Author: TechBrunch
India, the world's most populous country and the second largest internet market after China, is becoming increasingly digital. However, this rapid digitization has increased the risk of online fraud. Cyber fraud is on the rise in India, with the Indian government estimating that cyber fraud could reach 0.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) (more than $14 billion) within the next year. Even government-backed systems, including Aadhaar, are sometimes targeted by malicious actors. New Delhi continues to introduce new regulatory requirements to limit fraudulent digital transactions. Nevertheless, these updates often place a burden on businesses to update their technology regularly. Efforts…
The problem with most previous attempts to regulate AI is that lawmakers focus on mythical future AI experiences rather than truly understanding the new risks that AI actually poses. That's what Andreessen Horowitz general partner VC Martin Casado made to a standing room audience at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 last week. Casado, who heads a16z's $1.25 billion infrastructure business, has invested in AI startups including World Labs, Cursor, Ideogram and Braintrust. “Innovative technology and regulation have been an ongoing debate for decades, right? So the common thread in all discussions about AI is that it seems to come out of nowhere.…
It is clear that Gen Z is influencing app consumption. Known as the “mobile-first generation,” they make up approximately 40% of all mobile users worldwide. Curious about their preferences, we recently reached out to app intelligence company Appfigures. The company provided us with an overview of the 50 most downloaded apps by Gen Z this year. However, due to privacy regulations, we were unable to obtain data for users between the ages of 13 and 17. The company only shares total downloads for users between the ages of 18 and 24, and does not share that data as it is…
Bankrupt cryptocurrency company FTX announced on Friday that Anthony Scaramucci (pictured above), his hedge fund Skybridge Capital, and others including Crypto.com and Mark Zuckerberg-backed lobbying group Fwd.us filed 23 lawsuits against organizations. These lawsuits are an attempt to recover funds from FTX's creditors following its bankruptcy. FTX said the funds targeted in these lawsuits were made at a time when the company was struggling to meet its cash flow needs, and that the funds targeted by founder and CEO Sam Bankman Fried. It alleges that it was part of an “influence buying campaign” by Mr. “These 'investments' provided little benefit…
OpenAI's next flagship model may not represent as much progress as its predecessors, according to a new report in The Information. Employees who tested the new model, codenamed Orion, found that while its performance outperformed OpenAI's existing model, it did not see the same improvement seen with the transition from GPT-3 to GPT-4. It is reported that they discovered that. In other words, the rate of improvement appears to be slowing. In fact, in some areas, such as coding, Orion may not be reliably better than previous models. In response, OpenAI established a foundation team to consider how models can…
A new code introduced in the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system could make it more difficult for both police and thieves to unlock iPhones. 404 Media reported Thursday that law enforcement officials were warning each other that cellphones being kept for forensic testing appeared to be restarting automatically. This was confirmed by security experts as well. After rebooting, these phones will be harder to unlock by password cracking tools. Apple did not immediately respond to TechCrunch's request for comment. This restart appears to occur if an iPhone with iOS 18.1 is not unlocked for a period of time.…
Exactly 20 years ago, Mozilla began shipping version 1.0 of its Firefox browser. Back then, you could download or buy a CD-ROM with the guidebook from Mozilla (or maybe you could get it on one of the free CDs that came with many magazines at the time). (No) Born from the ashes of Netscape, Firefox would go on to capture well over 30% of the global market. However, a period of stagnation followed, and after the arrival of the faster and lighter Google Chrome, Firefox slowly but surely lost market share. It also didn't help that at the time, Mozilla…
What is the secret to startup success? VC Martin Casado, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, told a standing-room-only crowd at TechCrunch Disrupt last week that this is a departure from the trend supported by many Silicon Valley founders. Before joining the prestigious venture capital firm, Mr. Casado founded two companies, including network infrastructure company Nicira, which he sold to VMware for $1.25 billion. When asked for advice on achieving success, he cautioned founders to be wary of trends in “hustle culture.” “Silicon Valley is very high performing, right? There's a lot of 'doing a startup' and doing the 'right…
Founders want their startups to continually raise larger funding rounds while increasing their valuations. However, unforeseen challenges such as a global health crisis or soaring interest rates can significantly impact a company's ability to maintain its valuation. Some of these startups may have to resort to down rounds, which are new financings at a lower valuation than the company's previous price. Contrary to popular belief, these deals don't necessarily have a devastating impact on a startup's future, although founders and investors generally try hard to avoid down rounds. . “When we founded the company in 2021, our first investment was…
Lilian Wen, another of OpenAI's chief safety researchers, announced Friday that she is leaving the company. Wen has been vice president of research and safety since August, and previously served as head of OpenAI's safety systems team. In a post on X, Wen said, “After 7 years at OpenAI, I feel ready to reset and explore something new.” Wen said Nov. 15 would be his last day, but did not say where he would go next. “I have made the very difficult decision to leave OpenAI,” Wen said in the post. “Given what we have accomplished to date, I am…