Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati has announced her new startup. Unsurprisingly, it’s focused on AI. Called Thinking Machines Lab, the startup, which came out of stealth today, intends to build tooling to “make AI work for [people’s] unique needs and goals,” and to create AI systems that are “more widely understood, customizable, and generally capable” … Read more
The VC firm has $90 billion in assets under management and invested in several unicorn cybersecurity startups © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week we’re looking at some big valuation jumps, how Stripe is eyeing another shareholder sale, a colorful conversation with an early-stage VC, and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here. The big … Read more
Gig marketplace Fiverr wants to let freelancers train AI on their bodies of work and use it to automate future jobs. At an event on Tuesday, Fiverr announced the launch of several new efforts aimed at attracting gig workers to its platform and equipping them with generative AI tools. Perhaps the most ambitious is a … Read more
Facebook announced on Tuesday that live videos will now only be stored on the social network for 30 days, after which they will be deleted. Previously, these videos were stored indefinitely. The change goes into effect on Wednesday. All live videos that are currently older than 30 days will be removed from the platform as … Read more
Amazon is shutting down “Inspire,” its TikTok-like, short-form video and photo feed that was previously available in its mobile app. The feed allowed users to discover products and shop from content created by influencers, brands, and other customers. A company spokesperson confirmed the move to TechCrunch, saying “We regularly evaluate various features to better align … Read more
To fend off future hostile takeover attempts, OpenAI is considering giving its non-profit board special voting rights, according to a new report in the Financial Times. The rights would allow the board to overrule major investors in the company, preserving some of its powers after OpenAI completes its transition to a for-profit. OpenAI was founded … Read more
Researchers found that PirateFI was never designed to be a real game, but a vehicle to infect gamers with malware and steal their passwords with an infostealer called Vidar. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Meet the DOGE staffers and senior advisors in Elon Musk’s inner circle, and how they got there. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Earlier this month, a Berlin court ordered Elon Musk-owned X to provide immediate access to public platform data to two civil society organizations seeking to study systemic risk around the country’s upcoming election. In a post on X, the social media company said Tuesday it is challenging the order, claiming the summary proceeding “egregiously undermines … Read more
Meta on Tuesday announced that it’ll host its first-ever dev conference dedicated to generative AI. Called LlamaCon after Meta’s Llama family of generative AI models, the conference is scheduled to take place on April 29. Meta said that it plans to share “the latest on [its] open source AI developments to help developers […] build … Read more
The new feature lets users limit their conversations to connections of their own choosing. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
When he was a senior studying at Texas A&M University, Matthew Iommi realized that there were no good options for transporting groups of people. Fellow college students heading out for the night together didn’t have access to on-demand rides with the same convenience, accessibility, and affordability of typical ride-hail platforms, like Uber and Lyft. “Once … Read more
Last decade, companies like Segment rewrote the book on how organizations used APIs to merge data from disparate apps to improve marketing strategies. Today, a startup called Hightouch — co-founded by a former engineering manager at Segment — is announcing $80 million in funding for the next chapter: a platform that lets sales, marketing, and … Read more
Monolinguists wanting to communicate with the global masses have never had it so easy. Trusty old Google Translate can convert the content of images, audio, and entire websites across hundreds of languages, while newer tools such as ChatGPT also serve as handy pocket translators. On the back end, DeepL and ElevenLabs have have reached lofty … Read more
Lee said it was analyzing whether sensitive or personal data was stolen in the cyberattack. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Given Generative AI is very good at interpreting dense texts, it’s been a boon for startups attacking one of the most complex sets of texts there is: the law. We’ve thus seen an explosion of legal tech, supercharged by AI, in the last year or so. Lawtech startup Eudia bagged $105 million only last week. … Read more
Level Zero Health, a female-founded medical device startup that’s aiming to break new ground by developing a device for continuous hormone monitoring, has closed an oversubscribed $6.9 million pre-seed funding round despite being only a little over a year old. The startup wants to do away with the need for invasive blood draws and support … Read more
Hours after Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI released the latest version of its AI model, Grok 3, X has significantly hiked the price for its top Premium+ subscription plan, which gives users access to the latest model, to almost $50 per month. On the support page that lists X’s premium plans, the monthly subscription price … Read more
Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, released its latest flagship AI model, Grok 3, late Monday night, along with new capabilities in the Grok apps for iOS and the web. Grok, xAI’s answer to models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Google’s Gemini, can analyze images and respond to questions, and powers a number of features on Musk’s social network, X. … Read more
More than 10,000 protesters gathered in New York City on Presidents’ Day to speak out against the current Trump administration and the actions in particular of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It was one of several protests that took place Monday in major cities across the country and came during the same long … Read more
Social media is often about scale, but Nextdoor bet long ago on something different: that it could grow a big business off smaller, local communities. For years, the plan worked. The 15-year-old company has long been a dominant platform for neighborhood-based conversations, connecting users for everything from lost pet alerts to local business recommendations. Then … Read more
We all know headphones can be bad for your hearing if you listen to sounds too loudly in such close proximity to your ears. But a BBC report suggests that a new health scare could be emerging around the noise-canceling feature that’s hugely popular in modern earphones. The article considers whether the technology could essentially … Read more
The New York Times is now allowing its product and editorial teams to use AI tools, which might one day write social copy, SEO headlines, and code, reports Semafor. The news came to staff via an email, in which the publication announced the debut of its new internal AI summary tool called Echo. The New … Read more
Confused about which AI model to use? Check out this comprehensive list of the most advanced models out there. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The Trump Administration has begun firing hundreds of Federal Aviation Administration employees who maintain critical air traffic control infrastructure, reports CNN. The firings, which began late Friday night, come as Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been tapped to help create a new air traffic control system. It’s not yet clear how many workers were fired, but the … Read more
Copyright claims against AI companies just got a potential boost. A U.S. federal judge last week handed down a summary judgment in a case brought by tech conglomerate Thomson Reuters against legal tech firm Ross Intelligence. The judge found that Ross’ use of Reuters’ content to train its AI legal research platform infringed on Reuters’ … Read more
Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) is blocking links to Signal.me, a URL shortener used by the private messaging app Signal that allows users to send out a link that’s used to contact them directly through the service. The blocks, which impact direct messages, public posts, and profile pages, were first spotted by the blog Disruptionist. … Read more
TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has been at the center of controversy in the U.S. for four years now due to concerns about user data potentially being accessed by the Chinese government. Just this past month, the app experienced a temporary outage in the U.S. that left millions of users in suspense before … Read more
As gaming platforms like Roblox and Minecraft continue to grow in popularity among young children, and with platforms like YouTube consuming hours of their daily screen time, edtech companies face challenges in capturing their attention. Polymath aims to tackle this by combining gamified mechanics inspired by these popular games with adaptive math lessons to make … Read more