Author: TechBrunch

80/20 rule. Decrease in revenue. The “good enough” principle. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to strive for perfection. At least, that's what Glenn Meyerowitz thinks. Meyerowitz, an engineer by training, is leaning heavily into that concept with Clarity Technology, the direct air capture startup he founded in 2022. Most other carbon capture companies try to squeeze almost all the juice out of the lemon to saturate the adsorbent with enough CO2.2 The end result is an almost completely pure gas flow. Meyerowitz feels that's going too far. “Most people in the world, and almost everyone we know, are trying…

Sound reveals a lot about water and where it's going. With every washing machine cycle, dish wash, and toilet flush, water rushes into the pipes of homes, apartments, and commercial buildings, carrying waste away at breakneck speed. The whistling and buzzing sounds that water makes on its way down may seem unnoticeable. However, they are part of a unique sound signature and, with the right algorithms and hardware, can be detected and classified for preventive maintenance purposes. What is called acoustic detection is not new science. Water departments and utilities have been using acoustic sensors for years to check for…

Online interior design startup Havenly is acquiring artisan home décor startup The Citizenry, the company announced today. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Havenly said the acquisition is part of its efforts to build a collection of home brands that appeal to shoppers. This deal marks Havenly's third acquisition in two years. Founded in 2014, The Citizenry works with artisans around the world to create limited edition handcrafted homewares. With the acquisition of The Citizenry, Havenly is expanding its selection of furniture, textiles and home decor. Havenly CEO Lee Meyer told TechCrunch that the company's vision is to…

You voted, and the results are finally out! We are pleased to announce that we have selected Dana Louie, Senior Manager of Corporate Development at HubSpot, as the winner of this year's Her Audience Choice Roundtable at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024. Winning Early Stage 2024 Roundtable Dana's roundtable, “M&A Exit: What Acquirers Are Looking For and How You Can Prepare for a Successful Acquisition,” provides a real-world perspective on the factors companies consider when evaluating M&A opportunities. , covers strategies for driving acquisitions and provides practical insights. Maximize acquisition success. Get your pass now to hear from Dana and other…

GenAI, the hottest AI today, generates images, emails, songs, and more in record time, arguably making work less painful. But in the long run, one of the more useful applications of AI may be identifying counterintuitive correlations that humans miss. For example, consider that people who like horror movies are more likely to try certain exotic cuisines, while people who like sitcoms are more likely to listen to true crime podcasts. New York-based startup Qloo is on a mission to apply AI to understand these nuanced preferences and cultural patterns. Founded in 2012 by Alex Elias and Jay Alger, Qloo…

It’s a horrible truth that many women simply endure period pain every month — perhaps relying on painkillers or a hot water bottle to relieve stomach cramps. For others, menstrual pain can be inescapably debilitating — to the point where they have to stay in bed for days each month and wait the pain out, as over-the-counter painkillers don’t provide relief. People who menstruate may also suffer from PMS, the mood swings and emotional sensitivity that can occur in the days leading up to a period. Or from an even more severe mood disorder, PMDD. Beyond the usual advice of…

Just a week after launching the latest version of its Gemini model, Google today announced the launch of Gemma, a new family of lightweight openweight models. Starting with Gemma 2B and Gemma 7B, these new models are “Gemini-inspired” and are available for commercial and research use. Google did not provide a detailed paper on how these models would perform against similar models from, say, Meta or Mistral, only saying that they were “state-of-the-art.” However, the company notes that these are high-density decoder-only models, the same architecture it used for its Gemini models (and earlier his PaLM models), and that benchmarks…

Microsoft, Amazon and Meta are among the top brands whose apps are listed on Indian fintech company PhonePe's Indus Appstore. Indus Appstore is an Android app store launched on Wednesday to challenge Google's monopoly on its biggest user market. To compete with Google Play Store, PhonePe has provided Indus Appstore with various unique personalized features and developer-friendly conditions. The $12 billion Walmart-backed fintech company says the Indus Appstore supports 12 regional languages ​​(including English) and 24-hour support service. The app store, which currently features over 200,000 apps across 45 categories including Flipkart, Spotify and Paytm, supports third-party payments and will…

Among the professions at risk of being replaced by AI, language teaching is definitely at the top of the list. It's not necessarily because it's a good idea. Some employers, including his most recent Duolingo, have decided that AI makes sense enough to replace human experts when it comes to language instruction. Despite the fact that text translated by AI tends to have a less rich vocabulary than human translation, the cost savings are enough to make the trade-off worth it in the minds of some administrators. Attractive enough. But some companies argue that AI can do things at scale…

This week, a wide-ranging law enforcement operation led by the UK's National Crime Agency took down LockBit, the notorious Russia-linked ransomware gang that has been wreaking havoc on businesses, hospitals and governments around the world for years. The action brought down LockBit's leaked site, seized its servers, led to multiple arrests, and led to one of the most significant operations ever undertaken by the U.S. government against the ransomware group. Sanctions have been applied. It's also arguably one of the most cutting-edge takedowns we've ever seen, with British authorities announcing the seizure of Rockbit's infrastructure on the group's own leak…