Author: TechBrunch

Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine, announced it will begin experimenting with ads on its platform starting this week. The ads will first appear in the U.S. in the form of “sponsored follow-up questions.” (Example: “How can I use LinkedIn to enhance my job search?”) Paid media is placed on the answer side and labeled as sponsored. Brand and agency partners participating in Perplexity's advertising program include Indeed, Whole Foods, Universal McCann, and PMG. One of Perplexity's experimental ad formats. Image credit: Perplexity “Advertising programs like these help us generate revenue that we share with our publisher partners,” Perplexity wrote in…

Many feared that the 2024 election would be influenced and perhaps decided by AI-generated disinformation. There were some things I could find, but there were far fewer than I expected. But don't be fooled. The threat of disinformation is real. You just aren't the target. At least that's what Oren Etzioni, a longtime AI researcher whose nonprofit TrueMedia focuses on the disinformation pulse generated, says. “For lack of a better word, deepfakes are diverse,” he told TechCrunch in a recent interview. “Each serves its own purpose, and some we are more aware of than others. Let me say this: for…

Anysphere, creator of AI-powered code editor Cursor, has acquired AI coding assistant Supermaven for an undisclosed amount. Anysphere CEO Michael Truell announced the deal in a post on Cursor's blog. Supermaven will enable Anysphere to launch a new version of the Tab AI model that is “fast, context-aware, and highly intelligent,” especially for long sequences of code, he said. Truell said Supermaven's plugins will continue to be maintained, but Cursor will be the core of the team. “This is pretty much the same as Supermaven's previous plans. The extension API was blocking the next useful thing we wanted to build,…

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. Bluesky was invite-only for almost a year, but became available to everyone in February 2024, gaining about 800,000 new users in a single day. As…

Google announced Tuesday that it is introducing several new features to Chrome on iOS. Most notably, you can now search using images and text at the same time in Google Chrome on iOS. You could already do this using the Google Lens iOS app, but now you can do it directly within the Chrome app. Additionally, while it was already possible to use images in searches in Chrome on iOS, you can now add text to your queries. Google says this new feature will allow users to perform more complex and specific searches, resulting in better results. For example, you…

This week on Found, we dig into the future of trucking with Raquel Urtasun, CEO and co-founder of Wabi, a pioneer in driverless long-haul trucks powered by generative AI. Hosts Dominic-Madri Davis and Becca Szuchtak discuss Warbi's unique simulation-based training and how this approach will minimize mistakes when heavy trucks hit the roads later this year. Learn about what is intended. Like many developments in AI, replacing long-haul truck drivers with driverless trucks could lead to changes in the workforce. But Urtasun is confident the slow rollout of the technology will allow the industry to adapt. “I'm very motivated and…

Apple's latest iOS 18.1 software update introduced a set of Apple Intelligence features, including writing tools and notification summaries. However, some features were missing from the lineup, such as Genmoji, which allows users to create emojis from written prompts. The public beta versions of iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2 are now officially available, and the long-awaited AI-generated Bitmoji feature is finally available for some users to try out. Here are the Apple Intelligence features that many people are looking forward to, whether you're part of Apple's beta software program and want to try it out, or just…

The U.S. government has accused Connor Mooka and John Binns of hackers who broke into AT&T's systems and stole records of approximately 50 billion customer calls and text messages. AT&T said in July that hackers stole the call records of “nearly all” of its cellphone and landline customers, as well as call and text message records, including who called and texted whom, but not the messages. He announced that he did not steal any of the content. At the time, AT&T notified about 110 million AT&T customers of the breach, saying records were stolen from systems hosted on Snowflake, which…

Altos Ventures, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm behind Roblox, Coupang, PandaDoc, Quizlet and more, has secured $500 million in its latest fund, according to an SEC filing. The company has been around for nearly 30 years and this is its largest fund to date. Altos Ventures declined to comment on the filing or the new fund. The multi-stage VC firm manages more than 15 funds across three vehicles, according to PitchBook. These include the Altos Ventures and Altos Hybrid funds, which invest in US and global companies, as well as the Altos Korea Opportunistic Fund, which targets Korean startups.…

Today's media industry may not have a very positive view of AI. AI is a technology already being used to replace reporters with AI-generated copies, and other AI companies are scooping up journalists' jobs to satisfy chatbot data demands, without giving them back. . It brings traffic to publishers, just like search engines did in the past. But one startup, an AI newsreader called Particle from a former Twitter engineer, is changing the media industry by finding ways for AI to support publishers while helping consumers understand the news and dig deeper into stories. I believe that I can play…