Author: TechBrunch

Spotify's annual Wrapped feature is coming soon, but it's been hugely popular over the years, giving listeners a fun, personalized summary of how they listen to their music. As a result, many companies are seizing the opportunity to create similar year-in-review experiences that provide users with a summary of their habits, preferences, and interactions over the past year. Here are some platforms and websites that mimic the Spotify Wrapped concept. amazon music Amazon Music's Spotify Wrapped equivalent is called “My Year in Review.” Unlike Spotify, Amazon's music streaming platform doesn't offer as many interesting stats or shareable insights. Instead, you'll…

According to the Financial Times, OpenAI is considering expanding into advertising. CFO Sarah Friar told the newspaper that the company is considering its advertising business model, but will be “thoughtful” about when and where to advertise. However, in a subsequent statement, she stressed that she had “no active plans to pursue advertising.” But it's clear the idea is being considered. (The FT's report highlights a recent high-profile advertiser, ex-Google's Shivakumar Venkataraman.) ChatGPT makers have traditionally relied on subscriptions to support the development of generative AI tools. However, the costs of creating and delivering these models are eye-wateringly high, limiting the…

World Labs, a startup founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, has announced its first project, an AI system that can generate video game-like 3D scenes from a single image. Many AI systems can convert photos into 3D models and environments. But World Labs scenes are unique in that they are interactive and changeable. “[Our tech] You can step into any image and explore it in 3D,” World Labs wrote in a blog post. “Everything is generated beyond the input image.” World Labs' systems transform images into interactive, explorable 3D scenes. Image credit: World Labs In a demo on World Labs'…

A new app called GoBlue has been launched to help people who want to track their followers on Bluesky, a Twitter-like social network that has grown rapidly in recent weeks to reach around 24 million users. To fill the gap in the Bluesky ecosystem of third-party apps and utilities, GoBlue provides a simple interface to track your own Bluesky analytics in your iOS dashboard. GoBlue developer Sven van der Zee pointed to the need for an analytics tracking app amid the rise of Bluesky as the social network becomes a strong competitor to Elon Musk's X. “I used to be…

Amazon Web Services (AWS)'s biggest conference of the year has begun, and all signs point to it being an eventful one. AWS re:Invent 2024 kicks off in Las Vegas on Sunday, with sessions scheduled to run until December 6th. The keynote featuring AWS CEO Matt Garman will be held on December 3rd at exactly 8am Pacific Time. AWS will be livestreaming the keynote on YouTube and will be covering everything presented on stage. Pay attention to that as well as the stories that pop up over the course of re:Invent. Notably, this is Garman's first time at re:Invent as AWS…

Tesla has released an app designed for the Apple Watch, which it says is expected to be available by next week. The Tesla app for Apple Watch does much of what a smartphone app does. It also functions as a key, allowing you to open the trunk or frunk, activate the air conditioning, and display the battery charge level. A rendering of Tesla's new Apple Watch app. Image credit: Tesla Tesla announced the app as part of a major update. There were 18 major updates and 8 minor updates. These include the ability to watch Dashcam and Sentry Mode clips…

Intel announced that CEO Pat Gelsinger will retire from the company's board of directors effective December 1. Intel executives David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus have been named interim co-CEOs. Mr. Zinsner is Intel's CFO and Mr. Holthaus is GM of Intel's Client Computing Group. Mr. Holthaus has also been named to the newly created CEO position of Intel's product division, which spans the chipmaker's consumer-focused organization and data center, AI, network and edge businesses. Frank Yeary, independent chairman of Intel's board of directors, will serve as interim executive chairman during the transition period. Intel said its leadership of Intel…

In November, cybersecurity startup Upwind broke the news about how it was attracting a lot of inbound interest to raise funding at a high valuation. You can now confirm that the transaction has been completed. Upwind has closed a $100 million Series A. The company confirmed that the round is valued at $900 million post-money. Craft Ventures, the investment firm founded by David Sachs, is leading the deal, with participation from TCV, Alta Park Capital, and all of Upwind's previous backers. Past investors include Greylock, Cyberstarts, Leaders Fund, Omri Casspi's Sheva Fund, basketball star Stephen Curry's investment fund, and Penny…

Former NBA athlete Omri Casspi has raised $60 million for his latest venture fund, Swish Ventures, which invests in early-stage cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and AI startups. The fund plans to support 10 companies, investing between $5 million and $7 million in each deal. Swish Ventures is Caspi's second fund, following the launch of Sheva Capital, a $50 million fund in 2022. Caspi said he now manages Sheva's portfolio now that the investment period has ended. “While I am fully committed to continuing to grow the company, I have no intention of raising any new capital under Sheva,” Caspi told TechCrunch,…

A ransomware attack on supply chain software giant Blue Yonder continues to cause disruption to the company's customers, nearly two weeks after the initial outage began. Arizona-based Blue Yonder said in a short update to its cybersecurity incident page on Sunday that its recovery from the Nov. 21 attack on an environment hosted by its managed services is “on track.” ” he said. It added that the affected customers have been brought back online and are “actively working” with other customers to “return to normal business operations.” The number of customers affected is not yet known, and Blue Yonder spokeswoman…