Author: TechBrunch
This week on Strictly VC Download, Connie Loizos joins serial entrepreneur Marc Lore live on stage to discuss his latest venture, Wonder, a vertically integrated dining and delivery platform. From the origins of food trucks to innovative electric kitchens to the recent $650 million acquisition of Grubhub, Lore has been involved in food innovation, including creating AI-driven health solutions and “super apps” for meal planning. Share your creative vision for the future of tech. food delivery. In this episode, the two discuss: A vision of AI-driven technology that will change the way people think about food and plan their meals.…
ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, valued itself at $300 billion in a recent stock buyback offer, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal. The numbers may look familiar, as WSJ previously reported on a proposed buyback of ByteDance in September 2022 at a valuation of $300 billion. But a year later, the company's valuation has reportedly fallen 26% to $223 billion. TikTok's prospects in the US may be improving after Donald Trump was elected to a second term as US president. President Joe Biden signed a bill in April that would ban TikTok from the…
US mobile phone giant T-Mobile has been hacked in recent months as part of a broader cyber attack on phone and internet companies in the US and abroad, according to the Wall Street Journal. T-Mobile said in a statement: “We are closely monitoring this industry-wide attack, and at this time T-Mobile's systems and data are not materially impacted and there is no evidence of any impact to customer information.” . A statement shared with TechCrunch. The Wall Street Journal first reported the T-Mobile breach, citing people familiar with the campaign targeting the telecom giant. A T-Mobile spokesperson, who declined to…
US mobile phone giant T-Mobile said it had been hacked as part of a broader “industry-wide attack” on phone and internet companies in the US and abroad in recent months. T-Mobile said in a statement: “We are closely monitoring this industry-wide attack, and at this time T-Mobile's systems and data are not materially impacted and there is no evidence of any impact to customer information.” . The statement was shared with the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the T-Mobile breach, citing people familiar with the campaign targeting the telecom giant. A T-Mobile spokesperson did not immediately comment when…
The U.S. government has made significant progress over the past four years in the ongoing fight against what President Joe Biden has described as the “scourge of ransomware.” At the beginning of his term, Biden and his administration quickly declared ransomware a national security threat and gave new powers to the military and intelligence agencies. Since then, the United States has successfully disrupted ransomware infrastructure, recovered millions of dollars in ransom money, and brought prosecutions and sanctions against some of the most notorious ransomware operators. Despite the recent onslaught of government crackdowns, the number of cyberattacks targeting U.S. organizations continues…
The European Union's risk-based rulebook for artificial intelligence, also known as EU AI law, has been years in the making. However, we expect to hear more about this regulation in the coming months (and years) as important compliance deadlines begin. In the meantime, read on for an overview of this law and its purpose. So what is the EU trying to achieve? Turn the clock back to April 2021. At the time, the European Commission published its original proposal, which lawmakers were trying to frame as legislation that would strengthen the bloc's ability to innovate in AI by fostering public…
On Thursday, O2, the UK's largest mobile network operator, introduced a chatbot designed to frustrate phone scammers. The service, called dAIsy, imitates an elderly woman who spends her time chatting about things like knitting and her cat Fluffy, allowing scammers to steal her (fake) bank account. The aim is to keep you endlessly involved in your attempts to obtain information. A press release about O2's “AI Granny” says it has “various It is stated that it combines “an AI model”. answer. The AI was partially trained by Jim Browning, an expert on “scammers” who has a large following on YouTube.…
A lawsuit brought against one of the fastest growing companies in history by the world's richest man is inevitably interesting. However, while the allegations have not yet been proven, the incident has already exposed a series of emails between Elon Musk, Sam Altman and others in the early days of OpenAI. Here are some of the more interesting snippets I found while sifting through their correspondence. Note that these emails were published as part of an attempt to prove that OpenAI is somehow violating antitrust laws (a frankly implausible claim). Musk has also made some sense of his feelings of…
For some, AI fatigue is real — but clearly venture investors haven’t grown tired of the category. AI deals continued to dominate venture funding during the third quarter. AI companies raised $18.9 billion in Q3, according to Crunchbase data. That figure represents 28% of all venture funding. The third quarter also saw the close of the largest venture deal of all time: OpenAI raised a behemoth $6.6 billion round. OpenAI’s deal was one of six AI funding rounds over $1 billion in 2024. Here are the U.S.-based AI companies that raised $100 million or more so far in 2024: November…
Bluesky, the social network that has seen a surge in users this week as users abandon X, says it has “no intention” of using user content to train its generative AI tools. The social network announced on the same day that X (formerly Twitter) will implement new terms of service that will allow the platform to use public posts to train its AI. “Many artists and creators are based on Bluesky, and we hear their concerns about other platforms training their data,” Bluesky said in a post on the app. “We do not use your content to train our generative…