Author: TechBrunch

OpenAI blamed the longest outage in its history on a failure of its “new telemetry service.” On Wednesday, ChatGPT, OpenAI's AI-powered chatbot platform, was announced. That video generator, Sora. and its developer API experienced a massive disruption starting around 3:00 PM Pacific Time. OpenAI immediately recognized the problem and began working on a fix. However, it will take approximately three hours for the company to restore all services. In a post-mortem published late Thursday, OpenAI wrote that the outage was not caused by a security incident or recent product launch, but rather by a telemetry service it introduced on Wednesday…

When Koko Xs considered pursuing a career as a VC after graduating from college last year, he observed several trends that suggested he should do something else. He found that closing deals was difficult and taking a long time to generate returns, given that most VC funds typically take 10 years to mature. Still, he ended up becoming a VC. And now, at the young age of 21, Xs is backed by backers including Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Kevin Hertz, Josh Wolf, Lux Capital, and the Fund of Funds Nomad. , has already secured $17.5 million in committed capital for…

The path from scientist to founder is well-trodden, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Because of these pitfalls, several programs have emerged over the past decade to smooth the path for tech founders. Now, two prominent programs, Activate and The Engine Accelerator, have decided that they can offer even greater benefits to founders by teaming up. “The closer we get, the more work we can do together, the more input we can provide into each other’s programs, and ultimately increase throughput from these archetype founders to entrepreneurs.” ” said Emily Knight, CEO of The Engine. Accelerator told TechCrunch. The two…

Just before the holidays, WhatsApp announced new video calling features, including the ability to select participants for group video calls, improved resolution, and a revamped calling tab on the desktop. This is another step by Meta in making WhatsApp a viable option for both personal and work calls instead of using Google Meet or Zoom. If you're in a group chat, the messaging app allows you to call the entire group. However, there may be times when you don't want or need to call everyone in the group and disturb them. The company is currently rolling out the option to…

Syndicate One debuts as a Belgian investment company, raising €6.5 million in funding to support Belgian founders and startups. Although the amount is small, the important point is that it is the first Belgian fund to receive support from all four federal regions of the country. The country is so divided that there are even periodic periods where there is no real government. Founded in 2022, the fund is backed by over 100 entrepreneurs and startup operators and has since been backed by Techwolf, Aikido Security, Sirona Technologies, Donna, Cosmic Aerospace, Vendorvue, SAPI, Powernaut, Kennek, and more. invests in early-stage…

Disinformation is on the rise, making businesses just as susceptible to it as individuals, especially given the explosion in AI. Refute is a London-based startup that detects and responds to disinformation on behalf of these commercial organizations. It has now raised £2.3 million ($2.9 million) in a pre-seed round led by British investors Playfair and Episode 1. There are many factors that facilitate disinformation attacks, including geopolitical instability and the use of generative AI to create misleading content. More sophisticated campaigns, often created by state-sponsored or commercial competitors, focus on companies, their supply chains, and even top executives. This can…

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday launched an investigation into Character.AI and 14 other technology platforms over children's privacy and safety concerns. The investigation will assess whether Character.AI and other platforms popular with young people, such as Reddit, Instagram, and Discord, comply with Texas child privacy and safety laws. Research by Paxton, who often takes a tough stance on technology companies, found that these platforms are subject to two Texas laws: the Parental Empowerment to Protect Children Online Act (SCOPE Act) and the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act. (DPSA) compliance will be investigated. These laws require platforms to…

Microsoft announced the latest addition to the Phi family of generative AI models. Microsoft claims that this model, called Phi-4, is improved in several ways over previous versions, particularly in math problem solving. This is partly a result of improved training data quality. Phi-4 is available with very limited access as of Thursday night. Available only on Microsoft's recently launched Azure AI Foundry development platform and for research purposes under the Microsoft Research License Agreement. Notably, the Phi-4 is the first Phi series model to be launched after Sebastien Bubeck's retirement. Bubeck, who previously served as Microsoft's AI VP and…

If you throw a rock, there's a good chance you'll hit a deepfake. The commoditization of generative AI has led to an explosion of fake content online. According to identity verification platform Sumsub, deepfakes have quadrupled worldwide from 2023 to 2024. According to Sumsub, deepfakes accounted for 7% of all fraud in 2024. , ranging from identity theft and account takeover to sophisticated social engineering campaigns. Meta is releasing a tool that applies imperceptible watermarks to AI-generated video clips in hopes of making a meaningful contribution to the fight against deepfakes. The tool, announced Thursday, is called Meta Video Seal,…

Google’s trying to make waves with Gemini, its flagship suite of generative AI models, apps, and services. But what’s Gemini? How can you use it? And how does it stack up to other generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta’s Llama, and Microsoft’s Copilot? To make it easier to keep up with the latest Gemini developments, we’ve put together this handy guide, which we’ll keep updated as new Gemini models, features, and news about Google’s plans for Gemini are released. What is Gemini? Gemini is Google’s long-promised, next-gen generative AI model family. Developed by Google’s AI research labs DeepMind and Google…