Author: TechBrunch

San Francisco Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie has tapped OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to help run his transition team as part of the administration's efforts to embrace the high-tech industry, his campaign said Monday. It was announced on . Altman, along with nine other San Francisco leaders, will coach Lurie's team on how the city can innovate and help the new mayor build relationships with key partners. “I'm excited to support the city I love and the birthplace of OpenAI as Mayor-elect Lurie begins its next chapter as he steps into his new role,” Altman said in a statement to TechCrunch. Ta.…

As college tuition prices rise and the student loan debt crisis continues, three former executives at language learning app Duolingo are launching a new company aimed at making college education more affordable and accessible. Launching a startup. The company, tentatively named Outsmart Education (the name has not yet been finalized), is led by co-founder Daniel Falabella (CPO), a former senior director of learning products at Duolingo. Gina Gothilf, CMO, former Vice President of Growth and Marketing at Duolingo. and Jorge Mazal (CEO), former chief product officer of Duolingo. Outsmart on Monday announced a $13 million seed funding round led by…

AI-powered search engine Perplexity is moving into e-commerce. The company on Monday debuted new shopping features for paying customers in the U.S., offering shopping recommendations within Perplexity search results and the ability to place orders without visiting a retailer's website. With this move, Perplexity aims to take on Google and Amazon and capture a slice of shopping search results. For shopping-related search queries, the tool presents users with a visual card that includes product details, pricing, seller information, a short description, and the pros and cons of the product in question. Users can click or tap a card to read…

Google has committed $20 million in cash and $2 million in cloud credits to a new funding initiative aimed at helping scientists and researchers use artificial intelligence (AI) to discover the next great scientific breakthrough. Insert dollars. The announcement, made by Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, during a fireside chat at the private AI for Science forum in London today, is a sign of support for young innovators and startups. It contributes to a broader push by Big Tech to gain This includes acquisitions, equity investments, and cloud partnerships, some of which have attracted regulatory attention. This…

Jen Easterly, head of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is leaving the agency after more than three years at the helm. NextGov, which first reported the departure, said Easterly and Nitin Natarajan, the agency's deputy director, will leave CISA on January 20, when the new Trump administration takes office, citing sources. CISA spokesperson Antonio Soliz confirmed the executive's resignation in an email to TechCrunch. “All appointees of the Biden administration will leave their positions by the inauguration of the new administration at noon on January 20th,” Soliz said. Easterly will be the second director to lead CISA…

French AI startup Mistral has released a number of updates to its product portfolio to stay competitive in the cutthroat AI field. Mistral's Le Chat chatbot platform, like OpenAI's ChatGPT, can now enumerate quotes and search the web. It also adds a “canvas” tool along the lines of ChatGPT Canvas, which allows users to leverage Mistral's AI models to modify, transform, and edit content such as web page mockups and data visualizations. . “You can use it.” [the canvas feature] To create documentation, presentations, code, mockups…the list goes on,” Mistral wrote in a blog post. “You can change content on…

India's competition watchdog orders WhatsApp to stop sharing user data with other meta sectors for advertising purposes for five years, as well as antitrust laws related to WhatsApp's controversial 2021 privacy policy It imposed a $25.4 million fine for the violation. The Competition Commission of India, which launched an investigation in 2021, found that WhatsApp's 'take it or leave it' privacy update could threaten meta dominance by forcing users to accept expanded data collection without an opt-out option. It was determined that this constituted an abuse of position. . WhatsApp's 2021 privacy policy update requires users to share data with…

If your software product is successful enough, you'll probably find companies building open source alternatives. However, no one has developed a modern open source CRM product that would be considered a serious competitor to Salesforce. That's exactly what Twenty is trying to accomplish. Over the past few years, the startup has iterated on its modern CRM platform and made it all available on GitHub under the permissive AGPLv3 license. Although Twenty doesn't have all the features found in Salesforce, the company has gradually built a community of CRM and open source enthusiasts around it, with more than 300 contributors last…

US-based iLearningEngines, which provides AI training software for enterprises, has alerted regulators to a cyberattack that allowed hackers to penetrate its network and steal $250,000 worth of company funds. iLearningEngines said in an 8-K regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday that it recently experienced a “cybersecurity incident” in which an anonymous attacker gained access to the organization's network. The company announced that when the hacker gained access to its network, it “accidentally transferred a $250,000 wire transfer,” but iLearningEngines has not been able to recover that amount. The company did not say when the incident…

After a short delay, Meta announced that it has begun rolling out certain AI features to users of its Ray-Ban Meta AR glasses in France, Italy, and Spain. Starting today, people in these countries can use their voice to summon Meta AI, Meta's AI assistant, and ask common questions, such as “What's a good present for 6- and 8-year-olds?” ”). As part of the update, Meta AI now supports French, Italian, and Spanish in addition to English, Meta said. “Since its launch in September 2023, we have worked diligently to ensure that Ray-Ban Metegane complies with Europe's complex regulatory regime,”…