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E-Bike Market Grows Nearly 160%, Anticipates $68B Value

Plus, facial recognition helps nab a criminal after 15 years on the run, NASA tests 3D printing with moon dust at the International Space Station and Periscope Holdings is acquired for more than $200 million.

person riding a Bird e-bike
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157%


That’s how much the global e-bike market has grown year over year according to data from research firm Facts and Factors. The report also anticipates the market will be worth nearly $68 billion by 2026. The news came as micromobility company Bird began selling its e-bikes direct to consumers for $2,300 each.
Source: Fast Company

Moon Dust



A NASA resupply mission to the International Space Station this summer included some new equipment that could potentially make creating habitats on the moon or Mars a bit easier. The plan is for the Redwire Regolith Print project to work together with an existing 3D printer to make simulated regolith, or loose soil. The space station crew will then evaluate whether the material can withstand conditions outside Earth’s atmosphere. If the idea works, in the future NASA may need to send fewer construction supplies to build structures on other planets.
Source: Engadget

$207M


Periscope Holdings, which uses AI solutions to help connect appropriate vendors to state and local government, was acquired in August for $207 million by mdf commerce, a procurement and supply chain tech company with a wide range of customers in both the public and private sectors. Periscope was notably behind Oregon’s statewide procurement marketplace that launched in 2020. Mdf is a publicly traded global firm that took in $85 million in revenue last year. The deal is anticipated to be finalized in fiscal year 2022.
Source: GovTech.com

Manhunt


In August, after 15 years on the run, a man was sentenced to four years in prison for scamming more than 20 people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the Justice Department. What finally brought his evasion to an end? Facial recognition. American Randy Levine, of Boca Raton, Fla., was picked up by a facial recognition system in Austria, where he tried to use an alias to open a bank account using a Mexican passport.
Source: The Verge
Lauren Kinkade is the managing editor for Government Technology magazine. She has a degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and more than 15 years’ experience in book and magazine publishing.