Author: TechBrunch

Generative AI and large-scale language models (LLM) have been all the rage in recent years, upending traditional online search with the likes of ChatGPT while improving customer support, content generation, translation, and more. Now, a fledgling startup is using LLM to build an AI assistant that can answer complex questions from developers, software end users, and employees, among other things. It is similar to ChatGPT, but targeted towards technical products. Founded last February, Kapa.ai is an alumnus of Y Combinator's (YC) Summer 2023 program and already has a pretty impressive roster of customers, including ChatGPT creator OpenAI, Docker, Reddit, Monday.com,…

Black Forest Labs, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup that develops the image generation component of xAI's Grok assistant, has launched a beta version of its API and released a new model. The new API provides Flux, Black Forest Labs' family of image generation models, in a managed package. It allows developers to choose which Flux models to include in their app or service. The add-on includes a content moderation layer and image resolution limits. Black Forest Labs also today announced its latest image generation model, Flux1.1 Pro. It claims to deliver 6x faster generation than the previous generation Flux.1 Pro. This…

These days, individual investors have a wide range of options for investing in startups without actually having to deal with them. This ecosystem more or less started with AngelList, but now there are a number of options that startups can use to raise capital and investors can deploy to manage their deals, including Carta, Allocations, Vauban, and Odin. . A new player in this space, Quorum, founded by two Ukrainians, is poised to expand its own approach to the scheme. The startup, which helps startups raise both equity and debt, has acquired Investory.io, a smaller Vienna-based company in the sector.…

AI tends to make things up. This is unattractive to almost everyone who uses it regularly, but it is especially attractive to businesses where erroneous results can negatively impact their bottom line. Half of employees responding to a recent Salesforce survey said they were concerned about inaccurate answers from their company's AI-powered generation systems. There are no techniques that can cure these “hallucinations,” but there are things that can help. For example, search augmentation generation (RAG) combines an AI model with a knowledge base to provide supplementary information before the model responds, acting as a type of fact-checking mechanism. Entire…

After Meta recently rekindled its controversial plans to use public posts from UK Facebook and Instagram users as material for AI training, the social networking giant has taken the next step and will soon be sharing information again. We have started notifying local users that we are starting to offer . The bad news is that the process Mehta devised to opt out of having this data for AI is almost as cumbersome as it was in the first place. Read below for a breakdown of the latest changes and details on how to object… “We are planning new AI…

Spotify today introduced a new feature called Offline Backup. This feature for premium users is basically a list of recently listened songs that can be used offline. Updates automatically based on your viewing history. Paid users can already download songs for offline use. But Spotify wants to make more songs available for offline playback by leveraging a local cache on your device of recently streamed tracks and some songs currently in the playing queue. The list is not personalized by an algorithm, but you can filter by artist, mood, and even genre. This list only appears if you've enabled offline…

We've only just scratched the surface of what drones can do and how they'll become popular. This also applies to industry, with the potential to replace human labor in dangerous tasks such as inspections at height. Swiss startup Voliro is working in this space with flying robots that can inspect wind turbines, floating structures, and other infrastructure that is dangerous to human access due to factors such as height and weather conditions. This goes beyond just visually inspecting for obvious problems like corrosion. Voliro's drones are equipped with sensors that can perform tasks such as dry film thickness, often without…

Immigrants face a huge number of challenges and difficulties. New immigrants often lack reliable information about essential services such as housing, health care, and banking, especially because they have no family or friends to turn to locally. After experiencing fraud and exploitation, one immigrant founder decided to help other immigrants deal with such issues, leveraging AI trained on data specific to these needs. I've built a service. Imii is an AI assistant aimed at helping immigrants settle. Assimilate into your new home country. The startup's co-founder and CEO Jane Fisher was born and raised in Japan in a family of…

As online scams and scams continue to spread across India, Google has announced plans to make major changes in the country to help alleviate the problem. The plan is to block sideloading of certain apps, especially for users who try to download them directly from the internet. . The pilot, announced at the annual Google for India event on Thursday, is part of what is being described as “enhanced fraud protection” within Google Play Protect. Sideloading, where users bypass the official Google Play app store to load apps onto Android smartphones, has long been a thorny issue for Google in…

Google is adding new AI-powered features to India Maps, including an AI-powered overview, experience search, and weather alerts. The Maps app analyzes reviews and displays an overview of the location. The company made the announcement on Thursday at its annual Google for India event. Additionally, users will be able to search for items and experiences on the map. For example, you can request “unique picnic spots” or “themed birthday cakes” to find cake sellers. When people ask such questions, Google Maps will display an image-first experience that prioritizes photos uploaded by businesses and users, the company said. Google has been…