AI-powered image generators, which are at the center of a number of copyright lawsuits against AI companies, are frequently trained on massive amounts of data from public websites. Most of these companies argue that fair use doctrine shields their data scraping and training practices. But many copyright holders disagree. That’s why some startups and firms developing image … Read more
Telegram’s self-custodial crypto wallet, developed by a third-party company called The Open Platform (TOP), has introduced new features for people who don’t just use Telegram as a messaging app. The updates include multi-asset trading and yield functionalities. Based on the TON blockchain, TOP launched the wallet in 2023. The company reported that over 100 million … Read more
Amidst geopolitical tensions and volatile markets, the question of Europe’s ability to weather the storms ahead, especially as President Trump seems intent on having his pound of tariffs from the continent, is looming large. But an extensive new report claims deeptech is poised to become a key pillar of Europe’s security, defense, and future autonomy, … Read more
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi said on Thursday that its Android smartphones sold in India will come preinstalled with Indian fintech company PhonePe’s app store. Xiaomi’s Android smartphones usually come preinstalled with Google’s Play Store and the Chinese company’s own GetApps. Xiaomi said that it has signed a multi-year deal with PhonePe to replace GetApps with … Read more
A huge chunk of online traffic now comes from bots, both good and bad — but AI is boosting the latter. From DDoS attacks to scraping, there’s a renewed barrage of threats that companies have to deal with. According to cybersecurity entrepreneur Nikita Rozenberg, the impact is more severe for SMBs. “The main difference is … Read more
Over the last 15 years or so, as European venture capital shifted into a higher gear, one way to help a nation’s ecosystem flourish was to invest in founders from that country, regardless of where they were based. This would help re-patriate the entrepreneurial mindset back home. In Europe, the approach was pioneered in part … Read more
Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber, made it clear on Wednesday: he believes the company’s decision to abandon its autonomous driving program was a mistake. Said Kalanick at the Abundance Summit in L.A., “Look, [new management] killed the autonomous car project we had going on. At the time, we were really only behind Waymo … Read more
Semiconductor giant Intel hired semiconductor veteran Lip-Bu Tan to be its new CEO. This news comes three months after Pat Gelsinger retired and stepped down from the company’s board, with Intel CFO David Zinsner and executive vice president of client relations Michelle Johnston Holthaus stepping in as co-CEOs. Tan, who was most recently the CEO … Read more
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is worried about spies getting their hands on costly “algorithmic secrets” from the U.S.’ top AI companies. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Intel has appointed Lip-Bu Tan, a major figure in the semiconductor industry, as CEO, the company announced late Wednesday. Tan succeeds interim co-CEOs David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus. He’ll also rejoin the Intel board of directors after stepping down from the board in August 2024, Intel said. Zinsner will remain Intel’s CFO, while Johnston … Read more
Food delivery startup Wonder is acquiring media company Tastemade for around $90 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. Founded in 2021, Tastemade produces food, travel, and home videos and operates several free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channels. The acquisition gives Wonder access to a content studio, production company, and advertising business. Wonder will leverage … Read more
The accounts were frozen in February, but documents filed today make public details which had previously been unknown. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
GTC, Nvidia’s biggest conference of the year, will return starting Monday in San Jose. If you can’t make it in person, don’t sweat it. TechCrunch will be on the ground covering the major developments. Many of the biggest presentations, talks, and panels will be livestreamed, as well. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is scheduled to deliver … Read more
GTC, Nvidia’s biggest conference of the year, begins Monday and runs till Friday in San Jose. TechCrunch will be on the ground covering the news as it happens — and we’re expecting a healthy dose of announcements. CEO Jensen Huang will give a keynote address at the SAP Center on Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific, … Read more
Google DeepMind, Google’s AI research lab, on Wednesday announced new AI models called Gemini Robotics designed to enable real-world machines to interact with objects, navigate environments, and more. DeepMind published a series of demo videos showing robots equipped with Gemini Robotics folding paper, putting a pair of glasses into a case, and other tasks in … Read more
Manus, the viral AI “agent” platform from Chinese startup Butterfly Effect, has had an unintended side effect: raising the profile of another AI tool called Browser Use. Browser Use, which aims to make websites more accessible for agentic applications that perform tasks on a user’s behalf, has experienced explosive growth in the past week. Daily … Read more
A U.K. competition authority investigation of Apple and Google’s mobile browsers has concluded that the mobile duopoly’s policies are “holding back innovation” and could also be limiting economic growth. “Mobile browsers are apps which provide the primary gateway for consumers to access the web on their mobile devices, and hence for businesses to reach them … Read more
Since Donald Trump Jr. joined VC firm 1789 Capital after his father won the election, he’s been busy monetizing the Make America Great Again (MAGA) ecosystem. He’s been making bets in media, pharmaceutical, guns, and crypto while pushing against environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), the Financial Times reported. The … Read more
Back in 2010, Rackspace and NASA launched a project called OpenStack, which was meant to become an open-source option for running an AWS-style cloud inside of private data centers. The two companies then moved OpenStack to the OpenStack Foundation, which has steadfastly shepherded the project through its many ups and downs. Right now, with the … Read more
Back in 2019, Microsoft open-sourced Dapr, a new runtime for making building distributed microservice-based applications easier. At the time, nobody was talking about AI agents yet, but as it turns out, Dapr had some of the fundamental building blocks for supporting AI agents built-in from the outset. That’s because one of Dapr’s core features is … Read more
Japanese startup Sakana said that its AI generated the first peer-reviewed scientific publication. But while the claim isn’t untrue, there are significant caveats to note. The debate swirling around AI and its role in the scientific process grows fiercer by the day. Many researchers don’t believe AI is quite ready to serve as a “co-scientist,” … Read more
Los Angeles-based startup Moonvalley has launched an AI video-generating model it claims is one of the few trained on openly licensed — not copyrighted — data. Named “Marey” after cinema trailblazer Étienne-Jules Marey, the model was built in collaboration with Asteria, a newer AI animation studio. Marey was trained on “owned or fully licensed” source … Read more
Snapchat is introducing its first ever video generative AI Lenses, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The Lenses are powered by Snap’s in-house built generative video model. The three new AI Video Lenses are available to users on the app’s premium subscription tier, Snapchat Platinum, which costs $15.99 per month. The launch comes as Snap unveiled an … Read more
Garantex co-founder Aleksej Besciokov was arrested in India’s Kerala on Tuesday under the country’s extradition law. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Enterprises have troves of internal data and information that employees need to complete their tasks or answer questions for potential customers. But that doesn’t mean the right information is easy to find. Onyx wants to solve that problem through its internal enterprise search tool. There are other big names in the category, like Glean — … Read more
Google is replacing lead-acid battery backup units with lithium-ion cells, freeing up space for more servers. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
A recurring theme in Europe’s tech world is that the region needs its own Google or Microsoft, and that in this day and age, to be more resilient and independent, it should, could and must build it. Now comes the launch of a new fund to support this initiative. Project Europe — a new fund … Read more
Though the Swedish startup has raised over $14 billion, it has been running short on cash recently. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
La Fourche is just seven years old but it has been quite a rollercoaster for the French startup. During this time, the online grocery retailer has gone through a global pandemic, followed by the rise of venture-backed quick-commerce startups that promised grocery deliveries in less than 15 minutes, followed by the implosion of that vertical. … Read more
Strong and smart security operations teams are at the heart of any cybersecurity strategy, and today a startup that builds tooling to help keep them on their toes is announcing some funding on the back of a lot of growth. Pentera — which has built a system that launches simulations of network attacks to stress … Read more