Author: TechBrunch
Tier and Dott, Europe's leading scooter and bike sharing services, will become one service called Dott. The two startups have already announced plans to merge and form a single company in January 2024. With this merger, both companies did not want to create a conglomerate of micromobility services. The operation was all about scale. Micromobility is a challenging industry with razor-thin margins, and scale is a key factor in increasing the number of vehicles available to improve unit economics and become more competitive with Lime, the leader in this space. is. “When we merged the two companies, we wanted to…
Meta's AI-powered Ray-Ban has a discreet camera on the front that not only responds when you're asked to take a photo, but also allows the AI feature to take photos with specific keywords like “see.” You can also take pictures when you take a picture. In other words, smart glasses collect a large amount of photos, both intentional and unintentional. However, the company has no intention of making these images private. We asked Meta if it plans to train its AI models on images from Ray-Ban Meta users as well as images from public social media accounts. The company wouldn't…
An AY Combinator startup called PearAI published an X post thread and YouTube video on Saturday that instantly caused controversy. And some of that is influencing YC itself. PearAI provides an AI coding editor. The startup's founder, Duke Pang, openly stated that it is a cloned copy of another AI editor called Continue, which is covered by the Apache open source license. But PearAI made a big mistake. PearAI originally created its own private license called the Pear Enterprise License, but Pan confirmed that this license was created by ChatGPT. License changes like this are a big deal in the…
11x.ai, a startup developing an AI-powered sales development bot, has secured about $50 million in Series B funding, TechCrunch has learned. The new round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and values the company at about $350 million, multiple sources told TechCrunch. This recent deal follows the company's $24 million Series A led by Benchmark with participation from other investors including 20VC, Project A, Lux Capital, and SV Angel. 11x.ai announced a Series A round earlier this month, with the deal now set to close in early 2024. According to one source, the company's Series A round was valued at $90…
Venture capitalist Neil Mehta, co-founder of Green Oaks Capital, has been involved in a growing number of building purchases spanning several blocks of San Francisco's once-glam Fillmore Street, and on Monday he wrote an op-ed in the San Francisco Standard. He defended himself and said the move was just for purpose. About revitalizing “a city that has given me more than I can give back.” The article aims to hit back at local politicians, including science fiction director Aaron Peskin. Mr. Peskin recently held a rally on a street lined with shops, telling onlookers and reporters that Mr. Mehta's hoardings…
Snapchat is quietly rolling out a new “Footprints” feature to all iOS users this week, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Monday. This new feature, previously only available to Snapchat+ subscribers, lets you see how much of the world you've explored and track where you've traveled using Snap Map. When you use Footsteps for the first time, your first steps are calculated based on your memory snaps. This means your past trips will still count. Snapchat then no longer uses your memory to add to your footprints, but instead uses your location data to track your travels. Snapchat can only…
Apple's iOS 18 software update rolled out earlier this month, bringing significant changes to iOS Control Center, making it easier to access commonly used features by simply swiping down from the home screen. Now, in addition to existing controls like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and flashlight, Apple is allowing third-party app developers to create controls for their own apps. Below, we've compiled a list of iOS 18-compatible apps that users can try to take advantage of the redesigned Control Center. breaking news Image credit: Screenshot by TechCrunch Notice that Bulletin, an AI-powered news reader app that summarizes articles, has a total of…
It's been a very good year for gaming executive Panny Haritatos. Last month, he quietly closed an oversubscribed $28 million Series A for his new game studio startup, Series Entertainment, according to SEC documents and a confirmation from the company. Investors include Netflix and Dell Technologies Capital, with additional investment from seed investors Andreessen Horowitz, BITKRAFT, and F4 Fund. This comes after launching the company just a year ago with a healthy $7.9 million seed led by a16z. In the meantime, he has already made acquisitions. The series acquired mobile game studio Pixelberry, known for its interactive fiction game Choices:…
If you landed on this page, there's a good chance you're looking for a VPN, or virtual private network. Perhaps someone recommended a particular product or service, or an ad caught your curiosity? Before you jump into unfamiliar territory, you may not actually need a VPN after all. I would like to tell you that no. Today's VPNs promise a lot, from protecting your privacy from surveillance to increasing your internet speed and protecting you from malicious online threats. Simply put, a VPN provider privately routes all of your device's internet traffic under the premise of protecting your information from…
You may have seen a lot of online advertisements for paid VPN services. However, as we discussed in a previous article, tunneling all your internet traffic through a VPN service is not a good idea. Contrary to what their websites say, VPN companies usually don't care about protecting your privacy. These companies can see all of your web browsing history as they handle your internet traffic and DNS requests. We may also store logs of your IP address and connection history. This means this data can be passed on to authorities or stolen by cybercriminals. In most cases, you don't…