Author: TechBrunch

ByteDance has announced that it will shut down its music streaming service, TikTok Music, in November. “We are sorry to inform you that TikTok Music will be shutting down on November 28, 2024,” said a notice on the TikTok Music website. The service was available in Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore and Mexico. According to the notice, subscribers can continue to use the service until November 28th, after which renewal will be automatically canceled. Users who want to transfer their playlists to other streaming services have until October 28th to do so, and refund requests must be submitted by November 28th.…

Last year, Pinterest created an engaging format called Collage, which allows users to combine images and cut-outs to create new content, and now the company hopes to encourage users to create more collages by introducing the Remix feature. Similar to the Remix feature on short-video apps like Instagram and Snap, the idea behind Pinterest's feature is that users can borrow existing collages and put their own spin on them. Users who don't want to be remixed can turn off collage remixing in settings. Collage Tools[コラージュ カードをリミックス]Go to Options or browse Pinterest for a collage you found.[リミックス]With the tap of a…

OpenAI’s official X press account has been compromised by cryptocurrency scammers. At least, that’s what it appears to be. Late Monday afternoon, OpenAI Newsroom, an account recently created by OpenAI to feature product and policy-related announcements, posted about a supposedly new OpenAI-branded blockchain token called $OPENAI. “[$OPEANAI bridges] “Bridging the gap between AI and blockchain technology,” the post reads. “All OpenAI users will be eligible to claim a portion of the initial supply of $OPENAI. Holding $OPENAI will grant you access to all upcoming beta programs.” Image credit: X The problem is, $OPENAI doesn't exist. X's post linked to a…

Many venture capitalists, from Keith Rabois to Ethan Kurzweil, have switched firms or spun out of prestigious venture capitalist institutions to launch their own funds this year. These hiring changes are surprising because, unlike many other fields, venture capitalists traditionally don't move around much, especially once they reach partner or general partner level. VC funds have a 10-year life cycle, and partners have good reasons to stay the course. In some cases, the firm's fund may have a “key person” in it, meaning that if that key person leaves, the fund's LPs have the right to withdraw their capital if…

California Governor Gavin Newsom is currently considering 38 AI-related bills, including the highly controversial SB 1047, which the state legislature has sent to the governor for final approval. These bills seek to address some of the most pressing issues in artificial intelligence, including the existential risks posed by future AI systems, deepfake nudes created by AI image generators, and Hollywood studios creating AI clones of deceased actors. “California, home to many of the world's leading AI companies, is leveraging these transformative technologies to address pressing challenges and studying the risks they pose,” Newsom's office said in a press release. To…

Founder mode? Hmmm. Who needs that when you can be the creative father and usher in a new era for humanity? Welcome to “God Mode”. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, an AI startup aiming for a $150 billion valuation, has previously pitched AI as a solution to the world's problems, despite the massive impact it will have on energy resources, carbon emissions, and water use to cool data centers, sacrificing the progress the world has made to combat climate change. In his latest post, OpenAI leader Altman offers a very positive update on the state of AI, touting its world-changing…

Microsoft made headlines last week when it announced it had signed a deal with Constellation Energy to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor to meet surging power demand for its data centers, bucking the decline that is seen as the end of the power source. Over the past decade, the United States has retired seven nuclear reactors and put only two new ones online. Meanwhile, the number of data centers has exploded, with more than 10,000 worldwide, half of them in the United States. And as cloud computing becomes more widespread, power industry research institute EPRI predicts that energy…

According to changes on X's website spotted by independent app researcher Nima Ouji, X will soon change how its block button works so that when a user blocks an account, that user's public posts will still be viewable. Elon Musk confirmed the change on Monday, saying that blocked accounts will still be unable to interact with the user who blocked them, but that the user's posts will be viewable shortly. “The block feature blocks the account from engaging, but does not block viewing. [a] “This is a public post,” Musk said in a tweet on Monday. Owji told TechCrunch via…

Kaspersky Lab antivirus customers in the US learned a few days ago that their cybersecurity software had been automatically replaced with a newer version called UltraAV, according to multiple customers posting on social media, some of whom said they never expected something like this to happen. “I woke up to Kaspersky [sic] “After a fresh install of Ultra AV and Ultra VPN, the virus was completely gone from my system (I didn't install it, it just disappeared automatically while I was sleeping),” wrote a Reddit user, with other people reporting the same experience on the same Reddit thread and others.…

A theoretical physicist believes he's made a breakthrough in photonics research that could lead to faster, more powerful processors — a big need for artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other intensive technologies — and now his startup is getting early backing from NATO, European governments and other major investors to build such chips. Ephos has raised $8.5 million in seed funding to build and operate a new research, development and manufacturing facility near Milan focused on glass-based quantum photonics. Like Ephos, there are other companies with big photonics ideas, including Xanadu (valued at $1 billion), Photonik (backed by Microsoft) and…