Author: TechBrunch
Only 7 days left until TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 officially kicks off!One of the biggest tech events of the year is poised to dominate the Bay Area's vibrant tech landscape for nearly a week. Get ready for the biggest tech gathering at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 28th to 30th. Technology experts from around the world come together to tackle the latest innovations, learn about trends, and connect through unparalleled networking. Why you can't miss Disrupt 2024 Over 10,000 startup and VC leaders Build powerful connections with 10,000 technology, startup, and venture capital leaders at Disrupt 2024. 350+ innovations…
Since the pandemic, small business creation has increased in the United States. There are many technology tools designed to help these businesses with things like payroll and retirement planning, but the increased availability of tools doesn't mean small businesses know how to use them to make smarter decisions. It doesn't mean that it is. Uprise is trying to change that. The startup aims to serve as a financial advisor to these small and medium-sized businesses. It is built into financial services products that small businesses are already using, such as HR tech firm Rippling and small business tax startup Carry,…
Indian stock trading and mutual fund startup Grow paid $159.4 million in taxes when it moved its domicile back to India from the US, the company said in a statement on Monday. Nearly a dozen Indian startups are moving their headquarters to India from the US and Singapore to better comply with Indian laws and facilitate IPOs in the country. A change of residence creates a tax event for both investors and startups. While the IPO market remains depressed in the US and many developed markets, India has emerged as a hotbed for initial public offerings this year. Around 70…
A fledgling startup aims to become one of Europe's first “AI computing” hyperscalers, with renewable energy playing a key role in its pitch to potential customers. The AI gold rush has created an unprecedented demand for “computing.” “Computing” refers to the processing power, infrastructure, and resources required for tasks such as running algorithms, running machine learning models, and processing data. One company that has benefited greatly from this demand is Nvidia, which has emerged as a $3 trillion company driven by demand for GPUs (graphics processing units) and related AI hardware. In parallel, an industry of cloud infrastructure providers has…
This story has been updated throughout with updated details as the story unfolds. We will continue to do so as litigation and disputes are ongoing. There is a lot of controversy going on in the world of WordPress, one of the most popular technologies for creating and hosting websites. The central issue is a dispute between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, which hosts websites built on WordPress. WordPress technology is open source, free, and powers a huge portion of the internet (approximately 40% of websites). Websites can host their own WordPress instance or use a…
According to the Wall Street Journal, AI search engine Perplexity is in talks to raise about $500 million at a valuation of $8 billion. If the deal closes on these terms, Perplexity would be valued at more than double the $3 billion it was valued at when it raised money from SoftBank in the summer. The company currently receives about 15 million queries per day and generates about $50 million in annual revenue, WSJ reports. Perplexity uses AI to help people search the web with a chatbot-style interface. Some news publishers have accused the company of unauthorized web scraping and…
As part of TechCrunch's ongoing “Women in AI” series, which aims to give female AI-focused academics and others their well-deserved and overdue spotlight time, TechCrunch interviewed Marissa Hummon, chief technology officer at energy company Utilidata. There, she works to make the power grid more sustainable. “The work I'm doing at Utilidata is disrupting the status quo in the utility industry,” Hammon told TechCrunch, adding that AI is poised to help the utility sector operate more effectively. added. “This will give power companies the tools they need to operate a clean, modern and reliable power grid, allowing them to better serve…
Uber and Lyft need to do more to support passengers with disabilities, especially those who are visually impaired, according to protesters who gathered outside the companies' headquarters on October 15. Wired spoke to protesters who shared stories of drivers passing them in front of them and refusing to let guide dogs ride with them. They said ride-hailing companies need to do more to educate drivers about dealing with visually impaired passengers and implement “zero tolerance” policies against discriminatory drivers. Ta. “We strive to provide an inclusive and accessible platform for our passengers, including those who rely on service animals,” a…
AI companies claim they have strong safety checks in place to ensure their models don't say or do anything strange, illegal or unsafe. But what if the model is able to bypass these checks and somehow tries to thwart or mislead the user? Human researchers have found that they can do this. That's what it means. It's just not very good…for now, anyway. Anthropic's Alignment Science team says, “As AI capabilities increase, new types of risks may emerge: models misleading users or subverting the systems they have in place to monitor them. There is a possibility,” he wrote. Therefore, it…
As founders plan for an increasingly AI-centric future, Gusto co-founder and head of technology Edward Kim is cutting back on his existing team and hiring a slew of specially trained AI engineers. He said it was the “wrong way” to do so. Instead, non-technical team members “actually have much more insight into what situations customers might be in and what they're confused about than the average engineer.” He claimed that this gives them a “deeper understanding of the system” and puts them in a better position to guide functionality. It should be built into AI tools. In an interview with…