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A new open AI platform from the nonprofit created by the late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen aims to make satellite imagery and other data about the earth more available and useful. The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2) on Tuesday unveiled the OlmoEarth Platform, backed by a family of AI foundation models trained on roughly 10 terabytes of data derived from millions of observations of the planet, including satellite images, radar readings, and existing maps of features like forest cover. The OlmoEarth models can then be fine-tuned for specific purposes, like detecting changes in vegetation, with the help of a companion software tool called OlmoEarth Studio. Details on model performance are included in a new scientific paper. Ai2 has already been working with a variety of organizations harnessing the AI, including groups looking to better assess and respond to wildfire risk. The International Food Policy Research Institute is using the technology to more frequently update maps of crops grown in one region of Kenya. Amazon Conservation is using the AI system to quickly spot deforestation. And a project called Global Mangrove Watch is harnessing the technology to more comprehensively track mangrove populations and quickly detect threats to those critical coastline trees. Patrick Beukema, lead researcher on Ai2s OlmoEarth team, says the project grew out of a realization that while AI can help put earth imagery and data to use by quickly analyzing both new and historic images, actually deploying the technology could be a challenge for many organizations, including government agencies and nonprofits doing important work. I think there’s a recognition that this kind of technology can be very valuable, but it’s so difficult to use, so we haven’t seen widespread adoption of these kinds of models, as we’ve seen, for example, within natural language processing or with [large-language models], he says. And we haven’t really seen the transformative power of artificial intelligence within this domain. State-of-the-artTo fill that gap, Ai2 created not only what Beukema calls state-of-the-art models, built using vision transformer technology similar to the large-language models that power tools like ChatGPT and Claude, but a set of companion tools making them practical to use. Those include OlmoEarth Studio, which simplifies the process of training the models for specific tasks by uploading human-labelled sample data showing relevant features like lands growing specific crops, areas of mangroves, or bits of forest vulnerable to wildfire. [Animation: Ai2]Once OlmoEarth models are fine-tuned, they can be used to analyze areas of the earth at a particular moment in time, selected as easily as finding a neighborhood on Google Maps and scheduling an event on a calendar app. They can just tell the system, ‘I want mangroves, I want them in Indonesia over the last six months,’ or ‘I want a global inference over the last four years,’ Beukema says. The idea is to build in that flexibility so that users can choose whatever they need. Then, users can publish or privately share maps illustrating their findings, which can be viewed in an OlmoEarth Viewer app that can support interactive maps with options to select places and time ranges. The Studio and Viewer tools can be used without the need to write any code, though Ai2 also released a suite of automation tools and APIs for easy programming of its technology. Providing the toolsThe organization also released documentation and examples on its GitHub page for the project, along with existing fine-tuned models that can immediately be put to use or even run offline on an organizations own computers. And OlmoEarth follows other recent software releases from Ai2, including a package of science-focused AI tools called Asta released in August, and a set of language models known as OLMo, for open language models. [Animation: Ai2]Overall, Beukema says, the goal with OlmoEarth is to give organizations free technology that compares favorably to existing commercial and academic AI projects, letting them efficiently analyze and visualize planetary data they often already deeply understand, even when they dont have the resources to build their own AI models from scratch. These people are often experts, so they know exactly what they’re looking for, he says. They just don’t necessarily have, or want to build, these complicated foundation models that are expensive to train, expensive to inference, expensive to really work with. [Animation: Ai2]Global Mangrove Watchwhich tracks those coastal trees that are environmentally important as fish habitats, carbon stores, and as barriers to erosion, storm surge, and even tsunamisis already working to improve its mapping and analysis processes with OlmoEarth. An existing machine learning and mapping system could already track mangroves with relatively high accuracy, but organizing training data and verifying the output still requires a lot of manual labor, says Lammert Hilarides, senior technical officer at Wetlands International, one of the organizations behind Global Mangrove Watch. A plan to scale upHilarides says OlmoEarth should allow the organizations to spend more time on other tasks, including working with governments and organizations around the world that are working to preserve mangroves and protect them from often-illegal deforestation. Critically, it will allow the project to update mangrove loss maps more quickly and let them cover a greater extent of the planet, catching disturbances to mangroves faster and more comprehensively. We really hope that as of next year, we can scale up our work from covering not just half the worlds mangroves but all of the worlds mangroves, he says. Ai2 plans to make OlmoEarth accessible to a wide range of organizations, with most features free for anyone to use, though a few features like fine-tuning elements will generally require groups to coordinate with Ai2 to make sure the product isnt used for harmful purposes. Beukema says the nonprofit institute encourages organizations that think the technology could be useful to be in contact. If you think this tech is going to help you accelerate your mission, please reach out, he says. We really want to help you.
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E-Commerce
The U.S. IPO market in 2025 has been relatively busy, with plenty of household names going public, including Klarna, eToro, and Chime. But as you can tell from that brief list, many of the most closely watched IPOs this year have been companies operating in the fintech space. In a change of pace, one company operating in the aerospace sector is expected to make its market debut today. Heres what you need to know about Beta Technologies and its initial public offering: What is Beta Technologies? Beta Technologies is an aerospace company that specializes in electric aircraft, electric charging systems, and electric propulsion systems. The company was founded in 2017 by pilot and engineer Kyle Clark, who is Beta’s current CEO. It is based in South Burlington, Vermont. As far as aircraft go, the company has developed two electric vehicles. The first is a conventional fixed-wing take-off and landing (CTOL) electric aircraft. This aircraft uses a conventional runway to take off and land. The second is a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) electric vehicle. This one uses rotating propellers to take off vertically. Both the CTOL and VTOL versions of the electric aircraft are known as the Alia. Beta says its Alia aircraft have now flown more than 83,000 nautical miles on trips across the United States. Last year, Beta Technologies was named as one of Fast Companys most innovative companies operating in the transportation space. At the time, Fast Company highlighted Beta’s flight milestones as well as its deliveries of its aircraft to the U.S. Department of Defense, with which the company has contracts. In its Form S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Beta Technologies highlighted the energy efficiency of its Alia CTOL vehicle. A flight into John F. Kennedy International Airport required just $7 in fuel costs. That represented an approximate 95% savings over combustion aircraft, the company says. As of the end of June, the company reported having 828 full-time employees. For the fiscal year that ended on December 31, 2024, Beta said it generated just over $15 million in revenue. For the six-month period ending on June 30, 2025, the company generated $15.5 million in revenue. When is Beta’s IPO? Beta Technologies announced the pricing of its shares on Monday. It plans to list its shares today (Tuesday, November 4) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). What is Beta’s stock ticker? Shares will trade under the stock ticker BETA. What is the IPO share price of Beta? The initial public offering price for Beta shares is $34 per share. That was above its marketed target range of $27 and $33 apiece. How many Beta shares are available in its IPO? Upon its IPO listing, Beta Technologies made roughly 30 million shares of its Class A common stock available, according to the company’s press release. How much will Beta Technologies raise in its IPO? Beta Technologies raised just over $1 billion in its IPO. How much is Beta Technologies worth? After its IPO, Beta Technologies has a potential valuation of $7.44 billion, according to Reuters. Beta is the latest aerospace startup to go public While the electric aerospace market is a relatively small one compared to other industries like technology or finance, a number of aerospace startups have gone public in the past few years, in some cases merging with special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. Electric aircraft companies that have gone public in recent years include Joby Aviation and Vertical Aerospace in 2021, Surf Air Mobility in 2023, and Firefly Aerospace in 2025.
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E-Commerce
Dick Cheney, the hard-charging conservative who became one of the most powerful and polarizing vice presidents in U.S. history and a leading advocate for the invasion of Iraq, has died at age 84.Cheney died Monday night due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, his family said in a statement.“For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States,” the statement said. “Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing. We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”The quietly forceful Cheney served father and son presidents, leading the armed forces as defense chief during the Persian Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush before returning to public life as vice president under Bush’s son George W. Bush.Cheney was, in effect, the chief operating officer of the younger Bush’s presidency. He had a hand, often a commanding one, in implementing decisions most important to the president and some of surpassing interest to himself all while living with decades of heart disease and, post-administration, a heart transplant. Cheney consistently defended the extraordinary tools of surveillance, detention and inquisition employed in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.Years after leaving office, he became a target of President Donald Trump, especially after his daughter Liz Cheney became the leading Republican critic and examiner of Trump’s desperate attempts to stay in power after his election defeat and his actions in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a television ad for his daughter. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”In a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, Dick Cheney said last year he was voting for their candidate, Kamala Harris, for president against Trump.A survivor of five heart attacks, Cheney long thought he was living on borrowed time and declared in 2013 he now awoke each morning “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day,” an odd image for a figure who always seemed to be manning the ramparts.His vice presidency defined by the age of terrorism, Cheney disclosed that he had had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off years earlier out of fear terrorists would remotely send his heart a fatal shock.In his time in office, no longer was the vice presidency merely a ceremonial afterthought. Instead, Cheney made it a network of back channels from which to influence policy on Iraq, terrorism, presidential powers, energy and other cornerstones of a conservative agenda.Fixed with a seemingly permanent half-smile detractors called it a smirk Cheney joked about his outsize reputation as a stealthy manipulator.“Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?” he asked. “It’s a nice way to operate, actually.” The Iraq War A hard-liner on Iraq who was increasingly isolated as other hawks left government, Cheney was proved wrong on point after point in the Iraq War, without ever losing the conviction that he was essentially right.He alleged links between the 2001 attacks against the United States and prewar Iraq that didn’t exist. He said U.S. troops would be welcomed as liberators; they weren’t.He declared the Iraqi insurgency in its last throes in May 2005, back when 1,661 U.S. service members had been killed, not even half the toll by war’s end.For admirers, he kept the faith in a shaky time, resolute even as the nation turned against the war and the leaders waging it.But well into Bush’s second term, Cheney’s clout waned, checked by courts or shifting political realities.Courts ruled against efforts he championed to broaden presidential authority and accord special harsh treatment to suspected terrorists. His hawkish positions on Iran and North Korea were not fully embraced by Bush.Cheney operated much of the time from undisclosed locations in the months after the 2001 attacks, kept apart from Bush to ensure one or the other would survive any follow-up assault on the country’s leadership.With Bush out of town on that fateful day, Cheney was a steady presence in the White House, at least until Secret Service agents lifted him off his feet and carried him away, in a scene the vice president later described to comical effect. Cheney’s relationship with Bush From the beginning, Cheney and Bush struck an odd bargain, unspoken but well understood. Shelving any ambitions he might have had to succeed Bush, Cheney was accorded power comparable in some ways to the presidency itself.That bargain largely held up.“He is constituted in a way to be the ultimate No. 2 guy,” Dave Gribbin, a friend who grew up with Cheney in Casper, Wyoming, and worked with him in Washington, once said. “He is congenitally discreet. He is remarkably loyal.”As Cheney put it: “I made the decision when I signed on with the president that the only agenda I would have would be his agenda, that I was not going to be like most vice presidents and that was angling, trying to figure out how I was going to be elected president when his term was over with.”His penchant for secrecy and backstage maneuvering had a price. He came to be seen as a thin-skinned Machiavelli orchestrating a bungled response to criticism of the Iraq War. And when he shot a hunting companion in the torso, neck and face with an errant shotgun blast in 2006, he and his coterie were slow to disclose that extraordinary turn of events.The vice president called it “one of the worst days of my life.” The victim, his friend Harry Whittington, recovered and quickly forgave him. Comedians were relentless about it for months. Whittington died in 2023.When Bush began his presidential quest, he sought help from Cheney, a Washington insider who had retreated to the oil business. Cheney led the team to find a vice presidential candidate.Bush decided the best choice was the man picked to help with the choosing.Together, the pair faced a protracted 2000 postelection battle before they could claim victory. A series of recounts and court challenges a tempest that brewed from Florida to the nation’s highest court left the nation in limbo for weeks.Cheney took charge of the presidential transition before victory was clear and helped give the administration a smooth launch despite the lost time. In office, disputes among departments vying for a bigger piece of Bush’s constrained budget came to his desk and often were settled there.On Capitol Hill, Cheney lobbied for the president’s programs in halls he had walked as a deeply conservative member of Congress and the No. 2 Republican House leader.Jokes abounded about how Cheney was the real No. 1 in town; Bush didn’t seem to min and cracked a few himself. But such comments became less apt later in Bush’s presidency as he clearly came into his own. Cheney’s political rise Politics first lured Dick Cheney to Washington in 1968, when he was a congressional fellow. He became a protégé of Rep. Donald Rumsfeld, R-Ill., serving under him in two agencies and in Gerald Ford’s White House before he was elevated to chief of staff, the youngest ever, at age 34.Cheney held the post for 14 months, then returned to Casper, where he had been raised, and ran for the state’s lone congressional seat.In that first race for the House, Cheney suffered a mild heart attack, prompting him to crack he was forming a group called “Cardiacs for Cheney.” He still managed a decisive victory and went on to win five more terms.In 1989, Cheney became defense secretary under the first President Bush and led the Pentagon during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War that drove Iraq’s troops from Kuwait. Between the two Bush administrations, Cheney led Dallas-based Halliburton Corp., a large engineering and construction company for the oil industry.Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, son of a longtime Agriculture Department worker. Senior class president and football co-captain in Casper, he went to Yale on a full scholarship for a year but left with failing grades.He moved back to Wyoming, eventually enrolled at the University of Wyoming and renewed a relationship with high school sweetheart Lynne Anne Vincent, marrying her in 1964. He is survived by his wife, by Liz and by a second daughter, Mary. Associated Press writer Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, contributed to this report. Calvin Woodward, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
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