Author: TechBrunch

Voice AI Company ElevenLabs allows authors to publish AI-generated audiobooks in their own reader apps. TechCrunch was studied and the company confirmed it. The announcement comes days after the company partnered with Spotify, an AI-narrated audiobook. ElevenLabs, which raised a $180 million mega-round last month, began inviting authors to try out the publishing program through the app with last year's trial version. The program is newly opened to all authors as of today. Image Credits Eleven Labs The company confirmed the development with TechCrunch and explained it was to provide an affordable and accessible tool for creating audiobooks. The platform…

One of the world's largest AI vendors, humanity has a strong family of generative AI models called Claude. These models can perform a variety of tasks, from captioning images and writing emails to solving mathematics and coding challenges. With Anthropic's model ecosystem growing so rapidly it can be difficult to track which Claude models do what. To help, we have compiled a guide to Claude. This will continue to be updated as new models and upgrades arrive. Claude model The Claude model is named after the works of art from literary works: haiku, sonnets and opas. The latest ones are:…

Openai's AI-powered chatbot platform ChatGpt continues to expand its new features. The Chatbot's memory feature allows you to save settings to make your chat more tuned. ChatGPT also has an upgraded voice mode that allows you to interact more or less with the platform in real time. We also offer stores (GPT stores) for applications and services powered by AI. So you may wonder: how much does ChatGpt cost? It's a more difficult question to answer than you think. Openai offers both paid and free ChatGpt plans for customers ranging from individuals to nonprofits, small businesses, educational institutions and businesses.…

The demonstration from Optifye.ai, a member of Y Combinator's current cohort, sparked a social media backlash, which led to YC removing it from social. Optifye builds software that helps factory owners know who work “real-time” and who is “real-time,” according to YC's profile, thanks to AI-powered security cameras. They say there is. According to a snapshot saved by TechCrunch, YC posted an Optify demo video on X (and LinkedIn) on Monday. This video shows Optifye co-founder Kushal Mohta, acting as the boss of a clothing factory. In fact, it's about a low-performing worker known as “Number 17” who calls co-founder…

Perplexity, the developer of AI-powered search engines, is raising $50 million in seed and pre-seed investment funds, CNBC reports. While the majority of the capital comes from limited partners, embarrassment uses some of the capital it has gathered to help the company grow to lock the fund. It reportedly raised $500 million at a $9 billion valuation in January. Perplexity's fund is managed by general partners Kelly Graziadei and Joanna Lee Shevelenko, who co-founded early-stage venture F7 Ventures in 2018, according to Pitchbook data. F7 is investing in startups such as the women's health company Midi. It is not clear…

Elon Musk has spent decades building a universe of companies that has served as an incubator for up-and-coming engineers and a proving ground for his inner circle. That universe — an ecosystem of Silicon Valley tech titans, veterans of his companies like Tesla and SpaceX, and a crop of fresh-faced hackers and software engineers — has now collided with the U.S. federal government. The dozens of individuals who work under, or advise, Musk and the Trump-ordered Department of Government Efficiency — individuals who TechCrunch has identified or confirmed independently — reflects more than the billionaire’s proclivity to collect talent. They…

Apptronik, the Austin-based manufacturer of humanoid robots, announced on Tuesday a new pilot partnership with Jabil, a stubborn American supply chain/manufacturing staunch. The deal arrived two weeks after Apptronik announced a $350 million Series A finance round aimed at expanding production of the Apollo Robot. The Jabil contract is the second major pilot announced by Apptronik. This follows the partnership in March 2024, with Apollo working on the manufacturing floor of Mercedes-Benz. The company tells TechCrunch that a partnership with the automaker is ongoing, but has not graduated past the pilot stage. In addition to testing the humanoid robot execution…

A new Mac app called Framous will be launched on Tuesday, allowing you to add device frames around the screenshots to make them look more professional. A useful new tool can help app developers, graphic designers, and even journalists who need to add iPhone or Mac frames (also known as mockups or templates) to their photos. This is especially useful for creating screenshots, landing pages and header images for articles. This app was created by Dark Noise app developer Charlie Chapman. CharlieChapman needed a quick and easy way to add device frames around screenshots. Traditionally, many users relied on time-consuming…

Poe, Quora's platform that brings together numerous AI models under one roof, has launched a new feature that allows users to build visual interfaces (e.g. apps) on any combination of models. This feature, called the POE app, allows POE users to describe what apps they will create with the new app creation tool. The description can include references to a particular model, such as the specific model you want to use for your app (Openai's O3-Mini, Google's Video Generation Veo 2) or the broader general specifications. Poe's new app creator tool. Powered by Anthropic's recently released Claude 3.7 Sonnet, App…

Bluesky has been added to the Opera web browser. On Tuesday, the Norwegian-based software maker announced the addition of a new social network along with Slack and Discord. All of these are integrated into the browser sidebar along with other messaging and communication services. Opera users were able to customize their browsers with shortcuts for messaging apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Instagram, Tiktok, X, and more. Adding discrepancies in Slack with Bluesky in the sidebar will help you expand the appeal of the app among people who spend a lot of time, both personally and at work. It is also…