Author: TechBrunch

The popularity of an Instagram video can affect the actual video quality. According to Adam Mosseri (a meta executive who leads Instagram and Threads), more popular videos will be shown in higher quality, and less popular videos will be shown in lower quality. In the video (via The Verge), Mosseri says that Instagram tries to show “the highest quality videos possible,” but that “if something isn't viewed for a long time, a large percentage of the views are “Because I'm here,” he said. At first you will move to lower quality videos. ” This is not entirely new information. Meta…

The phrase “Europe needs to take drastic action to remain competitive” has become a common refrain in political debates. Among a long list of potential reforms, one that has received particular attention is a new EU-wide legal personality for innovative companies. The innovation, known (somewhat vaguely) as the “28th Regime”, is being touted as Europe's answer to Delaware's C-Corp and would further strengthen the regime already in place in the 27 EU member states. Probably. Now supported by a grassroots movement backed by entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, it also brings with it the more familiar name of “EU Inc” and…

On this episode of StrictlyVC Download, hosts Connie Loizos and Alex Gove speak with Pranav Singhvi and Hemant Taneja of General Catalyst, one of the largest venture companies on the planet. Is it one of the central themes? It's a product that General Catalyst created about five years ago and is reminiscent of GE Lease. Essentially, the company funds private and public companies that invest heavily in customer acquisition and marketing, in exchange for a cut of the revenue generated from those new customers. They package these deals by predicting how much the company will grow over a few years.…

Meta has released an “open” implementation of its viral podcast generation feature in Google's NotebookLM. The project, called NotebookLlama, unsurprisingly uses Meta's own Llama model for much of its processing. Similar to NotebookLM, it can generate podcast-style digests of uploaded text files before and after. NotebookLlama first creates a transcript from a file (such as a PDF of a news article or blog post). It then adds “further dramatization” and interruptions before feeding the transcript into an open text-to-speech model. Image credit: Meta The results don't seem to be as good as NotebookLM. In the NotebookLlama sample I listened to,…

Mariam Naficy, founder of cosmetics retailer Eve and design marketplace Minted, has a long history of supporting independent artists and helping them sell their products. Her latest venture, Arcade AI, is a new type of marketplace that puts creative control directly in the hands of users. The Generate AI platform, which launched in beta in September, allows customers called “dreamers” to input their ideas into a generator that generates a variety of jewelry design options. You can also upload images. Once a “dream” is selected, it will be assigned to one of Arcade’s artisans who will bring the digital concept…

One of the most anticipated technology events of the year is ending in just 24 hours. Excitement is building as we prepare to welcome the global tech community to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Get ready for a week full of vibrant energy that lights up San Francisco. Disrupt 2024 will take place from October 28th to 30th, and the excitement will reverberate throughout the week with inspiration, great networking opportunities, and innovative ideas. Haven't secured your Disrupt Pass yet? There's still time to save up to $400 on individual tickets. You can also bring friends, colleagues, family, and more for half…

Many venture investors, and perhaps their LPs, were hoping for a return to IPOs in 2024, but that hasn't happened and is unlikely to happen in the next two months. Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman is not surprised. On paper, public markets are experiencing a great year, with the S&P 500 up about 22%, but there's more to this story than just the headline numbers, Friedman said at Axios' BFD event on Tuesday. He said it was meaningful. Friedman said S&P understandably puts too much emphasis on large-cap stocks. And thanks to the strength of companies like Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft,…

The Associated Press reports that software engineers, developers, and academic researchers have serious concerns about OpenAI's transcriptions from Whisper. There's a lot of discussion about generative AI's tendency to hallucinate (and thus make things up), so it's a little surprising that this is a problem with transcription. Transcription is expected to closely follow the audio being transcribed. Instead, researchers told the AP, Whisper introduces everything from racial commentary to imagined medical practices into the records. And this could be particularly disastrous if Whisper is employed in hospitals or other medical settings. Researchers at the University of Michigan studying public meetings…

This week on StrictlyVC Download, hosts Connie Loizos and Alex Gove explore the intersection of the power of technology and the future of the internet with billionaire investor and philanthropist Frank McCourt. McCourt made headlines for his ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers, but now he's making waves for his ambitious efforts to reshape the digital world, including one of the most influential platforms on the planet. This could include the acquisition of TikTok. But that's a tall order. TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance is under increasing pressure to sell the platform amid increased U.S. government scrutiny, but the company…

If you ask a VC if we're still in a venture capital bear market, their investors will almost certainly say, “No, the money is still flowing to good companies.” That may sound like spin. Because there are plenty of anecdotes about how tough it is for people currently raising children. There's a good reason for that. According to a report from Oumni's Venture Beacon, down rounds, or raising at a lower valuation than the previous round, which founders want to avoid unless absolutely necessary, will remain near all-time highs through the first half of 2024. Ta. About 39% of late-stage…