Author: TechBrunch

Decentralized social app Bluesky announced Thursday that it has raised $15 million in a Series A round, following an $8 million seed raise last year. The funding comes as Bluesky anticipates increased growth, in part due to concerns from X users who have been troubled by recent changes to blocking functionality and moves to allow third parties to train AI on users' public posts. It was held in the middle of the day. In the last month alone, Bluesky added about 3 million new users, bringing its total user base to about 13 million. Bluesky was initially incubated within Twitter…

As our colleagues at TechCrunch scooped earlier Thursday, Notion is announcing the email client at its first “Make with Notion” user conference. At the moment, Notion Mail is in preview and, at least for the time being, is more like a Gmail client than a traditional email service. The idea here, according to Notion, is to build an email experience that allows users to “throw away the old ways of rigid inboxes and do things the new way: making email work for you and your workflow.” It is to do. However, when exactly Notion Mail will launch is still a…

We're excited to announce that Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of the popular blogging platform WordPress, will be on the Disrupt stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. When Mullenweg first started working with WordPress, he was a 19-year-old jazz enthusiast and photographer living in Texas. He noticed that the blogging software he was using was stagnant. So we decided to branch out from the existing project and build our own open source platform. . The first version of WordPress was released in May 2003. From its humble beginnings, it has expanded into a near-ubiquitous content management system powering many of the web's most…

Gut health isn't the most glamorous topic, but as many as 1 in 10 people regularly suffer from stomach symptoms such as nausea, bloating, and cramps after meals. Determining the exact cause of your stomach upset is not easy without invasive tests. But New Zealand-based startup Alimetry has developed a wearable device that can speed up the diagnosis of functional problems in the stomach. This non-invasive wearable consists of a flexible electrode array that is applied to a patient's stomach and can detect electrical activity occurring in the stomach. Cloud-based analysis, including the use of artificial intelligence to extract signals…

Brands often rely on web scraping and social media monitoring to understand what customers are saying about the brand and gain insights for product development. Cafeteria connects teens with the brands they are interested in and allows them to provide feedback on strategy and product development. The startup plans to release an iOS app on Thursday. Ahead of Thursday's launch, the startup tested a beta version of the app for three months with teenagers in 60 U.S. cities. Cafeteria's CEO is Rishi Malhotra, co-founder of India-based music streaming service Saavn (now JioSaavn) (acquired by Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio in 2019)…

Anthropic's Claude chatbot can now write and run JavaScript code. Today, Anthropic announced a new analytical tool that helps Claude return what the company describes as “mathematically accurate and reproducible answers.” When this tool is enabled (currently in preview), Claude can perform calculations, analyze data from files such as spreadsheets and PDFs, and render the results as interactive visualizations. “Think of analytics tools as built-in code sandboxes, where Claude can perform complex calculations, analyze data, and iterate on different ideas before sharing the answer,” Anthropic blogs. I wrote it in a post. “Rather than relying solely on abstract analysis, you…

A recent addition to the dating app scene is Cheers, a newly launched matching app available to users in New York City. Founded by former Instagram engineer Sahil Ahuja, Cheers sets itself apart by offering friend matching and social posting features to foster new connections. Cheers (as most people know your name) is a twist on the familiar mechanics of dating apps. Users can swipe through their profiles for direct messaging while leveraging their existing network of friends to play matchmaker, and can swipe on behalf of their friends to share their profiles and ask for referrals. It takes the…

Businesses have data inventory problems. The amount of data being collected and stored is increasing, and that data is distributed across different storage buckets. However, many organizations rely on a process that essentially amounts to a paper-and-pencil method to track the provenance of their data. According to one study, more than 50% of companies use Excel spreadsheets for data privacy and compliance efforts. Karthik Krishnan, Shankar Subramaniam, and Madhu Shashanka thought they might have the engineering talent to build something that would make this easier for companies. All three had their first experience in the field of cybersecurity. A few…

The StrictlyVC series, known for bringing the biggest stories and key players to an audience of VCs, LPs, founders and executives, will host its first event at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Join us for Disrupt at Deal Flow Cafe on Tuesday, October 29th from 3pm to 6pm at Moscone West, San Francisco. This session is expected to be a great opportunity for investors. If you want to network with other investment professionals, join us for this session. StrictlyVC is exclusive to Disrupt 2024 Investor Pass holders. This StrictlyVC lineup features key players in the investment world who are ready to provide…

President Joe Biden is expected to sign a memorandum on Thursday detailing how intelligence and national security agencies, including the Department of Defense, should use and deploy guardrails around AI, The New York Times reported. . The order calls for humans to be “subject to surveillance” of AI tools that could be used as targeting weapons, including granting asylum, tracking someone based on ethnicity or religion, or Prohibits AI from making decisions about classifying people as “known terrorists.” Without human review. Additionally, the memo calls on intelligence agencies to begin protecting research on AI and AI chips from espionage and…