Groq leads the race for energy-efficient AI infrastructure; SeafoodAI automates crab fishing for better traceability; and Google backs Charm Industrial’s biochar tech to advance carbon removal goals.

Groq, based in Silicon Valley, is gaining attention for its ultra-efficient AI chips designed specifically for inference. Unlike traditional GPUs, Groq's Language Processing Units (LPUs) are optimized for predictable, low-latency performance—making them ideal for real-time applications.

In April 2025, Groq partnered with Meta to power Llama 4 models on GroqCloud, offering developers faster and more efficient access to large language models. Their tech delivers impressive token-per-second speeds while using significantly less power, positioning Groq as a leader in the race for energy-efficient AI infrastructure.

SeafoodAI has developed CrabScan360, an AI-powered tool aimed at automating the labor-intensive tasks of measuring, sorting, and recording data on crabs in the fishing industry. The portable field version, released in April, allows fishers to scan each crab for size, weight, gender, and legal status, while the factory version (in development) fully automates sorting on a conveyor belt.

This technology improves efficiency, reduces waste, and provides a digital record of each crab, aiding traceability and sustainability. SeafoodAI plans to expand its system to other seafood markets like tuna, salmon, and shrimp.

Google recently partnered with carbon removal startup Charm Industrial to purchase credits for the removal of 100,000 tons of CO2 using biochar by 2030. This deal marks Google's first foray into using biochar, a carbon-sequestering product created through pyrolysis, which decomposes biomass like wood and food scraps without oxygen.

Charm, which previously focused on bio-oil sequestration, now offers both bio-oil and biochar as part of its carbon removal strategy. This marks Google's second deal with Charm, following a similar arrangement for bio-oil.

Previously: Tech Updates: Nokia Brings 200 Tech Jobs to San Jose With Sustainable Chip Plant

Image: MF3d/Getty Images

Bay Area companies are leading the charge in sustainable tech: Nokia expands its semiconductor hub to San Jose; Lightmatter unveils an energy-efficient AI processor; Savor Foods introduces carbon-based butter; and Longshot Space develops a low-cost, cargo space launch system.

Nokia is expanding in the semiconductor market with a new photonic chip production hub in San Jose, creating up to 200 tech jobs. The facility, which is part of Nokia's strategy after acquiring Infinera, aims to meet the growing demands of AI while reducing environmental impact.

Photonic chips use light instead of electrical signals, producing less heat than traditional chips. This improves energy efficiency and reduces the need for expensive cooling systems, lowering data center carbon footprints. By advancing photonic semiconductors, Nokia is driving innovation in sustainable, high-performance computing.

The expansion is supported by $40 million in federal funding from the CHIPS and Science legislation. The project will also create construction jobs as the building gets renovated.

On a related note, Silicon Valley startup Lightmatter has unveiled a new AI processor that uses light, rather than electricity, to perform computations — a promising step toward energy-efficient processing. The chip, called Passage M1000, was developed in partnership with GlobalFoundries and is designed to reduce the energy demands of complex machine learning tasks by generating less heat and requiring less cooling.

While early results suggest potential efficiency gains, widespread impact could take years as the technology matures and scales. Still, Lightmatter’s approach reflects growing momentum toward more sustainable AI infrastructure.

San Jose-based startup Savor Foods, backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, has launched a sustainable butter made entirely from carbon — no animal or plant-based oils included. Using captured carbon dioxide and hydrogen from water, Savor produces fat molecules chemically identical to those found in milk, meat, and vegetable oils.

The butter alternative is already turning heads in top bakeries and Michelin-starred restaurants and aims to replace high-impact fats like palm oil in packaged foods. With FDA self-affirmation in place, Savor plans to scale production at its new Illinois facility and is working with major food companies to co-develop customizable ingredients.

The process uses a fraction of the water and land of traditional agriculture and releases no greenhouse gases—marking a major step toward a more sustainable global food system.

Longshot Space is rethinking how we send cargo to space — not with rockets, but with a giant gas-powered launch system. The startup recently raised over $5 million to build a 500-meter prototype in the Nevada desert.

Designed for rugged, non-fragile payloads that can withstand extreme acceleration, the system isn’t suitable for people or sensitive equipment. But for the right use cases, it could offer a lower-cost, lower-emissions alternative to traditional launches.

Instead of burning rocket fuel, Longshot uses compressed gas to push payloads to hypersonic speeds. If successful at scale, the company says it could reduce launch costs to $10 per kilogram — a major drop from the $6,000 charged by SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

Longshot isn’t aiming to replace rockets but to carve out a niche in fast, cost-effective, and potentially more sustainable cargo launches. Backed by the U.S. Department of Defense, the team is awaiting FAA approval to begin construction.

Image: US Department of Energy/Raw Pixel

A man who stored his computers in his garage is now without the devices, after a thief broke into his residence to steal the items.

Police say that the incident happened at some point between 11 p.m. on July 4 and 8 a.m. on July 5, on the 2100 block of 35th Avenue, which is between Quintara and Rivera Streets.

According to the San Francisco Police Department, the 52-year-old male victim had several computers stored in the garage of his residence. But after a thief broke into the victim's vehicle, which was parked outside, it was open season on the home: The victim had apparently left his automatic garage door opener in the vehicle, making it a snap for the wrongdoer to push a button and enter the garage.

Once inside the residence, police say that the suspect stole multiple computers the victim had stored in the garage.

Police did not have any information on any possible suspects, and confirmed that no arrests have been made in the case.

The SFPD, including their Taraval Station (the area in which the current crime occurred) has warned area residents for years not to keep their automatic garage door openers in their cars. In a blog post entitled "Crime Prevention Tips - Garage Safety" from 2015, the Taraval Station offered the following suggestions (more can be read here):

Don’t leave the garage door remote in your vehicle. If a thief breaks in to your car and steals the remote, then the thief has a way into your home.

Invest in a keychain remote opener.

Install a wireless keypad. Whether you’re locked out of the house, or you just want to get into the garage without going inside or hunting for a remote, a wireless keypad is a great addition. Inexpensive and easy to install, you just program the keypad with your code. Then, just lift the cover and enter the code for the door to open.

Turn off the power. Without electricity, your garage door opener won’t work. At night, or when you are out of town, you can easily cut the power by unplugging the opener or, if your opener is wired to a wall switch, flipping the switch

For Father's Day, new poppa Kanye West received a cool geek gift that would make any Mac zealot envious: a pair of old Apple mice autographed by co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve "Woz" Wozniak. The noted crooner, who once compared himself to Jobs (as well as God, Anna Wintour, Picasso, and Maya Angelo, just to name a few), had the prized mice gifted to him by his female counterpart, Kim Kardashian.

Delightful.

If you, like Mr West, seek vintage Apple products signed by Woz, check out signedbywoz.com.

[Gizmodo]

Our friends at Deeper Understanding have just put together another surreal edit of a piece of VHS tutorial history, this time a kids' educational video about how computers work from the early 90s. It includes a visit to Intel, some weird Blue Man Group rejects in white jump suits putting 1's and 0's into boxes, and some kind of warp portal that allows a young boy to travel to various dungeons around town, and inside a computer.

Previously: Afternoon Palate Cleanser: Deeper Understanding

Behold the Apple I, built in 1976 by college dropouts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The highly coveted computer is being put up for auction by Ted Perry, a retired school psychologist who owns the old (and still working!) Apple. He has kept it stored away in a cardboard box at his home just outside Sacramento.

Perry exchanged some of equipment for the second-hand Apple 1 in either 1979 or 1980, using it at the time to help special needs children who responded well to the "teletype machine."

"The 11-by-14 green piece of plastic covered with a copper-colored labyrinth of memory chips was one of the first 25 such computer elements, and sold for $666.66," notes AP. "About 200 were made but most have disappeared or been discarded. Various estimates put the number known to still exist from about 30 to 50. They came with eight kilobytes of memory — a million times less than the average computer today."

The computer is expected to fetch at least $500K at Christie's "First Bytes: Iconic Technology from the Twentieth Century" auction happening online only from June 24 to July 9. Last month, if you recall, an Apple 1 sold for around $671,400 at auction in Germany. The starting bid, according to Mercury News, comes in at a whopping $300,000.

Below, the Apple 1 (that sold in Germany) in action. Marvel at its open circuitry and dramatic illustration of Woz!

[AP]
[Mercury News]

Way before Instagram, before Yelp, before Prodigy, and even before your local BBS (Waveline 4 life!), there was the Community Memory Terminal. Gorgeous, isn't it? You can almost picture Dave Eggers and his kind trying to make it happen again. Alas, it won't for it is far too fetch. Nevertheless, this pre-Facebook public database is fascinating.

Wired has the details:

In the early 1970s, Efrem Lipkin, Mark Szpakowski and Lee Felsenstein set up a series of these terminals around San Francisco and Berkeley, providing access to an electronic bulletin board housed by a XDS-940 mainframe computer.

This started out as a social experiment to see if people would be willing to share via computer -- a kind of "information flea market," a "communication system which allows people to make contact with each other on the basis of mutually expressed interest," according to a brochure from the time.

What evolved was a proto-Facebook-Twitter-Yelp-Craigslist-esque database filled with searchable roommate-wanted and for-sale items ads, restaurant recommendations, and, well, status updates, complete with graphics and social commentary.

"This was really one of the very first attempts to give access to computers to ordinary people," says Marc Weber, the founding curator of the Internet History Program at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

We can only imagine what it was like to use such a clunky thing of beauty. As Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow reminisces, "I wrote half an unsuccessful novel about this thing when I was about 25, and it's never stopped haunting me."

While Apple continues to price gouge people working on their Pintrest pages at cafes — if we may generalize sweepingly, no one using a MacBook at a coffee shop neither can nor should be taken too seriously — Google hammers down prices, even for the most casual of user. First, Google and Samsung joined forced again to unveil a $249 Chromebook (which we still cannot find anywhere, proving its popularity). Now today, the Mountain View-based company teams up with Acer to announce the C7 Chromebook for a mere $199.

Which: that's cheap. Very cheap. The Acer C7 Chromebook boasts an 11.6-inch display as well as an Intel Core processor and a 320 GB hard drive. Google has more details:

The new Acer C7 Chromebook delivers a hassle-free computing experience with speed, built-in security and the simplicity of automatic updates. It features a full-size keyboard, fully clickable trackpad, an extra bright 11.6-inch display and over 3.5 hours of battery life. Powered by an Intel Core processor, the Acer Chromebook is fast—boots up in 18 seconds, resumes instantly and high-definition videos play smoothly (yes, videos like Gangnam Style in 1080p, in case you’re one of the few left who hasn’t seen it). You can easily store your stuff on the Chromebook or in the cloud, with a 320GB hard drive and 100GB of free storage on Google Drive.

TechCrunch gives their thoughts along with some further specs:

The computer is also slightly bulkier than its $250 sibling, at 1 inch thick and weighing 3 lbs, compared to just 0.7-inches and 2.4 lbs for the Samsung. As for ports, it has HDMI and VGA out, along with three USB 2.0 ports (no high speed here), an audio/input 3.5 mm jack and an Ethernet port for wired networking. It has dual band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi for wireless connectivity, and an HD camera for video communications.

While not as exciting or game-changing as anything Apple bombastically reveals biannually, it is a great move toward affordable or disposable, if you will, technology. The C7 Chromebook will go n sale tomorrow on Google Play and Best Buy's website.

[TechCrunch]

Our sister site LAist reports that the computer system at the Department of Motor Vehicles is down today. "Right now a "glitch" has knocked down their computer system state-wide, leading to a blanket outage at all field offices," they note.

The DMV reported at outage at around 9 a.m.

DMV is currently experiencing technical difficulties that may affect customer transactions. We appreciate your patience.

— CA DMV (@CA_DMV) August 14, 2012

And it looks like the notorious hellacious line at the San Francisco DMV is, as expected, even longer than usual.

@kqednews Long line at San Francisco DMV after reported network connectivity issues twitter.com/durribee/statu…

— Durrie Lawrence (@durribee) August 14, 2012

Wired Gadget Lab’s senior writer Mat Honan's digital life was hacked last week. In addition to a detailed article on Monday, he also gave a rather jarring interview about what happened and the entire thing comes off like an episode of I Survived (though not nearly as bad because, oh my god, that show is utterly terrifying and beyond lurid). Describing himself as "intimately tied to his devices," he's now paranoid about his daily online use. Understandably so.

Honan also goes into detail about his online communications with the person who took control of his Amazon account, AppleID, and GMail, asking them if they felt any remorse for what they had done. (Spoiler: they do!) In the end, Honan's simple advice is to back up your stuff and sign up for two-factor authentication on Google.

[Wired]

BAYCAT, educators and job-finders for underserved youth in the digital media arts, is a local profit notorious for doing damn good work. On Thursday, July 12th, their space in Dog Patch robbed. All of the student laptops were stolen. But wait, it gets worse. "Beyond the cost of equipment, which is substantial for a relatively small nonprofit like us, the most devastating loss was five weeks of students' work, including completed comic books, first cuts of short films, and other projects that cannot be replaced," said Villy Wang, BAYCAT founder and CEO.

With all the laptops now missing, they don’t have enough computers to continue their program In order to replace the stolen laptops and equip the talented kids with all of the tuff necessary for classes, BAYCAT needs to raise $50,000 in 50 days so their students can continue to create award-winning short films. Please -- please! -- go here to learn more about their fundraising effort, The Show Must Go On. If you can't spare a cent, send it to someone who can? (Also, we know very well that a lot of well-to-do tech types and generous socialites read SFist, so, you know, come on, help these kids out. Thank you.)

Video below: heartbreaking scene of BAYCAT after the robbery, testimony from students and teachers.