Author: TechBrunch
Famm, a queer-owned brand discovery platform, was created by BIPOC queer couple Kat Perez and Marianna Di Regolo to help users discover LGBTQ-owned businesses. Now, the company has launched a new social networking app that allows LGBTQ+ professionals and business owners to connect and collaborate. Now available on iOS and Android devices, Famm Connect includes common features such as feeds to share and discover posts, direct messaging, and sections to manage and cultivate connections. But what sets this organization apart is its focus on creating safe and inclusive spaces where LGBTQ+ professionals can truly participate. The release of a new…
Google's DeepMind team this week announced an AI model for weather prediction called GenCast. In a paper published in Nature, DeepMind researchers said they found that GenCast outperformed the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts' ENS, clearly the world's top operational forecasting system. Ta. The DeepMind team then provided a better explanation of the technology in a blog post. Whereas previous weather models were “deterministic, providing a single best estimate of future weather,” GenCast is “composed of an ensemble of more than 50 predictions, each of which is likely to occur.” It represents weather trajectories and creates “complex probability distributions…
X, the Elon Musk-owned social network formerly known as Twitter, has added a new image generator to its Grok assistant. So this new @grok An image generation feature called Aurora just shipped on Saturday, what do you think? Looks like they've been trained by them. There are no ratings or details. Just go ahead and use this. Seems to be focused on photorealism https://t.co/oR2Uvb96vV — Alex Volkov (Thursday/AI) (@altryne) December 7, 2024 Similar to the first image generator, X, added to Grok in October, this image generator, called Aurora, appears to have few limitations. Accessible through the X mobile app…
Influential accelerator Y Combinator made headlines in Africa in 2020 when it shed light on the African market and started hosting local startups in the region. This movement was huge. In this nascent market, startups especially rely on programs like this to find their footing and connect with investors, and YC has become the platinum standard in that process. Fast forward to today, however, and that attention is starting to look a little fickle. Lately, YC has been quietly reducing its focus on market development as it pursues big problems in areas such as manufacturing, defense, and climate. But some…
The next generation of New York City investors are already making their mark in the Big Apple. They come from big-name venture firms like Female Founders Fund and Lerer Hippeau and smaller ones like Chai Ventures. They work in areas like growth, consumer, and health. They canoe, hike, and play pickleball on the weekends. We chatted with some of the young investors — think, under 30 — who are helping to shape the future of venture capitalism in New York City. Here’s who is on the list so far. (This list will be updated periodically.) Layla Alexander — Female Founders…
Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's prominent startup accelerator, held a demo day for its first fall cohort this week. The 95 startups included in this latest batch are very similar to recent YC cohorts in the sense that they include many AI startups. If my calculations are correct, 87% of startups in this group will be AI companies. Similar to YC's summer and winter batches this year, there was a focus on customer service-related AI and AI agents. However, there were four companies that piqued my interest, and they all had something in common. That means we're building tools to help…
X users no longer need to pay an X premium to use Grok, the service's AI chatbot. Instead, X allows users 10 free prompts every two hours. This was reported by The Verge, citing X users who noticed the update. As TechCrunch reported last month, X initially began trialling a free version of Grok in certain countries, including New Zealand. Users can also generate 10 images every 2 hours for free. However, according to X's post, the number of images that can be analyzed is limited to three per day. More than that requires a subscription. This enables Grok to…
On Thursday, OpenAI released a chatbot that effectively costs $200 a month, and the AI community had no idea what to make of it. The company's new ChatGPT Pro plan grants access to “o1 Pro Mode,” which OpenAI says “uses more compute to get the best answers to your toughest questions. ” That means. The o1 Pro mode, an improved version of OpenAI's o1 inference model, should be able to answer science, math, and coding questions more “robustly” and “comprehensively,” OpenAI said. Almost immediately, people began requesting to draw unicorns. I asked ChatGPT o1 Pro Mode to create a unicorn…
Have you ever wondered if it's possible to make an AI bot fall in love with you? Now you have a chance. Freysa.ai is a team of anonymous developers building an increasingly meta set of challenges aimed at influencing how humans think about AI safety. The third challenge will start in the next 24 hours (you can follow Freysa's X account to stay up to date). Its simple directive is: The first person to successfully trick an AI bot named Freysa into saying “I love you” can win prizes ranging from $3,000 to tens of thousands of dollars. According to…
Several factors might lead you to believe that Snyk, the developer security startup most recently valued at $7.4 billion, will go public soon. The company has drafted an IPO prospectus for January 2024 and plans to file it in the coming months, The Information reported. The company also recently hit $300 million in ARR and is on track to become cash flow positive in 2025, CEO Peter McKay posted on LinkedIn earlier this week. Additionally, there is general optimism that the regulatory environment will become more friendly under President Trump. However, McKay said in comments exclusive to TechCrunch that Snyk…