Author: TechBrunch

Defense technology startup Epirus has raised between $150 million and $200 million in a new funding round led by Joe Lonsdale's venture firm 8VC, Bloomberg reported. The round could value the company, which develops technology to intercept drones, at about $1 billion. If this is the final valuation, it would be down from the company's previous valuation of $1.35 billion. (Ipilus did not comment to Bloomberg.) Lonsdale co-founded the company in 2018 with Beau Marr, Max Mednick, Nathan Mintz, Grant Verstandig and John Tenet. The startup has already raised nearly $300 million from investors including DCVC and Bedrock, according to…

OpenAI is introducing new ways for users to customize their interactions with ChatGPT, the company's AI-powered chatbot. On Thursday, some users of X reported that ChatGPT's existing custom instructions menu on the web had been revamped with new fields. Users can now specify their preferred name or nickname, occupation, other things they want ChatGPT to know, and the “traits” they want the chatbot to have. OpenAI suggests traits like “talkative,” “encouraging,” and “Gen Z.” The updated menu now says, “Introduce yourself for a more relevant and personalized response.” Image credit: Tibor Blaho (Opens in new window) This reporter has not…

To accelerate the pace of AI development, Google is further streamlining the teams that build AI services, platforms, and tools. Logan Kilpatrick, head of product for Google's AI Studio developer platform, said Thursday in a post to He said he would move to . Google DeepMind, formed in 2023 by the merger of Google's DeepMind team and Google Research's Google Brain team, is the AI ​​research and development arm behind many of Google's recent AI product innovations, including Gemini. “This move allows us to further strengthen our already close collaboration and accelerate research into our developer pipeline,” Kilpatrick wrote in…

Scale AI relies on an army of workers classified as contractors to perform critical AI tasks such as labeling images and evaluating LLM responses for Big Tech and others. But the AI ​​startup, recently valued at $13.8 billion, faces growing legal challenges over its labor practices. On January 3, 2025, former Scale AI employee Amber Rogowitz filed a lawsuit alleging that Scale misclassified her and other employees as contractors rather than employees. The lawsuit alleges that the company's pay effectively equates to $15 an hour, which violates California's minimum wage of $16.00 at the time of her employment (currently $16.50).…

Between its mentors, its alumni, and its private messaging board, Bookface, Y Combinator is perhaps only two steps removed from the rest of the tech industry. Even Google founder Larry Page. Business Insider reports that Page spoke at a YC event in December, where he talked about Google's early days. Even before he officially stepped down as CEO in 2019, Page went from being one of the most prominent tech billionaires to one of the least known. He famously suffered vocal cord damage before shunning the spotlight. His last public appearance was, ironically, in 2016, when he was among the…

Millions of packages are stolen every year. DoorBox aims to change the way packages are delivered with smart packaging boxes that have an anti-theft design with a live camera feed and an alarm that automatically activates if the box is tampered with. After selling 2,000 units of an initial version that offered manual functionality, the startup announced its latest product, Smart DoorBox.ai, at CES 2025. This new system utilizes an automatic unlocking mechanism that uses AI to detect package delivery, enabling seamless delivery even when the recipient is not present. DoorBox was founded by Kumar Sundaresan, who experienced theft of…

Plaintiffs' attorneys in a copyright lawsuit filed against Meta say that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has accused the company's Llama AI model development team of selling pirated e-books. The company claims to have given permission to use the data set from the article and for training purposes. Kadry v. Mehta is one of many lawsuits against major technology companies developing AI, accusing them of training models on copyrighted works without permission. In most cases, defendants like Mehta rely on fair use, a U.S. legal doctrine that allows copyrighted works to be used to create something new, as long as it…

In October 2024, security researcher Ben Sadeghipour was analyzing Facebook's advertising platform when he discovered a security vulnerability that allowed him to execute commands on the internal Facebook servers that housed the platform, effectively You can now control the server. Sadeghipour reported the vulnerability to Facebook owner Mehta, who said it took only an hour to fix, and the social networking giant awarded him $100,000 in bug bounties. . “My guess is that this is directly inside the infrastructure and may need to be fixed,” Sadeghipour wrote in a report sent to Meta, which he told TechCrunch . Mehta responded…

Volkswagen-backed startup Scout Motors broke cover just a few months ago, and at this week’s CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada, they hold the honor of being one of the only American automakers with a presence at the show.  That’s not the only thing that stands out about Scout being here, though. In a sea of screens, AI, and voice assistants, Scout is sticking to a far more classic approach with its two vehicles, the Traveler SUV and the Terra pickup. That means regular old door handles, not ones that magically pop out of the side of the car, as…

CES 2025 is in full swing. While the conference features announcements from tech giants like Nvidia, Samsung, and Toyota, there are also some very strange product concepts and announcements making the rounds on the show floor. We've rounded up the weirdest, silliest, and most eyebrow-raising products from CES 2025. A robot cat that cools down your coffee Image credit: Yukai Engineering Yukai Engineering's new adorable gadget is “Nékojita FuFu,” a tiny cat robot that can attach to mugs and bowls and blow air at human-like intervals to cool coffee or soup. According to the company, the product was created in…