Author: TechBrunch
Zoom on Monday announced a new single-user webinar feature that is capped at 1 million participants. The addition comes less than a month after Vice President Kamala Harris' #WinWithBlackWomen fundraiser crashed after peaking at 44,000 users, and more recently, an X interview between owner Elon Musk and Harris' opponent Donald Trump crashed before it began. Given the audience sizes for Zoom's new feature (available in sizes of 10,000, 50,000, 100,000, 250,000, and 500,000), the company is offering live support from its events services, which Zoom representatives say will “ensure organizers deliver a professional, engaging experience” and presumably ensure events don't…
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday posted a collection of memes on Truth Social, a platform owned by his media company, that make it seem as if Taylor Swift and her fans are endorsing Trump as a presidential candidate. But as new laws go into effect, the images could have deeper implications for the use of AI-generated images in political campaigns, especially when those images misrepresent celebrities. “One of the things I'm seeing a lot in my practice right now is a general increase in AI impersonation for ad purposes,” intellectual property and entertainment attorney Noah Downs told TechCrunch, on…
Few truly autonomous systems have been deployed on the battlefield, but one startup is looking to change that with robotic systems that use cooperative behavior to give soldiers more intelligence and a tactical advantage. These systems, called “swarms,” are essentially collections of autonomous robots that can coordinate their actions. Swarm robots are the stuff of science fiction, but Swarmbotics AI emerged today in secret to make the concept a reality. The startup is developing an ecosystem of products called ANTS (Attritable, Networked, Tactical Swarm) that could revolutionize battlefield logistics. Swarmbotics was founded last summer by Steven Horton and Drew Watson,…
Depending on how you feel about the intersection of crypto and Silicon Valley libertarianism, this is either a dream idea or a bizarre one: Former a16z investor Balaji Srinivasan has rented out an island in Singapore to create his own “Network School,” where he’ll run programs on crypto, longevity, and what it takes to set up a “technocapitalist college town.” As he posted Announce this initiative. This marks the most significant milestone yet for Srinivasan's dream of creating a “network nation,” which he defines as an Internet community that has a physical location and “gains diplomatic recognition from existing nation…
Flight tracking site FlightAware blames a “configuration error” for exposing a trove of personal information, including some of its customers' Social Security numbers. The company, which describes itself as the largest flight data aggregator, said in a notice on its website that it identified an unspecified error on July 25 and that names, email addresses and other information users provided to the company was exposed. According to FlightAware, the exposed data includes “billing addresses, shipping addresses, IP addresses, social media accounts, phone numbers, dates of birth, the last four digits of credit card numbers, aircraft ownership information, industry, job title,…
A surprising number of “iPad kids,” or Generation Alpha 7- to 9-year-olds, are using X (formerly Twitter), according to a report on kids' app usage in the U.S. released Monday by parental control software maker Qustodio. The company found that more than 30 percent of kids in this group have an X account, and 44 percent already have their own tablet to access apps and games. X doesn't seem to have much content that would attract younger users — the platform tends to feature politics and breaking news, and has had its fair share of misinformation under Elon Musk's rule…
Apple Podcasts can now be streamed from the web: Apple announced on Monday that the Apple Podcasts app is now available on all major web browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari) in more than 170 countries. The new dedicated web experience is intended to make podcasts easily accessible to anyone with a web browser on any device. Web listening has been available for some time, but to listen to an episode, users had to search for the show in a search engine and visit the show's Apple Podcasts preview page. Now, Apple Podcasts on the web has launched a new…
The Epic Games Store was already available on PC and Mac, but has now been released for Android users worldwide and iOS users in Europe. This could be the start of a wider change in how apps are distributed on iPhones in particular, which could see phones offering different app stores in the future. This has been something of a crusade for Epic, which lost an antitrust lawsuit against Apple last year but has had success in other ways. So, the Epic Games Store is now available on iOS thanks to a new law in the European Union called the…
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Popular iPad design app Procreate is opposed to generative AI and has vowed not to introduce generative AI features into its products. The company said on its website that while machine learning is a “compelling technology with many benefits,” the current direction of generative AI isn't a good fit for its platform. Procreate says it's not pursuing technologies that threaten human creativity, even if it could make the company “appear to be at risk of being left behind.” Procreate CEO James Kuda issued an even stronger statement of opposition to the technology in a video posted to X on Monday.…