Author: TechBrunch

Instant hopes to recapture some of the magic of Firebase before the Google acquisition by building a modern Postgres-based open source version. Like the original Firebase, San Francisco-based Instant focuses on giving front-end developers easy access to a real-time database with offline capabilities without having to manage the back-end architecture. Masu. The service supports applications written in React, React Native, and vanilla JavaScript. In addition to the database, it also provides tools to manage authentication and permissions, as well as real-time features such as shared cursors and presence. The team recently open sourced this project. Instant was founded by former…

Agence France-Presse, one of the world's largest news organizations, has notified French regulators of a possible data breach following last week's cyber attack. AFP News Agency, which has editorial offices in 260 cities in 150 countries, said in a brief statement on Saturday that it had detected an “attack on its systems” that affected some of its news distribution services to customers. “AFP's technical team is working on this incident with support from the French National Information Systems Security Agency (ANSSI),” the organization said. “We are currently working to analyze and address this incident.” AFP did not post further details…

Transportation and warehousing are multitrillion-dollar industries, but the technology that powers them is often outdated, inefficient, and siled. Pallet, which today announced an $18 million Series A funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures, is building an all-in-one transportation and warehouse management system using AI to help companies from order entry to driver dispatch and management. We have made it possible to streamline our operations. Inventory and accounting. Sushanth Raman, CEO and co-founder of Pallet, was an early engineer at low-code startup Retool before leaving to start his own company with co-founder and fellow Retool engineer Andrew Spencer. In fact,…

Whatnot, a livestream marketplace platform for trading card collectors and sneakerheads, announced Wednesday that it has surpassed $2 billion in annual gross merchandise value (GMV) this year. GMV's milestone comes on the heels of recent product launches. Rewards Club is a customizable loyalty program where merchants can create their own rewards and customers can earn, including coupons, free shipping, and access to exclusive shows and products. Whatnot's new growth metrics not only highlight the company's strong momentum, but also highlight the growth of its live-commerce business in the U.S., although it's still far behind China, where livestream shopping is a…

Whatnot, a livestream marketplace platform for trading card collectors and sneakerheads, offers a bit of positive news at a time when the overall livestream shopping industry isn't gaining traction in the United States. The company announced Wednesday that its annual gross merchandise volume (GMV) in livestream sales exceeded $2 billion this year. This is a milestone following the recent launch of our new product 'Rewards Club'. It is a customizable loyalty program that allows sellers to create their own rewards that buyers can earn. , coupons, free shipping, and access to exclusive shows and products. Watnot believes the company's growth…

During COVID-19, Wiley Webb and his wife embarked on a year-long journey to uncover the most pressing problems in our food system. He talked to people at over 70 farms and always heard they wanted more buyers. Major buyers told Webb they had wanted to find these farm suppliers but were unable to find them due to slow and opaque sourcing. Webb decided to build on the missing pieces. “Despite trillions of dollars in trade and all the sophistication, food buyers are having a hard time finding and contracting new suppliers,” Webb said. “The core issue that prevents the level…

Character.AI is starting a new chapter after signing a $2.7 billion licensing deal with Google. The licensing deal includes CEO Noam Shazeer returning to the search giant. We hired Erin Teague, a former YouTube executive with global head of sports movies and product management, as chief product officer. Teague has worked at Google since 2016 and will join Character.AI next week. She also previously served as technical advisor to SVP for Search, Ads, Maps, Gemini, Assistant, Shopping and Payments. Recently, “Character.AI sets a new standard for how everyday users interact with AI, pioneering personalized and engaging AI experiences at scale,”…

This time last year, Alfonzo Terrell uncorked a bottle of fancy champagne to celebrate the one-year anniversary of being fired from Twitter. He had a lot to celebrate back then. His social media platform, Spill, just raised a $2 million seed expansion and has grown to around 200,000 users. As Spill approaches its second anniversary, Twitter's former global editorial director has something else to celebrate. That's why Emmy Award-winning actress Kerry Washington invested in his app. However, Washington is more than just a member of the cap table. She is active within the Spill community, hosting Tea Parties (the name…

If you've ever tried to use ChatGPT as a calculator, you've almost certainly noticed its computational problems. Chatbots aren't good at math. In this respect, it is not unique among AIs. Claude from Anthropic can't solve basic word problems. Gemini cannot understand quadratic equations. And meta llamas have trouble with simple addition. So why are these bots able to write monologues but still stumble on elementary-level math? Tokenization has something to do with it. Tokenization, the process of dividing data into chunks (for example, splitting the word “fantastic” into the syllables “fan,” “tas,” and “tic”), helps AI densely encode information.…

Lawmakers who support California's recently vetoed AI bill, SB 1047, are losing power. For months, Silicon Valley debated whether SB 1047 would have a chilling effect on California's AI boom or protect it from catastrophic damage caused by advanced AI systems. The answer has not been clear since California Governor Gavin Newsom decided this was the wrong approach and vetoed the bill on Sunday before it became law. Now, California Sen. Scott Wiener tells TechCrunch that some Silicon Valley institutions spread an unprecedented level of “misinformation” about SB 1047 in the months leading up to the veto. Ta. (People outside…