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Source: Running back-returner Javon Leake staying put with Edmonton Elks

Vancouver Canucks defenceman Filip Hronek is expected to be out until the end of January as he recovers from a lower-body injury. General manager Patrik Allvin issued a statement Tuesday saying Hronek underwent a successful procedure for the undisclosed ailment and is expected to miss about eight weeks. He says the 27-year-old Czech blueliner will not require surgery for an upper-body injury. Hronek hasn’t played since going into the endboards hard late in Vancouver’s 5-4 loss to the Penguins in Pittsburgh last Wednesday. He’s been paired with captain Quinn Hughes for much of the season and registered eight points (one goal, eight assists) in 21 games. The Canucks (13-7-3) have dealt with a litany of notable absences this season, including all-star goalie Thatcher Demko, who remains sidelined with a knee injury, and star centre J.T. Miller, who’s on an indefinite leave for personal reasons. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 3, 2024.

LSU running back Josh Williams (27) runs the ball up the right sideline as Wisconsin safety Austin Brown (9) defends in the second half of the Tigers’ 35-31 win over the Badgers in the ReliaQuest Bowl, Monday, Jan. 1, 2024, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Anyone interested in a “Bryce Bowl?” In this new era of the expanded College Football Playoff, it’s easier than ever to be blasé about the bowls. Unless they’re one of the six bowls in the CFP process — the Sugar, Rose, Cotton, Peach, Orange and Fiesta — how much do the rest move the needle? But there are still potentially juicy matchups in the non-CFP segment of the postseason. And for LSU, a couple of national projections have the Tigers meeting a power program for the first time. A program that recently has drawn the ire of Tiger fans everywhere. Erick Smith of USA Today and Ethan Stone of SaturdayDownSouth.com both project LSU to play Michigan on Dec. 30 in the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee. This would be appointment viewing for two reasons: 1) The megabucks flip of No. 1-ranked quarterback prospect Bryce Underwood from LSU to Michigan a couple of weeks ago, leaving Tiger recruiting fans melting down on message boards across the internet. 2) The Tigers and Wolverines have never met in football, Michigan being the only traditional power LSU has never played. We found 11 national bowl projections for LSU, most of them split between the Music City Bowl and the Texas Bowl (Dec. 31 in Houston) — five with the Tigers in the Music City, four with LSU in Texas. There was also one projection each for the Gator Bowl (Jan. 2 in Jacksonville, Florida) and one rather strange outlier for the Las Vegas Bowl on Dec. 27. LSU (8-4, 5-3 Southeastern Conference) opened the season in Las Vegas against USC, which is also projected there by Oliver Hodgkinson of CollegeFootballNetwork.com . Those two factors make a return to Vegas look like a non-starter for the Tigers times two. The Gator Bowl, where LSU hasn’t played since 1987, also seems unlikely for the simple reason the Tigers just never seem to go there, though of their likely options it may be the most appealing. LSU has played in the Texas and Music City bowls over the past decade. The Tigers lost to a Notre Dame-coached Brian Kelly team in the 2014 Music City Bowl 31-28. The next year, LSU beat Patrick Mahomes and Texas Tech 56-27 in the Texas Bowl in Houston, then lost there to Kansas State 42-20 with a short-handed roster to wrap up the 2021 season after Ed Orgeron was fired. Here is how Southeastern Conference teams will get placed in the postseason: 1. College Football Playoff: The CFP announces its 12-team bracket at 11 a.m. CST Sunday on ESPN. The SEC Championship Game winner will earn an automatic bid and based on the rankings of the teams involved (Texas and Georgia) that team will get a bye into the quarterfinals, likely the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1. ESPN’s Mark Schlabach has four SEC teams in the CFP (SEC champion Georgia, Texas, Tennessee and Alabama) so use that as a guide, if you will. 2. Citrus Bowl: After the number of SEC teams in the CFP is determined, the Citrus gets to make its choice from the remaining conference schools. 3. Pool of Six bowls: After the Citrus picks, the SEC then assigns teams to the following bowls: ReliaQuest, Music City, Gator, Liberty, Texas and, this year, Las Vegas (in 2025 the Duke’s Mayo Bowl is in the SEC pool instead of Las Vegas). The SEC also has two more tie-ins with the Birmingham and Gasparilla bowls, with teams selected by ESPN. The SEC has a total of 13 bowl eligible teams with four of them (Florida, 7-5 and 4-4; Arkansas, 6-6 and 3-5; Vanderbilt, 6-6 and 3-5; and Oklahoma, 6-6 and 2-6) considerably below LSU on the pecking order. So in other words, don’t go making any plans for the Birmingham Bowl or the Gasparilla in Tampa, Florida. Conversely, LSU is unlikely to be picked to return to the ReliaQuest in Tampa since it beat Wisconsin there last year and the Tigers are currently unranked. Also throwing out a repeat trip to Las Vegas, that means LSU is headed for the Texas, Music City, Gator or Liberty bowls. The Tigers will learn their destination sometime Sunday afternoon. It will be LSU’s 56th postseason appearance, tied for sixth-most ever with Ohio State and USC. Why is it even worth it for LSU to play in a non-CFP bowl? Practice, practice, practice. Bowl eligible teams get a maximum of 15 practice days. For an LSU team with a lot of young players in the mix, youngsters who will be moving up the depth chart as players inevitably opt out of the bowl or enter the transfer portal, bowl practice is like an extra spring practice. In other words, think of LSU’s season-ending bowl game as the first game of the 2025 season, as coach Brian Kelly and his staff try to build and retain a roster that will have the Tigers in a better bowl next year. LSU BOWL PROJECTIONS Patrick Andres, SI.com : Texas Bowl vs. Kansas State Bill Bender, The Sporting News: Music City Bowl vs. Minnesota Kyle Bonagura, ESPN.com : Gator Bowl vs. Duke Brad Crawford, 247Sports.com : Music City Bowl vs. Nebraska Pete Fiutak, CollegeFootballNews.com : Texas Bowl vs. Baylor Oliver Hodgkinson, CollegeFootballNetwork.com : Las Vegas Bowl vs. USC Brett McMurphy, ActionNetwork.com : Music City Bowl vs. Minnesota Jerry Palm, CBSSports.com : Texas Bowl vs. TCU Mark Schlabach, ESPN.com : Texas Bowl vs. Baylor Erick Smith, USA Today: Music City Bowl vs. Michigan Ethan Stone, SaturdayDownSouth.com : Music City Bowl vs. Michigan LSU BOWL GUIDE Las Vegas Bowl: Dec. 27, 9:30 p.m., Las Vegas (ESPN) Music City Bowl: Dec. 30, 1:30 p.m., Nashville, Tennessee (ESPN) Texas Bowl: Dec. 31, 2:30 p.m., Houston (ESPN) Gator Bowl: Jan. 2, 6:30 p.m., Jacksonville, Florida (ESPN) All times CentralResearchers at the University of Cambridge are close to recreating the movements of the world’s ... [+] first land animals. Over 390 million years ago, the ancestors of modern land animals said, “Feet before fins,” and took their first steps on earth. Today, a research team at the University of Cambridge is developing “paleo-inspired” robots that could retrace one of the most momentous events in the history of the living world. These robots will be inspired by the body structures and movement styles of ancient fish from the Late Devonian period—when their evolution began—as well as present day “walking fish” like mudskippers, according to an October 2024 review published in Science Robotics . With a more detailed study, the researchers hope to gain a better understanding of how early vertebrates might have taken their first steps onto solid ground. The ultimate objective is to understand how this pivotal shift from swimming to walking paved the way for the diverse land-dwelling species we see today, including ourselves. Deconstructing The Mechanics Of Evolution In Motion While the research sets some ambitious goals, it’s the latest in a series of groundbreaking robotics projects by the University of Cambridge’s Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory (BIRL). From developing a robot that builds its own tools with hot glue to optimizing potato farming with AI-powered automation, BIRL has been pushing the boundaries of what robots can achieve. Now, the team led by Professor Fumiya Iida is aspiring to dig deeper than ever before into one of life’s greatest evolutionary marvels: the first steps taken from water to land. The paleo-robots created by the lab’s team are no ordinary machines. Built using cutting-edge materials and robotics technologies, each robot is engineered to closely resemble the anatomy and biomechanics of early fish species. These robots are equipped to simulate movements and environmental interactions that ancient species may have experienced as they moved from aquatic to terrestrial habitats. Gmail Takeover Hack Attack—Google Warns You Have Just 7 Days To Act FBI Warns Smartphone Users—Hang Up And Create A Secret Word Now Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Clues And Answers For Saturday, December 7th By observing how the robots respond to various surfaces, the team can gather valuable data on locomotion mechanics. Researchers are particularly interested in how early fish might have altered their fin structures to develop a movement more suited for land. “We want to know things like how much energy different walking patterns would have required, or which movements were most efficient,” said Dr Michael Ishida, the lead author of the project at the University of Cambridge. Through these robots, the team at BIRL can observe such dynamics directly, studying how changes in fin positioning and body weight distribution could have influenced the evolution of limb-based walking. The focus on how paleo-robots move through different environments also addresses questions about the ecological obstacles that ancient species faced. BIRL’s approach allows its researchers to assess in real-time the environmental adaptations that might have been necessary for ancient fish to move out of the water and begin life on land. A Foray Beyond Fossils: Harnessing The Power Of Advanced Robotics The use of paleo-robots marks a bold departure from traditional methods of studying evolutionary biology. For decades, scientists have relied on fossil records and, more recently, computer simulations to make inferences about the mechanics of early vertebrate locomotion. Fossils provide critical information about the anatomy of ancient creatures but they’re mainly limited to the static snapshots of skeletal structure. Computer simulations add another layer, allowing researchers to simulate movements based on fossil structures. However, even these simulations would be restricted to the information gleaned from the fossils themselves. The paleo-robots from BIRL could bridge this gap with a dynamic, hands-on alternative. While fossils and simulations offer snapshots, paleo-robots would be able to present a full-length documentary, allowing researchers to “watch” how these creatures might have walked. Having physical models to study would give the researchers real-time data on movement dynamics. They could tweak and test anatomical configurations in ways that fossils or simulations alone simply cannot. Through these physical robots, the team at BIRL could easily fine-tune variables such as body weight distribution, fin angle and ground resistance, creating an interactive model that yields tangible insights. Employing Biorobotics For A Better Future Thanks to the efforts of researchers like those at BIRL, bioengineering and biorobotics are bringing the future—and the promise of a better world—closer to our lives today. While bioengineering efforts are close to bringing animals like the Tasmanian tiger or the woolly mammoth back from the dead, biorobotics experiments are aimed at tackling future challenges on earth and beyond. Today, biorobotics thrives as an area of pioneering innovation, promising game-changing applications across space exploration, resource management and sustainable engineering. For example, Resilient Bio-inspired Modular Robotic Miners , or the ROBOMINERS project, is an EU-funded endeavor under the Horizon 2020 program. The project is aimed at developing bio-inspired modular robotic miners to transform the way we access valuable underground mineral deposits. Conventional mining methods often overlook smaller or hard-to-reach deposits due to high extraction costs and limited feasibility. ROBOMINERS is designed to change this paradigm, focusing on “non-economical” mineral deposits that would otherwise remain untouched. Breaking the conventional mold, researchers at Princeton and North Carolina State University are rethinking how robots can move with a hyper-flexible origami robot, according to a December 2023 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . A product of soft robotics—where designs are inspired by nature—this robot is made up of a series of folding cylinders that allow it to move much like the caterpillar that inspires its form. With this, researchers hope to build robots that can adopt better to their surroundings and deliver more efficient results as they go. When it comes to swarm robotics, “All for one and one for all,” seems to be the strategy of choice. At least that’s what the researchers from European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Centre for Genomic Regulation and Bristol Robotics Laboratory did to unite hundreds of swarm robots and form bio-inspired shapes. With over 300 robots working together, the team programmed each of them with qualities of self-organization and self-repair to ensure they maintained their form and interacted efficiently with their neighbors. With the results published in Science Robotics , the team hopes this swarm behavior can be scaled further and adopted for real-world applications like aiding recovery efforts after natural disasters. As biorobotics continues to evolve, the projects at the University of Cambridge’s Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory and elsewhere demonstrate the transformative potential of this field. The promise of biorobotics lies in its ability to take cues from nature to solve contemporary issues, blending evolutionary wisdom with technological precision. These projects not only highlight how much we can learn from the biological world but also set a new standard for what robotics can achieve in fields as varied as environmental conservation, sustainable resource management and space exploration. Understanding how ancient fish evolved to walk on land reminds us how movement, behavior and adaptation shape every species—including our own pets. Curious about what your pet’s instincts might say about their place in nature’s grand story? Take our Pet Personality Test to uncover the hidden traits that make them unique.

Tight race for the North Carolina Supreme Court is heading to another recount

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks slipped in afternoon trading Friday as Wall Street closes out a rare bumpy week. The S&P 500 fell 0.2%, and is on track for a loss for the week after three straight weekly gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 81 points, or 0.2% to 43,833 as of 12:56 p.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq fell 0.3% and is hovering around its record. Broadcom surged 20.2% after the semiconductor company beat Wall Street’s profit targets and gave a glowing forecast, highlighting its artificial intelligence products. The company also raised its dividend. The company's big gain helped cushion the market's broader fall. Pricey stock values for technology companies like Broadcom give the sector more weight in pushing the market higher or lower. Artificial intelligence technology has been a focal point for the technology sector and the overall stock market over the last year. Tech companies, and Wall Street, expect demand for AI to continue driving growth for semiconductor and other technology companies. Furniture and housewares company RH, formerly known as Restoration Hardware, surged 14.3% after raising its forecast for revenue growth for the year. Wall Street's rally stalled this week amid mixed economic reports and ahead of the Federal Reserve's last meeting of the year. The central bank will meet next week and is widely expected to cut interest rates for a third time since September. Expectations of a series of rate cuts has driven the S&P 500 to 57 all-time highs so far this year . The Fed has been lowering its benchmark interest rate following an aggressive rate hiking policy that was meant to tame inflation. It raised rates from near-zero in early 2022 to a two-decade high by the middle of 2023. Inflation eased under pressure from higher interest rates, nearly to the central bank's 2% target. The economy, including consumer spending and employment, held strong despite the squeeze from inflation and high borrowing costs. A slowing job market, though, has helped push a long-awaited reversal of the Fed's policy. Inflation rates have been warming up slightly over the last few months. A report on consumer prices this week showed an increase to 2.7% in November from 2.6% in October. The Fed's preferred measure of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures index, will be released next week. Wall Street expects it to show a 2.5% rise in November, up from 2.3% in October. The economy, though, remains solid heading into 2025 as consumers continue spending and employment remains healthy, said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY. “Still, the outlook is clouded by unusually high uncertainty surrounding regulatory, immigration, trade and tax policy,” he said. Treasury yields edged higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.39% from 4.34% late Thursday. European markets slipped. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 0.1%. Britain’s economy unexpectedly shrank by 0.1% month-on-month in October, following a 0.1% decline in September, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. Asian markets closed mostly lower.

UnitedHealth projects 2025 operating cash flow below estimates

IREN announces proposed convertible notes offering

B.C. NDP government, Greens reach 'shared priorities' agreementAll year long, TechCrunch covers startups, everything from unicorns to tiny seed-stage launches. We are, in many ways, the startup experts. To create this list, organized alphabetically, we looked back through our year’s worth of coverage for startups that stood out to us. They have fascinating new technologies, business models, or founder stories, or are pushing an industry forward in exciting ways. You’ll note that OpenAI , Anthropic , Mistral , and other big AI model makers and newsmakers (like Perplexity ), are not named on this list. While these companies are among the most disruptive of the year — and possibly of a lifetime — we focused on those startups that aren’t as well-known or highly watched. The following chart lists all the startups we covered. Scroll down to read more about each one. A-B Abridge HQ location: Pittsburgh Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $464 million Examples of VC backers: Union Square Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, IVP What the startup does: Uses AI to transcribe doctor-patient interactions and generates medical notes for electronic health records (EHR). Why it’s disruptive: While many companies are developing AI medical scribes, Abridge is one of the field’s leading and most highly valued players thanks in large part to the company’s integration with Epic, an EHR used by most large health systems in the U.S. Agility Robotics HQ location: Corvallis, Oregon Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $178 million Examples of VC backers: Playground Global, Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund, DCVC What the startup does: Makes humanoid robots Why it’s disruptive: Humanoid robots are still largely promises and pilots. Creating robots that walk, grasp, and carry objects of various sizes turns out to be a harder engineering problem to solve than to imagine. But Agility signed a formal deal in June with logistics giant GXO to supply robots-as-a-service to a Spanx factory. It also hired Peggy Johnson as CEO this year — she’s the former CEO of Magic Leap and an ex-executive at Microsoft and Qualcomm. Anysphere HQ location: San Francisco, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $60 million Examples of VC backers: Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI Startup Fund, Thrive Capital What the startup does: Develops an AI-powered coding assistant called Cursor. Why it’s disruptive: Lots of companies are making AI tools to help with coding (like Poolside and Magic on this list), but Cursor is for now the most popular and fastest growing among the bunch. Apex HQ location: Los Angeles, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $122 million Examples of VC backers: Andreessen Horowitz, Shield Capital What the startup does: Builds a line of off-the-shelf satellite buses Why it’s disruptive: Satellite bus manufacturing has been highly bespoke, with high prices and long lead times, until now. Apex’s line of off-the-shelf satellite buses — that is, the main body of the satellite that hosts power, wiring, chips, etc. — means that more companies can access space without having to worry about developing their own satellite bus in-house. The company had a successful first mission earlier this year and has since announced a $95 million capital raise and a deal with Anduril. Beta Technologies HQ location: South Burlington, Vermont Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $1.5 billion Examples of VC backers: Qatar Investment Authority, The Rise Fund, Fidelity Management & Research, The Climate Pledge What the startup does: Builds electric aircraft for carrying passengers, goods, medical equipment, etc. Offers charging equipment for electric aircraft and training programs for pilots. Why it’s disruptive: Beta Technologies has quietly grown its presence in the electric aircraft space, but it’s no less impressive for not making flashy announcements every month. The company not only has secured buyers for its electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) and conventional takeoff and landing (eCTOL) vehicles across logistics, air taxi, and the military, but it has also set up an eVTOL charging network that competitors pay to use. B-C ( back to top ) Black Forest Labs HQ Location: Freiburg, Germany Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $31 million Examples of VC backers: Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, and Stuttgart VC Mätch.vc; Nvidia’s Timo Aila, Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, Y Combinator’s Garry Tan What the startup does: Has an AI image generator Why it’s disruptive: While there are plenty of AI image generators, this one has an interesting pedigree and high-profile customer . Elon Musk’s xAI is using Black Forest’s Flux.1 text-to-image model to power image generation in its free-wheeling Grok chatbot. The founding team are the researchers who created Stability AI. Bloom Money HQ Location: London, England Funding to date (per PitchBook): $1.37 million Examples of VC backers: Angel investor June Angelides and January Ventures What the startup does: Bloom Money digitized the ROSCA system, which is a common savings method (albeit by various names) used by ethnic communities around the world that do not trust banking institutions, especially as they immigrate to the West. Why it’s disruptive: A “rotating savings and credit association” (ROSCA) is a group of people who save and borrow together. Bloom is a clever example of blending a cultural tradition with fintech technology. This app also offers resources that help immigrants learn more about building financial health in the U.K. By Rotation HQ Location: London, England Funding to date (per PitchBook): $3.5 million Examples of VC backers: Closed Loop Partners, June Angelides What the startup does: Fashion clothing rental business that also serves as a networking app Why it’s disruptive: By Rotation is bringing together a fashion community that the rental apps of yesteryear never quite did. With names like Helen Mirren and Ellie Goulding using it, it makes sustainability cool. By partnering with Airbnb to offer wedding rental clothes or with the non-alcoholic beverage line of Spencer Matthews from “Made in Chelsea,” By Rotation has become more than a business: It’s a lifestyle. Cdial HQ Location: Lagos, Nigeria Funding to date (per PitchBook): N/A Examples of VC backers: Google for Startups What the startup does: Makes a chatbox that can speak and understand nearly all African languages and dialects Why it’s disruptive: There are thousands of languages and dialects in Africa, and the mainstream language models, currently made mostly in the Western world, are not able to fully support or capture all their nuances. Cdial hails itself as the “world’s first multi-lingual voice-first large language model fine-tuned for African languages and context.” This type of innovation helps to ensure that the rest of the world — not just the Eurocentric one — has access to the foundational tools necessary for the AI revolution. Covariant HQ location: Berkeley, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $245.39 million Examples of VC backers: Radical Ventures, Index Ventures What the startup does: Builds an LLM model for production robots Why it’s disruptive: Normally it’s a bad sign when a startup’s founders leave. But in Covariant’s case, it signed a large agreement with Amazon to outfit warehouses when Amazon poached them — a tactic that’s been called a reverse acquihire. Covariant’s tech is helping warehouse robots work more intelligently. C-E ( back to top ) Cyera HQ location: New York, New York Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $760 million Examples of VC backers: Sequoia, Accel, Sapphire, Cyberstarts What the startup does: Uses AI to help organizations understand the location and movement of all the data in their networks. Why it’s disruptive: Cybersecurity and AI go hand in hand these days, and Israeli startup Cyera, with R&D in Tel Aviv, is one of the startups making a mark in the field . Its platform helps defend against new frontiers like the development of large language models. /dev/agents HQ location: San Francisco, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $56 million Examples of VC backers: Index Ventures, CapitalG What the startup does: Builds an operating system for AI agents Why it’s disruptive: /dev/agents founders argue that a dedicated operating system designed for AI agents could unlock their full potential, just as iOS and Android provided the foundation for the mobile app revolution. It helps, of course, that people who started this company were some of the original minds behind Android. ElevenLabs HQ location: New York, New York Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $103 million Examples of VC backers: Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross What the startup does: Generates synthetic voice narration and dubbing into other languages Why it’s disruptive: Although a number of companies are able to create synthetic voices, ElevenLabs stands out for its ability to clone the speech of specific humans. Emergence Location: New York, New York Funding raised to date (per TechCrunch): $97.2 million Examples of VC backers: Learn Capital What the startup does: AI agent knowledge workers Why it’s disruptive: Emergence claims to be building a system that can perform many of the tasks typically handled by knowledge workers , in part by routing these tasks to first- and third-party generative AI models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o. The startup’s founders include Satya Nitta, the former head of global AI solutions at IBM’s research organization. Etched Location: San Francisco, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $120 million Examples of VC backers: Two Sigma Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan, Kyle Vogt, Peter Thiel What the startup does: Makes a chip specifically designed to run AI models Why it’s disruptive: Only two years old, Etched was founded by a pair of Harvard dropouts who wanted to create a chip that could run only one type of AI model: transformers. That might sound like a risky venture. But transformers are the dominant type of AI model by far (at least for now), powering apps from OpenAI’s video generator Sora to Anthropic’s chatbot Claude. E-H ( back to top ) Exa HQ location: San Francisco Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $22 million Examples of VC backers: Lightspeed, Nvidia’s NVentures, Y Combinator What the startup does: Provides a search engine for AI apps Why it’s disruptive: While there’s no shortage of AI search engines for humans, Exa is building an internet search engine for the AI apps and agents themselves — who can’t just fire up Google and type. Ultimately, the team is trying to create the next Google, using AI to build better search. Fervo Energy HQ location: Houston, Texas Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $421.5 million Examples of VC backers: BHP Ventures, Bill Gates, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, DCVC, Masayoshi Son, Richard Branson What the startup does: Repurposes oil and gas drilling technologies to produce clean power Why it’s disruptive: Fervo Energy takes fracking techniques from the oil and gas sector and uses them to drill wells that harness geothermal power in more places for less money. Tech companies, which have seen their power demand soar as a result of AI, have taken note: Google’s data centers in Nevada are now partially powered by a 3.5-megawatt power plant that Fervo developed. The company raised $244 million this year to pursue a 2-gigawatt project in Utah consisting of around 320 wells. Drill, baby, drill. GPTZero HQ location: Princeton, New Jersey Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $13.5 million Examples of VC backers: Footwork, Reach Capital, Alt Capital, Uncork Capital What the startup does: Makes an LLM AI-generated detection app used by schools, journalists, other enterprises Why it’s disruptive: As humans turn to AI to do their writing and their videos and photo illustrations, the need to determine if something was AI generated, plagiarized , or created by a human is rising. GPTZero is leading the way for a tech solution to a tech-created problem. It launched out of Princeton and was profitable before raising a dime. Helsing Location: Munich, Germany Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $828.4 million Examples of VC backers: Daniel Ek, Saab AB, Accel, Lightspeed, Greenoaks What the startup does: Provides AI software to process defense system information from drones, other weapons Why it’s disruptive: Helsing has won deals with Airbus SE and defense ministries in Germany and Ukraine. While the U.S. has a growing cadre of powerful defense tech startups, few other European defense startups have managed to get to Helsing’s scale. Hermeus HQ location: Atlanta, Georgia Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $222.49 million Examples of VC backers: Founders Fund, In-Q-Tel, RTX Ventures What the startup does: Builds hypersonic aircraft for commercial and defense uses Why it’s disruptive: From 90 flights from New York to Paris, to high-speed military drones that are extremely difficult to intercept, the government is obsessed with hypersonic capabilities . Hermeus is a top startup in the area, breaking ground this year on a hypersonic testing facility in Jacksonville, Florida. I-L ( back to top ) Impulse Space HQ location: Redondo Beach, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $225 million Examples of VC backers: Founders Fund, Lux Capital, RTX Ventures What the startup does: Develops a line of orbital transfer vehicles for last-mile payload delivery and transfers to low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit, geosynchronous and beyond Why it’s disruptive: Impulse, founded by SpaceX’s former CTO of propulsion, is allowing companies to truly take advantage of the cost savings unlocked by cheap launch with its last-mile payload delivery. The startup is also opening up faraway orbits at cheaper prices with its GEO ride-share service. It landed major contracts with the Space Force and closed a $150 million funding round this year alone. Island HQ location: Dallas, Texas Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $550 million Examples of VC backers: Coatue, Sequoia Capital, Citi Ventures What the startup does: Creates a secure enterprise browser Why it’s disruptive: Island may be the most valuable startup you have never heard of, with a $3 billion valuation as of April. Island is showing the software world that even when a market seems completely owned by the biggest players (Google, Microsoft), a newcomer can come in with a new twist — enterprise-controlled security — and command investment and gain customers. Joco HQ location: New York, New York Funding raised to date (per TechCrunch): $7.5 million Examples of VC backers: Shock Ventures, Automotive Ventures, Columbia Business School’s Lang Fund What the startup does: Provides a network of docked e-bikes for last-mile delivery Why it’s disruptive: Joco almost died several times since launching in 2021. First when the NYC DOT sued it for stepping onto Citi Bike’s turf. Then when its erstwhile partners — quick-commerce startups like Jokr — perished. But through heads-down execution and customer obsession, Joco’s founders managed to turn Joco into a profitable business and expand into new verticals , like e-bike battery charging cabinets. KoBold Metals HQ location: Berkeley, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $895 million Examples of VC backers: Andreessen Horowitz, BHP Ventures, Bill Gates, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Equinor Ventures, Jeff Bezos What the startup does: Uses AI to find critical minerals for the energy transition Why it’s disruptive: Mining is a risky business. Companies spend millions looking for new ore deposits. KoBold uses AI to search for signs of critical minerals . The gamble appears to have paid off: The company announced this year that it had discovered one of the largest copper deposits of all time, and it has raised nearly $500 million to exploit it. Letta HQ location: Berkeley, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $10 million Examples of VC backers: Felicis, Jeff Dean, Clem Delangue What the startup does: Makes MemGPT, offers AI systems memory for LLMs Why it’s disruptive: MemGPT solves a pernicious problem for LLMs, which are stateless in their native form, meaning they don’t store historical data in long-term memory. The AI development world was so thirsty for a solution that the team’s open source project, MemGPT, went viral before it was even launched when someone shared their paper before their GitHub went live. M-P ( back to top ) Magic Location: San Francisco, California Funding raised to date (per Crunchbase): $465.1 million Examples of VC backers: CapitalG, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, Eric Schmidt What the startup does: Creates AI models to generate code and automate a range of software development tasks Why it’s disruptive: Lots of tools automate dev work, including GitHub Copilot. But one of Magic’s innovations lies in its models’ ultra-long context windows. The startup claims its latest model, LTM-2-mini, has a 100 million-token context window , meaning it can analyze up to around 10 million lines of code in one go. Moonvalley Location: Los Angeles, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $70 million Examples of VC backers: Y Combinator, Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures What the startup does: Builds a generative AI video generator Why it’s disruptive: Most generative AI companies train models on public data, some of which is invariably copyrighted. Moonvalley claims it’s one of the few using exclusively licensed data from creators who’ve “opted in.” The startup is training a series of video generators that it plans to release in the coming months, alongside tools aimed at brands and creative agencies. Nodal HQ location: New York, New York Funding raised to date (per company): $12.7 million Examples of VC backers: NFX, Liquid 2 Ventures, Amplo What the startup does: Connects prospective parents with vetted surrogates. Why it’s disruptive: Nodal is building a tech alternative to surrogacy matching agencies for prospective parents interested in having a child through a surrogate. It promises to be more transparent for prospective parents, faster, and less costly than going through an agency, it says. Oura HQ location: Oulu, Finland Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $776.15 million Examples of VC backers: Forerunner Ventures, Dexcom, Block, Marc Benioff What the startup does: Makes a health and fitness tracker ring Why it’s disruptive: Oura is proving that a lot of health tech can be fit into a ring. Last month, glucose device maker Dexcom invested $75 million, paving the way for the ring to eventually track blood sugar, in addition to the sleep and activity tracking it currently provides. It also this year acquired enterprise health-tracking startup Sparta Science, its third acquisition in two years. Pair Team HQ location: San Francisco, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $23 million Examples of VC backers: 8VC, 1984 Ventures, Kapor Capital What the startup does: Connects underserved communities to high-quality physical, mental, and social services Why it’s disruptive: Pair Team has cracked the code on helping local organizations better help underserved communities without spending more money out of their own pockets . Pair Team helps these organizations offer these resources covered by Medicaid. Pair Team is a truly novel and cost-effective approach to helping some of the most vulnerable populations. P ( back to top ) Physics Wallah HQ location: Noida, India Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $310 million VC backers: GSV Ventures, WestBridge Capital, Lightspeed What the startup does: Provides affordable learning courses Why it’s disruptive: In a year rocked by edtech setbacks globally, but especially in India, where we saw Byju’s erase much of the $22 billion in value it created in a decade, edtech startup Physics Wallah has continued to grow. It offers annual courses to high school students and those preparing for competitive entrance exams, for less than $50. It also raised a $210 million round this year, more than doubling its valuation at a time when its rivals are struggling to survive. Polymarket HQ location: New York, New York Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $111.20 million Examples of VC backers: Founders Fund, 1confirmation, Dragonfly What the startup does: Provides a prediction marketplace Why it’s disruptive: Polymarket blew up during the election, with almost $3.7 billion bet on the election between President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. The FBI has since raided the home of Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan and taken his electronic devices. But Coplan doesn’t seem to think that will halt his company’s momentum: “New phone, who dis?” Coplan tweeted shortly after the raid. Poolside HQ Location: Paris, France Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $626 million Examples of VC backers: Bain, Redpoint, SoftBank, In-Q-Tel, DST, eBay What the startup does: Makes an AI coding platform Why it’s disruptive: Poolside is part of the massive wave of AI development coming out of Paris. Having AI to assist in the writing and maintenance of code has emerged as a bubble within the bigger bubble of generative AI, with investors pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in. Poolside is among those getting a lot of attention (and money) because it picked up early traction with customers and it has impressive founders: The CEO is the former CTO of GitHub and the CTO is considered a genius in building developer tools. Profound HQ location: New York, New York Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $3.5 million Examples of VC backers: Khosla Ventures, Saga, South Park Commons What the startup does: Provides AI search analytics Why it’s disruptive: As AI becomes an increasing factor in what appears at the top of online search results, brands that have spent years perfecting their SEO strategy will have to adjust. Profound’s platform lets companies compare how they show up in traditional search versus AI search and why. Profound seems to have emerged from stealth at the right time to capitalize on this new market opportunity as the young company is already working with large branding agencies and companies like Indeed and MongoDB. PromiseBio HQ location: Tel Aviv, Israel Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $8.3 million Examples of VC backers: Awz Ventures What the startup does: Focuses on precision medicine for autoimmune diseases Why it’s disruptive: PromiseBio’s cloud-based AI platform can check proteins for more than 200 different post-translational modifications (PTMs) at once. The ability to check for these modifications at scale allows precision medicine in the treatment of autoimmune diseases for the first time. The company’s tech is doing for autoimmune diseases what CRISPR did for cancer treatment. R-S ( back to top ) Roon HQ location: New York, New York Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $22.5 million Examples of VC backers: Forerunner Ventures, Sequoia Capital, FirstMark Capital What the startup does: Creates a network of video-based Q&As by doctors on thousands of health issues Why it’s disruptive: High-quality, clinically accurate information on complex health conditions is often hard to find online. Roon aims to be the most detailed and reliable online medical content source for patients and caregivers; a new take on general searches (known as Dr. Google) or the health websites of yesterday like WebMD. Salva Health HQ location: Bogota, Colombia Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): N/A Examples of VC backers: ImpactAssets, NTT DATA Foundation What the startup does: Creates a portable device to detect breast cancer early Why it’s disruptive: Many people, especially in rural or developing nations, do not have access to expensive mammogram equipment for routine screenings. This small device can travel with a doctor. It measures tissue density and output results to a phone, tablet, or computer. Abnormal results can then be investigated further. Salva Health was the winner of the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 Battlefield . Saronic Technologies HQ location: Austin, Texas Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $245 million Examples of VC backers: 8VC, Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed Venture Partners What the startup does: Builds autonomous ships for defense purposes Why it’s disruptive: Saronic already has five prototypes for unmanned ships in development and raised a massive $175 million Series B this year, crowning it one of the newest defense tech unicorns. Sila HQ location: Alameda, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $1.31 billion Examples of VC backers: Sutter Hill Ventures, T. Rowe Price Group, Bessemer Venture Partners What the startup does: Produces next-generation battery chemistry Why it’s disruptive: Sila has found a way to replace the graphite in a lithium-ion battery’s anode with silicone, a material that can be produced anywhere rather than mined and processed in specific regions. And, more importantly, Sila has figured out the recipe to scale its battery chemistry. With its upcoming facility in Moses Lake, Washington, the company is getting close to putting its battery tech into over a million vehicles. Slice HQ location: Bengaluru, India Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $387 million VC backers: Tiger Global, Insight Partners, Blume Ventures What the startup does: Slice is a fintech bank. Why it’s disruptive: Slice, which initially offered a credit card-like product to consumers in India, recently merged with North East Small Finance Bank to become a bank. It’s the first and only Indian startup to become a bank. S-W Spawning HQ Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $3 million Examples of VC backers: True Ventures, Noise DAO, Abhay Parasnis What the startup does: Allows creators to opt out of the training datasets for several art-generating AI models Why it’s disruptive: Co-founders Jordan Meyer and Mathew Dryhurst are leading an effort to grant artists more control over how their art is used in the generative AI era with their Have I Been Trained? website. And their startup is behind Source.Plus, a project to curate “non-infringing” media for AI model training. Spoor HQ location: Oslo, Norway Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $6.59 million Examples of VC backers: Superorganism, Futurum Ventures, Farmhouse Capital What the startup does: Uses AI to track and detect birds at wind farms Why it’s disruptive: The global wind farm market is estimated to be worth $97 billion this year and is expected to keep growing. Local bird populations and aviation migration patterns play a big role in where wind farms can be built. Spoor’s tech can help speed up the process of scouting out new locations for wind farms , which helps bring more wind farms onto the grid with less harm to biodiversity. Tennibot HQ Location: Auburn, Alabama Funding to date (per PitchBook): Around $200,000 Examples of VC backers: 10x Venture Partners, Scott Dorsey What the startup does: Makes a robot that picks up tennis balls Why it’s disruptive: This product is a perfect example of technology addressing a pain point that not many people would have thought to fix. This machine is like a little tennis ball Roomba , relieving humans of a tedious task that is especially difficult in the heat. The company is also an example of the opportunity for more innovation and disruption in the world of consumer sports. Varda Space HQ location: El Segundo, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $146.02 million Examples of VC backers: Founders Fund, Lux Capital, Caffeinated Capital What the startup does: In-space pharmaceutical manufacturing Why it’s disruptive: There’s been promising research about the impact of zero-gravity environments on certain drug components, but it’s been near impossible to commercialize. Varda capitalizes on SpaceX’s and Rocket Lab’s low-cost ride-share launches to make the case that in-space pharmaceutical manufacturing can now be very, very lucrative. The company hit a major milestone earlier this year: It successfully formulated the HIV medicine ritonavir in space. Waabi HQ location: Toronto, Canada Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $282.71 million Examples of VC backers: Ikea, Khosla Ventures, Nvidia, Porsche Automobil Holding, G2 Venture Partners, Uber What the startup does: Develops a generative AI-powered autonomous trucking platform Why it’s disruptive: Founder Raquel Urtasun is an AI pioneer who previously served as chief scientist at Uber ATG before launching Waabi in 2021. Waabi’s generative AI promises to reason as a human would , meaning the system would need much less data and compute power to learn how to make decisions. Urtasun has also said this approach can be extrapolated to other autonomy use cases, like robotics. W-Z ( back to top ) Wayve HQ location: London, England Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $1.32 billion Examples of VC backers: Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank Group, Uber, Eclipse Ventures, Baillie Gifford What the startup does: Develops autonomous driving software Why it’s disruptive: Wayve is shaping up to be a Tesla challenger with its self-learning, rather than rules-based, approach to autonomous driving. Like Tesla, Wayve’s technology doesn’t rely on lidar sensors to view the world around it; it uses only cameras and radar. Unlike Tesla, Wayve intends to sell its AI to other automakers that want to onboard hands-off, eyes-off driving features. Wayve recently secured backing and a partnership with Uber that might see Wayve-powered self-driving vehicles on the Uber network. Whisper Aero HQ location: Crossville, Tennessee Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $41.04 million Examples of VC backers: Menlo Ventures, EVE Atlas, Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund What the startup does: Develops an ultra-quiet electric propulsor that can be scaled up to drones and aircraft and down to leaf blowers Why it’s disruptive: Technologies like drones and electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft will need to be quiet in order to scale into populated areas. Whisper’s answer is a super-quiet, clean electric propulsion system called WhisperDrive. The company has R&D partnerships with NASA and announced a deal with tool and hardware giant Stanley Black & Decker to bring the WhisperDrive tech to its products. Wiz HQ location: New York, New York Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $1.8 billion Examples of VC backers: Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Insight Partners What the startup does : The single unified platform handles all things cloud computing security. Why it’s disruptive: Wiz shocked the industry in July when it turned down a $23 billion acquisition offer from Google, months after it raised $1 billion at a $12 billion valuation, proving to other startups the power to say no . When its competitor Crowdstrike froze the world by pushing a faulty update that crashed Windows, Wiz’s decision to remain independent seemed to be validated. Xona Space Systems HQ location: San Mateo, California Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $42.02 million Examples of VC backers: Seraphim Space, Lockheed Martin Ventures, MaC Venture Capital What the startup does: Builds a satellite navigation system that is a more accurate alternative to GPS Why it’s disruptive: The next generation of technology will need more accurate navigation systems — this is true for commercial and civil/defense. The company raised a $19 million Series A this year ahead of the launch of its first production satellite next summer. Zap Energy HQ location: Everett, Washington Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $326.6 million Examples of VC backers: Addition, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Chevron, DCVC, Emerson Collective, Lowercarbon Capital, Shell Ventures What the startup does: Provides fusion power without magnets Why it’s disruptive: One of fusion power’s biggest challenges is confining superheated plasma long enough to generate power, and most companies use expensive magnets to accomplish the task. Zap is instead pursuing an approach known as sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch. The startup raised $130 million this year and built a prototype called Century, which sends a lightning bolt of electricity through a stream of plasma , which then generates its own magnetic field. At commercial scale, it should spark a fusion reaction powerful enough to produce power, something CEO Benj Conway said should happen in the early 2030s. Z ( back to top ) Zepto HQ location: Mumbai, India Funding raised to date (per PitchBook): $1.95 billion VC backers : Nexus, StepStone, Lightspeed, Avra, General Catalyst What the startup does: Operates an eponymous quick-commerce platform, delivering groceries to customers in multiple Indian cities in 10 minutes. Why it’s disruptive: Even as India already has two formidable food-delivery startups and multiple e-commerce and grocery firms, two Stanford dropouts proved that quick commerce can work in India and scaled it to more than $1 billion in annualized sales in just 29 months. They also raised more than $1.3 billion in 2024.

BEIRUT — Insurgents’ stunning march across Syria accelerated Saturday with news that they had reached the gates of the capital and that government forces had abandoned the central city of Homs. The government was forced to deny rumors that President Bashar Assad had fled the country. The loss of Homs is a potentially crippling blow for Assad. It stands at an important intersection between Damascus and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus — the Syrian leader’s base of support and home to a Russian strategic naval base. The pro-government Sham FM reported that government forces took positions outside Syria’s third-largest city, without elaborating. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Syrian troops and members of different security agencies have withdrawn from the city, adding that rebels have entered parts of it. The capture of Homs is a major victory for insurgents, who have already seized the cities of Aleppo and Hama , as well as large parts of the south, in a lightning offensive that began Nov. 27. Analysts said Homs falling into rebel hands would be a game-changer. The rebels’ moves around Damascus, reported by the monitor and a rebel commander, came after the Syrian army withdrew from much of southern part of the country, leaving more areas, including several provincial capitals, under the control of opposition fighters. For the first time in the country’s long-running civil war, the government now has control of only three of 14 provincial capitals: Damascus, Latakia and Tartus. The advances in the past week were among the largest in recent years by opposition factions, led by a group that has its origins in al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the United Nations. In their push to overthrow Assad’s government, the insurgents, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, have met little resistance from the Syrian army. The rapid rebel gains, coupled with the lack of support from Assad’s erstwhile allies, posed the most serious threat to his rule since the start of the war. The U.N.’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, on Saturday called for urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition.” Speaking to reporters at the annual Doha Forum in Qatar, he said the situation in Syria was changing by the minute. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose country is Assad’s chief international backer, said he feels “sorry for the Syrian people.” In Damascus, people rushed to stock up on supplies. Thousands went to Syria’s border with Lebanon, trying to leave the country. Many shops in the capital were shuttered, a resident told The Associated Press, and those still open ran out of staples such as sugar. Some were selling items at three times the normal price. “The situation is very strange. We are not used to that,” the resident said, insisting on anonymity, fearing retributions. “People are worried whether there will be a battle (in Damascus) or not.” It was the first time that opposition forces reached the outskirts of Damascus since 2018, when Syrian troops recaptured the area following a yearslong siege. The U.N. said it was moving noncritical staff outside the country as a precaution. Syria’s state media denied social media rumors that Assad left the country, saying he is performing his duties in Damascus. He has had little, if any, help from his allies. Russia, is busy with its war in Ukraine . Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of fighters to shore up Assad’s forces, has been weakened by a yearlong conflict with Israel. Iran has seen its proxies across the region degraded by regular Israeli airstrikes. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday posted on social media that that the United States should avoid engaging militarily in Syria. Pedersen said a date for talks in Geneva on the implementation a U.N. resolution, adopted in 2015, and calling for a Syrian-led political process, would be announced later. The resolution calls for the establishment of a transitional governing body, followed by the drafting of a new constitution and ending with U.N.-supervised elections. Later Saturday, foreign ministers and senior diplomats from eight key countries, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran, along with Pederson, gathered on the sidelines of the Doha Summit to discuss the situation in Syria. In a statement issued late Saturday, the participants affirmed their support for a political solution to the Syrian crisis “that would lead to the end of military activity and protect civilians.” They also agreed on the importance of strengthening international efforts to increase aid to the Syrian people. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said insurgents were in the Damascus suburbs of Maadamiyah, Jaramana and Daraya. Opposition fighters were marching toward the Damascus suburb of Harasta, he added. A commander with the insurgents, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, posted on the Telegram messaging app that opposition forces had begun the “final stage” of their offensive by encircling Damascus. HTS controls much of northwest Syria and in 2017 set up a “salvation government” to run day-to-day affairs in the region. In recent years, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani has sought to remake the group’s image, cutting ties with al-Qaida, ditching hard-line officials and vowing to embrace pluralism and religious tolerance. The shock offensive began Nov. 27, during which gunmen captured the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, and the central city of Hama , the country’s fourth largest city. Opposition activists said Saturday that a day earlier, insurgents entered Palmyra, which is home to invaluable archaeological sites had been in government hands since being taken from the Islamic State group in 2017. To the south, Syrian troops left much of the province of Quneitra including the main Baath City, activists said. Syrian Observatory said government troops have withdrawn from much of the two southern provinces. The Syrian army said in a statement that it carried out redeployment and repositioning in Sweida and Daraa after its checkpoints came under attack by “terrorists.” The army said it was setting up a “strong and coherent defensive and security belt in the area,” apparently to defend Damascus from the south. The Syrian government has referred to opposition gunmen as terrorists since conflict broke out in March 2011. The foreign ministers of Iran, Russia and Turkey, meeting in Qatar, called for an end to the hostilities. Turkey is a main backer of the rebels. Qatar’s top diplomat, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, criticized Assad for failing to take advantage of the lull in fighting in recent years to address the country’s underlying problems. “Assad didn’t seize this opportunity to start engaging and restoring his relationship with his people,” he said. Sheikh Mohammed said he was surprised by how quickly the rebels have advanced and said there is a real threat to Syria’s “territorial integrity.” He said the war could “damage and destroy what is left if there is no sense of urgency” to start a political process.Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Carry-On’ on Netflix, an Airport Thriller in Which Taron Egerton Plays Cat-and-Mouse With a TerroristBy Brendan Hesse on November 27, 2024 at 3:46PM PST GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links. We're in the thick of the Black Friday shopping season, with numerous big events happening online, including a site-wide sale at Best Buy. Best Buy's Black Friday sale is stacked with big price cuts to video games, TVs, PC gaming hardware, and other electronics. To help you find the best discounts, so we've combed through the listings and compiled our favorite deals into this handy guide. Check the links below to see all the be Black Friday deals at Best Buy. Best Buy Black Friday deals at a glance Gaming and VR deals TVs and Projector deals Laptop deals PC gaming deals Apple deals Headphone deals Soundbar and speaker deals Collectibles, toys, and TCG deals Once you've seen what Buy Buy has to offer, be sure to browse our roundups of the big Black Friday sales from other retailers like Target and Walmart . You can also check out GameSpot's Black Friday 2024 deals hub for the latest holiday online shopping bargains. PS5 players can upgrade their setup with several pieces of first-party hardware, such as Sony's new Pulse Explore Wireless Gaming Earbuds or the Pulse Elite Wireless Headset. You can also grab a fresh DualSense controller in numerous color options, many of which are up to $20 off. PS5 hardware and accessories PS5 DualSense Wireless Controllers -- $55-$60 ( $75-$80 ) PlayStation Pulse Explore Wireless Earbuds -- $170 ( $200 ) PlayStation Pulse Elite Wireless Headset -- $130 ( $150 ) If you want to expand your library for some winter gaming, Best Buy has deals on dozens of PS5 games. You'll find PS5 exclusives like Astro Bot, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, and Helldivers 2, along with third-party releases like Metaphor: ReFantazio, Tekken 8, and Unicorn Overlord. Check out all the PS5 game deals below. PS5 Exclusives Astro Bot -- $50 ( $60 ) Days Gone -- $20 ( $40 ) Death Stranding Director's Cut -- $20 ( $50 ) Demon's Souls -- $30 ( $70 ) Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth -- $40 ( $70 ) God of War: Ragnarok -- $30 ( $70 ) Gran Turismo 7 -- $30 ( $70 ) Helldivers 2 -- $30 ( $40 ) Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition -- $40 ( $60 ) Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales -- $20 ( $50 ) Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition -- $40 ( $70 ) Marvel's Spider-Man 2: Standard Edition -- $40 ( $70 ) Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart -- $30 ( $70 ) Returnal -- $30 ( $70 ) Rise of the Ronin -- $40 ( $70 ) Stellar Blade -- $50 ( $70 ) The Last of Us Part 1 -- $30 ( $70 ) The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered -- $40 ( $50 ) Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection -- $20 ( $50 ) Third-party PS5 games Assassin's Creed Valhalla -- $20 ( $40 ) Elden Ring -- $20 ( $60 ) Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Edition -- $60 ( $80 ) Jedi: Survivor -- $20 ( $70 ) Outer Wilds - Archaeologist Edition -- $20 ( $40 ) Silent Hill 2 remake -- $50 ( $70 ) Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth -- $25 ( $70 ) Metaphor: ReFantazio -- $50 ( $70 ) Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol.1 -- $20 ( $40 ) The Nioh Collection -- $20 ( $70 ) Persona 3 Reload: Standard Edition -- $25 ( $70 ) Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown -- $20 ( $40 ) Sand Land -- $20 ( $60 ) Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance Steelbook Edition -- $25 ( $60 ) Sonic Frontiers -- $20 ( $40 ) Tekken 8 -- $30 ( $50 ) Unicorn Overlord -- $30 ( $60 ) Hogwarts Legacy -- $25 ( $50 ) If you're considering buying an Xbox Series X|S console, Best Buy's console deals are worth checking out. You can grab multiple versions of the machine at a discount, including the new all-digital Xbox Series X for $400 (was $450) or the standard Xbox Series X with a disc drive for $449 (was $500). If you want to add an extra controller to you collection, multiple color options are on sale at just $40 each (normally $60 each). Xbox consoles and memory cards Xbox Series X All-Digital 1TB -- $400 ( $450 ) Xbox Series S 512GB -- $249 ( $300 ) Xbox Series X 1TB -- $449 ( $500 ) WD Black C50 Xbox Expansion Card 1TB -- $100 ( $150 ) Xbox Wireless Controllers Robot White -- $40 ( $60 ) Carbon Black -- $40 ( $60 ) Shock Blue -- $40 ( $60 ) Velocity Green -- $40 ( $60 ) Pulse Red -- $40 ( $60 ) Electric Volt -- $40 ( $60 ) Astral Purple -- $40 ( $60 ) Deep Pink -- $40 ( $60 ) Select Xbox Series X and cross-gen Xbox One games are on sale at Best Buy. These deals are the perfect chance to pick up first-party releases like Halo Infinite, the latest sports titles like Madden NFL 25 and NBA 2K25, or big third-party titles like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Alan Wake 2. Check the list below for more Xbox game deals. Alan Wake 2 Deluxe Edition -- $50 ( $80 ) Alone in the Dark -- $30 ( $60 ) Assassin's Creed Mirage -- $20 ( $40 ) Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora -- $20 ( $50 ) College Football 25 Standard Edition -- $40 ( $70 ) The Crew: Motorfest -- $25 ( $70 ) Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero -- $50 ( $70 ) EA Sports FC 25 Standard Edition -- $30 ( $70 ) Epic Mickey Rebrushed -- $40 ( $60 ) Halo Infinite -- $44 ( $60 ) Madden NFL 25 Standard Edition -- $30 ( $70 ) Mortal Kombat 1 -- $29 ( $50 ) NBA 2K25 Standard Edition -- $30 ( $70 ) Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown -- $20 ( $40 ) Skull and Bones - Limited Edition -- $15 ( $50 ) Sonic X Shadow Generations -- $30 ( $50 ) Star Wars Jedi: Survivor -- $20 ( $70 ) Tekken 8 -- $30 ( $50 ) Visions of Mana -- $45 ( $60 ) WWE 2K24 Standard Edition -- $25 ( $35 ) Select Nintendo hardware is on sale for Black Friday, including the Switch Pro controller, Neon Red and Blue Joy-Cons, and the official Breath of the Wild Switch Carrying Case. Best Buy was also offering discounts on the new Nintendo Switch and Switch OLED console bundles that come with Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and 12 months of Nintendo Switch Online, but they sold out online. Bundles may still be available in-store, but you can also find them at an even better price at Walmart. Nintendo Switch Controllers and Accessories Switch Pro Controller -- $50 ( $60 ) Neon Red And Blue Joy-Cons -- $60 ( $80 ) Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Switch Carrying Case and Screen Protector -- $15 ( $25 ) Switch Console Bundles Nintendo Switch OLED + Mario Kart 8 + 12 Month Nintendo Switch Online bundle -- Sold out online, in-store only Nintendo Switch + Mario Kart 8 + 12 Month Nintendo Switch Online bundle -- Sold out online, in-store only Nintendo first-party games rarely go on sale, but right now, you can pick up a batch of Nintendo Switch exclusives like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and more for as much as $50 off. Check out all the Nintendo Switch game deals below. Nintendo Switch games Animal Crossing: New Horizons -- $40 ( $60 ) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom -- $50 ( $70 ) Kirby and the Forgotten Land -- $40 ( $60 ) Nintendo Switch Sports -- $40 ( $50 ) Pikmin 1 + 2 -- $30 ( $50 ) Pikmin 4 -- $40 ( $60 ) Sea of Stars -- $25 ( $35 ) Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury -- $40 ( $60 ) Super Mario Maker 2 -- $40 ( $60 ) Super Mario Odyssey -- $30 ( $60 ) In addition to physical games, Best Buy has cut prices on a long list of digital Switch game codes. The discounts include several titles that aren't part of the physical game deals, including Sonic X Shadows Generations, Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, and more. While some of these prices match Nintendo's own eShop sale, buying from Best Buy gets you the full Nintendo Gold points credit, whereas the eShop's Gold points are reduced to match the discount. Astral Chain -- $42 ( $60 ) Bayonetta 3 -- $42 ( $60 ) Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon -- $42 ( $60 ) Bravely Default 2 -- $42 ( $60 ) Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer + Season Pass -- $28 ( $40 ) Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker Special Episode Bundle -- $32 ( $46 ) Cuphead -- $14 ( $20 ) Daemon X Machina -- $42 ( $60 ) Doom Eternal Deluxe Edition -- $17.50 ( $70 ) Dragon Quest 11 S: Echoes of an Elusive Age -- $35 ( $50 ) Dragon Quest Builders 2 -- $35 ( $50 ) Fire Emblem: Three Houses -- $42 ( $60 ) Fire Emblem: Three Houses + Expansion Pass -- $60 ( $85 ) GTA: The Trilogy Definitive Edition -- $30 ( $60 ) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom -- $50 ( $70 ) Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit Remastered -- $8 ( $40 ) Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville Complete Edition -- $8 ( $40 ) Persona 5 Royal -- $15 ( $60 ) Red Dead Redemption -- $35 ( $50 ) Sonic Mania -- $8 ( $20 ) Sonic Superstars - $18 ( $60 ) Sonic X Shadow Generations -- $37.49 ( $50 ) Super Mario Maker 2 -- $40 ( $60 ) Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble -- $25 ( $70 ) Unicorn Overlord -- $36 ( $60 ) Unravel Two -- $6 ( $20 ) Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus -- $6 ( $40 ) Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition -- $42 ( $60 ) Xenoblade Chronicles 2 + Expansion Pass -- $63 ( $90 ) Yoshi’s Crafted World -- $40 ( $60 ) Everyone loves getting Legos as a holiday gift, and right now, you can grab Lego sets from popular lines like Star Wars, Super Mario, and Technic Vehicles. Check out a few of our favorite Lego deals below, or browse all the discounted sets at Best Buy. Lego Animal Crossing Kapp'n's Island Boar Tour (233 pieces) -- $24 ( $30 ) Lego Icons Corvette Classic Car Model Building Kit (1,210 pieces) -- $105 ( $150 ) Lego Marvel Rocket & Baby Groot Figure (566 pieces) -- $48 ( $60 ) Lego Minecraft The Nether Portal Ambush (352 pieces) -- $31 ( $38 ) Lego Minecraft The Turtle Beach House (234 pieces) -- $22 ( $27 ) Lego Star Wars Ahsoka Tano's Duel on Peridea (382 pieces) -- $44 ( $55 ) Lego Star Wars Captain Rex Helmet (854 pieces) -- $56 ( $70 ) Lego Star Wars Clone Commander Cody Helmet (766 pieces) -- $49 ( $70 ) Lego Star Wars Mos Espa Podrace (718 pieces) -- $56 ( $80 ) Lego Star Wars Tantive IV (654 pieces) -- $56 ( $80 ) Lego Super Mario Bowser’s Muscle Car (458 pieces) -- $24 ( $30 ) Lego Technic Lamborghini Huracan Tecnic (806 pieces) -- $40 ( $50 ) Lego Technic Mack LR Electric Garbage Truck (503 pieces) -- $27 ( $33 ) Lego Technic NASA Mars Rover Perseverance (1132 pieces) -- $80 ( $100 ) PC gaming can be expensive, but Black Friday deals make it easier to get into the hobby. Best Buy has deals on gaming laptops and pre-built PCs. The laptop deals range from affordable entry-level models like the HP Victus for $430 (was $800), or high-end machines like the Alienware m16 R2 for $1,300 (was $1,900). For PCs, there are beefy rigs like the Alienware Aurora R16 gaming desktop for $2,500 (was $3,200), along with more approachable configurations like an iBuyPower PC with an Nvidia RTX 4060 and Intel Core i5 processor for $700 (was $950). HP Victus 15.6" Full HD Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 5-7535HS, 8GB DDR5 Memory, AMD Radeon RX 6550M, 512GB SSD -- $430 ( $800 ) Lenovo LOQ 15.6-inch Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 7 7435HS, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 8GB, 512GB SSD -- $700 ( $1,000 ) Asus TUF Gaming A16 16-inch 165Hz Gaming Laptop - AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS, 16GB RAM, Radeon RX7700S, 512GB PCIe SSD -- $700 ( $1,100 ) Alienware m16 R2 240Hz Gaming Laptop - Intel Core Ultra 7, 16GB Memory, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, 1TB SSD -- $1,300 ( $1,900 ) Gaming PCs Alienware - Aurora R16 Gaming Desktop - Intel Core i9-14900KF, 32GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, 2TB SSD -- $2,500 ( $3,200 ) iBuyPower - Scale Gaming Desktop PC - Intel Core i5 14400F, GeForce RTX 4060 8GB, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD -- $700 ( $950 ) HP OMEN - 35L Gaming Desktop - AMD Ryzen 7 8700G, 16GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, 1TB SSD -- $1,000 ( $1,500 ) Lenovo - Legion Tower 5i Gaming Desktop - Intel Core i7 14700F, 32GB RAM, GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER, 1TB SSD -- $1,500 ( $2,000 ) Whether you're looking to upgrade your existing PC gaming setup or you picked up one of the above desktop deals and need to complete the package with a display, Best Buy's Black Friday monitor deals are a great time to buy. You'll find models from brands like Samsung, LG, Asus, and more. Asus TUF Gaming 24-inch gaming monitor -- $100 ( $180 ) Asus ROG Strix 27-inch OLED gaming monitor -- $550 ( $730 ) LG UltraGear 45-inch OLED Curved gaming monitor -- $100 ( $1,700 ) Samsung Odyssey 27-inch gaming monitor -- $200 ( $350 ) Samsung Odyssey G51C 32-inch gaming monitor -- $200 ( $400 ) Handheld gaming quality has evolved dramatically in recent years, and thanks to Best Buy's Black Friday sale, you can check out the latest advancements--whether that's turning your smartphone into a cloud gaming handheld with the Backbone controller, or kitting yourself out with a high-end PC gaming portable like the Lenovo Legion Go or Asus ROG Ally X, all of which are discounted right now. Backbone Smartphone Controller USB-C White (PlayStation Version) -- $70 ( $100 ) USB-C Black (Xbox Version) -- $70 ( $100 ) Lenovo Legion Go - Z1 extreme 16GB chip, 1TB SSD -- $550 ( $750 ) Asus ROG Ally Asus ROG Ally Z1 chip, 512GB storage -- $450 ( $650 ) Asus ROG Ally Z1 Extreme 16GB chip, 1TB storage -- $450 ( $650 ) Asus ROG Ally X Z1 Extreme 24GB chip, 1TB storage -- $700 ( $800 ) While you'll find deals on first-party PS5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch controllers in the sections above, there's also a long list of third-party gamepads on sale at Best Buy, too. Some highlights include the excellent PDP Victrix Pro BFG modular controller for $160 (was $180) and the Scuf Envision Pro $150 (was $180). If you're looking for an affordable option that still offers excellent features and premium quality, be sure to check out the 8BitDo Ultimate wireless controller while it's on sale for $42.49 (was $50). 8BitDo Ultimate Wireless controller -- $42.49 ( $50 ) PDP Vicitrix Pro BFG -- $160 ( $180 ) Scuf Envision Pro -- $150 ( $180 ) PowerA Fusion Pro 3 -- $68 ( $80 ) Upgrading your gaming setup with a new headset is a great idea--not only are there numerous discounted models featuring excellent sound quality, but the built-in mics are perfect for multiplayer voice chat, or even as an entry-level choice for live streaming. One of the best deals is for the premium Arctis Nova Pro Wireless that's down to $280 (was $350), but you can pick up more affordable models like the Razer BlackShark V2 X for $35 (was $60). SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro wireless headset -- $280 ( $350 ) Razer BlackShark V2 X wireless headset -- $35 ( $60 ) Razer Kraken V3 Pro wireless headset -- $100 ( $200 ) Logitech Pro X 2 wireless headset -- $200 ( $250 ) Astro A10 Gen 2 wired headset -- $50 ( $60 ) It wouldn't be a Best Buy Black Friday sale without deals on TV, and this year has plenty of discounts on displays large and small from brands like LG, TCL, and Samsung. You'll also find a few price cuts to projectors, including the Epson EpiqVision Mini EF21 portable smart projector. Epson - EpiqVision Mini EF21 Portable Smart Laser Projector -- $600 ( $900 ) LG - 48" Class B4 Series OLED 4K UHD Smart webOS TV (2024) -- $600 ( $800 ) LG - 65" Class C4 Series OLED evo 4K UHD Smart webOS TV (2024) -- $1,500 ( $1,800 ) Samsung - 75” Class DU6950 Series Crystal UHD 4K Smart Tizen TV (2024) -- $550 ( $750 ) Samsung - 77” Class S84D Series 4K OLED Smart Tizen TV -- $1,600 ( $3,300 ) TCL - 55" Class F35-Series 4K UHD HDR LED Smart Fire TV (2024) -- $180 ( $330 ) If you're overhauling your home theater, you might as well upgrade your audio setup, too. Luckily, Best Buy has plenty of deals on headphones and soundbars right now--so whether you prefer a surround-sound experience or more isolated listening, you'll find plenty of options for sale. Sonos Ray Soundbar -- $169 ( $279 ) JBL 5.0ch Soundbar with Multibeam -- $200 ( $400 ) Samsung HW-C400/ZA 2.0 Channel C-Series Soundbar -- $90 ( $120 ) Samsung HW-Q600C 3.1.2 Channel Q-Series Soundbar -- $330 ( $600 ) Bose QuietComfort Ultra Wireless Noise Cancelling Over-Ear Headphones -- $329 ( $429 ) Sony WH1000XM4 Wireless Noise-Cancelling Over-Ear Headphones -- $200 ( $350 ) JBL Tune 235NC True Wireless Noise Cancelling In-Ear Earbuds -- $50 ( $100 ) Best Buy's Apple deals include everything from iPads and MacBooks to multiple AirPod and Beats Studio Pro headphone models, just to name a few. Check out the list below for some of our favorite Black Friday deals on Apple devices, or browse the full list of Apple deals at Best Buy. AirPods Pro 2 + 3 months free Apple Music -- $160 ( $250 ) AirPods Max (USB-C) -- $500 ( $550 ) MacBook Air 13-inch Laptop - M3 chip, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD -- $799 ( $1,000 ) MacBook Air 13-inch Laptop - M2 chip, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD -- $749 ( $1,000 ) 13-inch iPad Pro Wi-Fi - M4 chip, 256GB -- $1,100 ( $1,300 ) 10.9-Inch iPad (10th Generation) Wi-Fi - 64GB -- $279 ( $349 ) Best Buy's deals aren't just for electronics and media. The retailer also has discounts for popular trading card games, including Pokemon, Lorcana, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and more. Merch collectors should also take a moment to check out Best Buy's Black Friday discounts on figures, plushies, toys, and other collectibles. Upvote Leave Blank