Author: TechBrunch

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…

ByteDance's new social media app, Lemon8, will now be accessible directly by users using their TikTok accounts, the company announced Tuesday. According to ByteDance, this integration will make photo sharing more viable, allowing creators to cross-share photo content across apps. Lemon8 remains a separate app, but the two platforms share a unified user login. This means creators can log in to both using one account. Lemon8 was launched in Japan in 2020 and has since expanded to the US and Southeast Asian markets. The app is similar to Instagram and Pinterest, allowing users to share slideshows and photo collections, and…

Knowing how a cloud application will perform in production typically requires extensive development and testing in the environment in which it is deployed, such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. However, this can be a resource-intensive task, especially with issues related to latency (the time it takes to constantly send data) and its associated costs. Swiss startup LocalStack sought to address this problem by moving the development process from the cloud to the developer's local machine (i.e., laptop), emulating a real-world environment. For now, the company is focused on AWS cloud apps, but the company aims to further strengthen and…

Luggage storage as a vector for accumulating convenience-based revenue opportunities in the global travel business continues to fuel San Francisco-based Bounce's progress. The startup just packed a suitcase with $19 million in Series B funding and plans to continue generating revenue, which has grown 20x since its $12 million Series A in spring 2022. Over the next few years, Bounce plans to expand its markets and add verticals. Co-founder and CEO Cody Candy said the Asia-Pacific region is a key focus, with revenue from the region growing up to four times year over year. He suggested that the consumer behavior…

Artinoise, the Italian startup that created re.corder, a smart device that reimagines the traditional plastic recorder you played with in school, has announced its latest product, Zefiro. Shaped like a recorder mouthpiece, this portable device can be connected to a smartphone, tablet, or PC with a USB-C port, effectively turning it into a musical instrument. Zefiro's companion app offers around 32 sound options and can emulate almost any instrument, from soft-pitched flutes and violins to brass trumpets, saxophones, and even bagpipes. Once the smart mouthpiece is connected, it is recognized by MIDI input and the app displays an interface showing…

Writer has raised $200 million at a $1.9 billion valuation to expand its generative AI platform. The round was co-led by Premji Invest, Radical Ventures, and ICONIQ Growth, with participation from investors including Salesforce Ventures, Adobe Ventures, B Capital, Citi Ventures, IBM Ventures, and Workday Ventures. Writer CEO May Habib said the new cash, which brings Writer's total raised to $326 million, will be used for product development and “strengthening the company's leadership in the enterprise-generated AI category.” “At Writer, we don't just create models that can perform tasks; we develop advanced AI systems that enable mission-critical enterprise operations,” Habib…

AI is driving the demand for cloud services. Cloud spending is expected to more than double between 2019 and 2023 and exceed $2 trillion by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs Research. However, poor spend management can put your ROI at risk. Yodar Shafrir discovered this while working at Run:AI, a workload management startup that Nvidia is acquiring. “I saw firsthand the frustration of DevOps teams due to resource inefficiency,” Shahrir told TechCrunch. “We observed high costs for unused resources and saw applications crash due to lack of sufficient resources. Constant pressure on engineering teams to fine-tune application resources reduced core…

Nelson and Freddie Mills, founders of Vatn Systems, spent their childhoods sailing across the turquoise waters of a yacht off the Caribbean islands and doing homework. Although their surroundings were idyllic, the ship they chose was clearly not. “The first boat I remember, I think my parents bought it for about five or ten grand,” Freddie said. “There was no refrigerator. It was leaking.” However, the unreliable ship turned out to be the perfect place to train future engineers. The brothers, who spent several months each year on a yacht, would occasionally forget their homework and pick up a wrench…

A battle is brewing for AI chips among major cloud vendors. Google's Trillium, a custom chip for training and running AI models, recently entered preview, and Microsoft's Maia is expected to follow soon. It has AI chips like Trainium, Inferentia, and Graviton to compete with Amazon Web Services. To draw attention to Trainium in particular, the company is launching a new funding program for AI research. The new program, called Build on Trainium, will award a total of $110 million to institutions, scientists, and students conducting AI research. AWS will award up to $11 million in Trainium credits to each…

Data integration is a necessary part of many workflows, from customer data onboarding to payroll, but for many datasets, the process is time-consuming and manual. Data is siled into databases and SaaS applications, each holding information in different formats, making it difficult to move information from one database to another. Lume is using AI to change this. Lume's system uses AI and algorithms to automate data mapping by extracting data from database silos and “normalizing” it. This means converting your data into a standardized format that can be easily moved and integrated into other workflows. If data integration gets interrupted…