Author: TechBrunch

OpenAI extends ChatGPT's advanced voice mode capabilities to the web, allowing users to converse with AI chatbots directly from their browser. Kevin Weil, the company's chief product officer, announced the launch of the X. This feature, which makes conversations with ChatGPT more natural, is rolling out to ChatGPT's paying customers this week. This means you must be a Plus, Enterprise, Teams, or Edu subscriber to access this feature. The web launch follows the debut of OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode in ChatGPT's iOS and Android apps in September. Advanced Voice Mode uses the native audio capabilities of OpenAI's GPT-4o to enable…

Google releases the first developer preview of Android 16 to accelerate the rollout of features to devices. This is a major change in the Android rollout schedule, as in past years, Google has released the first Android developer betas around Q2, with stable releases coming out from July onwards. Under the new schedule, the stable version of Android 16 will be released in Q2 2025. Google probably wants this move to reduce the fragmentation of different devices running different Android versions. In competition with iOS, this structure could also allow device manufacturers to quickly deliver Android's core functionality to more…

The Las Vegas Police Department has received funding for technology such as drones and license plate readers from Andreessen Horowitz partner Ben Horowitz. Will it be on your wish list next? Artificial intelligence analyzes police footage. Sheriff Kevin McMahill said on a podcast with Horowitz and his partner Marc Andreessen that he wants to use AI to blur faces and hide sensitive information from body camera footage. McMahill also said he wants to use AI to help police officers sift through the large amount of information they receive when subpoenaing cell phone tower data during investigations. “I truly believe that…

The issue of open source funding is very real, with startups, corporations, and venture capitalists recently launching a variety of programs to support some of their most important projects through equity-free financing. initiatives are emerging. Today, it's GitHub's turn to launch the GitHub Secure Open Source Fund with $1.25 million in initial funding from investors including American Express, 1Password, Shopify, Stripe, and GitHub's parent company Microsoft. Other donors include the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Chainguard, HeroDevs, Kraken, Mayfield Fund, Superbloom, Vercel, Zerodha, and more. GitHub briefly teased this new initiative at its annual GitHub Universe developer conference last month, but…

Google's Gemini chatbot can now remember information about your life, work, personal preferences, and more. As reported by posters on X (and Google's official account), the “Memory” feature has started rolling out to certain Gemini users, including this reporter. Similar to ChatGPT's memory, Gemini's memory adds context to the current conversation. For example, you can tell Gemini to remember your favorite foods, and the next time you ask the bot for restaurant recommendations, it may tailor its suggestions to your culinary preferences. According to 9to5Google , the memory is only available to subscribers to Google's $20-per-month Google One AI Premium…

With the rise of AI, having accessible, accurate, and organized data is more important than ever. When making informed strategy decisions or training new LLMs, organizing your information is the first step. This week on Found, we speak with Collibra CEO Felix Van de Maele, who is building data governance infrastructure for the age of AI. In the early days, maintaining organized data started as a niche concept, but now it's the foundation of AI and privacy compliance. In this episode, Van de Meere talks about the challenges of launching a startup in Belgium before there was a serious startup…

Startup Ample is on a mission to transform commercial fleets into believers in the power of electric vehicle battery swapping technology. For the past three years, the company has been piloting electric vehicle battery swapping technology in San Francisco, Madrid and Japan. Ample is currently preparing to convert some of these pilot customers into commercial contracts in 2025. And supporting Ample's growth is new $25 million in funding from new investor Mitsubishi Corporation. Compared to Ample's previous investments, this increase seems modest. In 2021, a year of free-flowing money, Ample successfully raised a total of $190 million in two rounds.…

There are many online platforms for developers that can help you learn new skills or start using a new language, such as CodeCademy, Leetcode, and CodeSignal. Some guide developers step-by-step through the process while teaching them the basics, while others provide detailed video tutorials. Codecrafters is a platform where developers don't want to be shown developer videos or held hands when learning a new language. Instead, we want to provide difficult challenges for advanced developers to build projects, master programming languages, and learn other concepts along the way. The Y Combinator-backed startup was founded in 2022 by Sarup Banskota and…

After building Bonobos and having a solid career advocating for the mental health of its founders, Andy Dunn moved his family to Chicago. Years later, he realized a depressing reality. I hadn't made any new friends. “I don't think it's easy to admit that you don't have any friends,” Dunn told TechCrunch with a laugh. “It's like, 'I don't have any friends!'” Dan's experience is representative of a larger trend: Americans are lonely. This feeling of loneliness reached its peak at the start of the pandemic, but did not completely subside even as lockdowns and restrictions were eased. Dan eventually…

Is the grass greener next door? I'm not sure, but I'm sure the sky is bluer. It's been two years since Elon Musk bought Twitter (now known as X) and people started setting up shop on alternative platforms. Mastodon, Post, Pebble (two of which are no longer in operation), and Spill have been mentioned as potential replacements, but with the exception of Meta's Threads, few companies have achieved the speed of growth that Bluesky achieved. As of November 2024, Bluesky has over 20 million users. Its growth has been attributed to several policy changes in X, including a highly criticized…