Author: TechBrunch
Like most big tech companies these days, Meta has its own flagship generative AI model called Llama. Llama is somewhat unique among the major models in that it is “open,” meaning developers can download and use it as they like (with certain restrictions). This contrasts with models like Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's GPT-4o (the basis for ChatGPT), and Google's Gemini, which are only accessible via APIs. But to give developers options, Meta has partnered with vendors like AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure to offer cloud-hosted versions of Llama, and the company has also released tools that make it easier to…
Update 9/8: As always, more rumors are popping up in the days leading up to the event. Some of the more interesting recent ones (all Apple Watch related) include that blood pressure monitoring from the Apple Watch Series 10 won't be coming to the Watch Ultra 2, the Watch's Apple Intelligence features will be limited but will be integrated into future fitness coach-style features, and both models will reportedly have sleep apnea features, though they may not be available at launch. Sometimes a headline is all you need. Apple is unveiling the iPhone 16 at its “It's Glowtime” event on…
Nearly 20 years ago, Andrew Bissell was sitting in the living room of his Edinburgh-area seaside home. He and his wife, Susan Lang Bissell, had just sold their medical imaging startup, and he was thinking about the future. “Am I retiring or am I going to go back?” Bissell told TechCrunch. Around that time, he was leafing through a science magazine when he came across an article about climate change that predicted sea levels could rise by between 30 centimeters and 1 meter by the end of the century. “Wait a minute,” he said to himself, “if that were to…
The most common advice given to startup founders is to identify a problem in your life and find a way to solve it. Multi-exit founder Paul Friedman has a big problem: his beloved Oakland Athletics are relocating to Las Vegas, via Sacramento. “It's interesting how much of an impact a sports team can have on the psyche of a town,” Friedman told TechCrunch, “and when a team decides to abandon a town, it creates heartbreak. Fans have described it as a death in the family, and that death is a family member who hosted a party.” For Oakland sports fans,…
Bluesky continues to grow: The company announced that it had added 3 million new users as of Friday morning, bringing its total user base to more than 9 million. In other words, the social platform's user base has grown by about 50 percent since the Brazilian courts banned X (formerly Twitter). The ban propelled Bluesky to the top of Brazil's free iPhone app rankings, where it now ranks second only to Meta competitor Threads. As well as announcing its latest user numbers, Bluesky assured old and new users that video support is “coming soon.” The platform began as a Twitter-backed…
Warp, an emerging New York payroll startup, has been in the spotlight following some controversial posts from accounts associated with the company. On Thursday, an account posting under the name Vittorio wrote to X, “I prefer white people. White people do more and they are better suited for the roles. I need to climb the Kardashev scale. I let black people run and play basketball.” The account profile included a badge identifying “Vittorio” as affiliated with Warp, whose software focuses on automating state-by-state tax compliance and was in incubator Y Combinator's winter 2023 cohort. The badge, created by X (formerly…
As a young immigrant in Brooklyn, Moe Shaikh often thought about his father's taxi income: His father would say he made $100, but Shaikh couldn't understand why only $60 went home (the rest, he learned, went to middlemen). This childhood experience piqued his curiosity about the financial system, but also made him aware of its shortcomings and the need for change. Shaikh studied finance, economics and psychology at Hunter College before earning an MBA from the University of Rochester. After graduating, he began cutting his teeth in the professional world at companies like BlackRock and Boston Consulting Group. But when…
In 2022, Carta's license was revoked in Illinois for failing to pay franchise taxes, which are levied on domestic companies doing business in the state, according to Illinois records reviewed by TechCrunch. In 2024, Washington state revoked the license of capital table software Pulley, according to state filings. Carta spokesperson Amanda Taggart told TechCrunch that the company missed the deadline to file its annual report and pay the corresponding taxes. Taggart added that the company has remedied its situation and is waiting for the state of Illinois to reinstate the company in good standing. Pulley founder and CEO Yin Wu…
How do you know if the person on the other end of the phone is really them? In early July, Ferrari executives were inundated with WhatsApp messages that appeared to be from their boss, the carmaker's CEO, Benedetto Vigna. But they didn't recognize the numbers and weren't sure if the calls were really from their boss. Though suspicious of the flood of messages from a number they didn't recognize, a Ferrari executive picked up the phone with someone claiming to be Vigna. The purported CEO had the same Southern Italian accent as Vigna, but the executive still felt something was…
Antonio Nuño, Fatima Álvarez and Enrique Rodríguez have been friends since they were 5 years old. As teenagers, they became volunteers helping indigenous communities, first in Mexico and then in other countries, where they discovered that many of the women were artisans. Nuño recalls that the trio noticed these artists “making very beautiful things in a very sustainable way,” and by the time they were 25, a business idea was brewing. They envisioned connecting these artists “with their craft and their stories and with the supply chains of global companies looking for ways to make products in a more sustainable…