batteries, before pivoting to autos.
• FTX Exchange is a crypto exchange that raised…$420.69 million in its October round. -_-

While we’re here: Climate-tech funding is experiencing a hot streak now, too.

View this story on-site.—DM

Stat: Women-led startups raised $40.4 billion across the first three quarters of 2021, up 70% from 2020’s full-year total of $23.7 billion.

Quote: “The covert collection of this kind of sensitive information is unreasonably intrusive and unfair.”—Angelene Falk, commissioner of Australia’s privacy agency, on facial-recognition company Clearview AI

Read: Inside the thriving market for 2FA-thieving bots.

Captivating convos: On November 18, TELUS International is hosting How Are YOU Reducing Customer Effort?—a free webinar led by CX expert Matt Dixon. Explore the impact of customer effort, behavioral economics, and how enabling this strategy can empower your business. Register for free here.*

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Three of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

• Self-driving water taxis have set sail in the canals of Amsterdam.
• A New Jersey man claims to have created a pizza-making robot that’s “better than any New York slice.”
• Adidas dropped a pair of Xbox 360 sneaks.
• SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts can’t use the bathroom on their way back to Earth because it’s broken.

Nora and Scott from Morning Brew’s Business Casual sat down with serial entrepreneur and investor Marc Lore to discuss his dreams to create a fully sustainable utopian city right here in the United States. 

The city, named Telosa, will place a ban on fossil-fuel-powered vehicles and promises a 15-minute commute to all necessary locations within the city. Lore believes Telosa will be far more than just another city. He sees this project as a test of a new model for society that promotes fairness, inclusivity, and sustainability.

Listen to the full episode to learn about what may just be the future of society.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• SES says its next-gen battery could be in cars by 2025
• In record-breaking year for VC funding, climate tech is no exception
• 5 charts explaining the future of EV batteries