Author: TechBrunch

Elon Musk's xAI's Grok AI model can now generate images on the X social network. Access to Grok is currently limited to X's Premium and Premium+ users. The text below the sample image prompts indicates that Grok is using Black Forest Labs' FLUX.1 to create these images. Early user-generated images suggest that Grok's image-generating feature has no guardrails when it comes to generating images of politicians, but with the US presidential election approaching, the company may impose some restrictions on the feature to avoid regulatory scrutiny. Grok 2.0 features political illustrations and real people, which ChatGPT rejects.This instantly makes Grok…

Google's annual Made by Google hardware event got underway early Tuesday morning, but the company announced so many things that a lot got lost in the shuffle. We've rounded up some of the more interesting AI-related announcements that got under the radar, including Pixel Studio for generating images and Pixel Screenshots for saving and organizing information in your screenshots. Call notes summarize the conversation For people like me who have short-term memory problems, call notes can be a useful feature. Call notes, available on Pixel 9 series devices, saves a summary of your conversation after a call. Details and a…

Google announced Gemini Live on Tuesday at its Made By Google event in Mountain View, Calif. The feature lets you have semi-natural conversations, rather than typing, with an AI chatbot powered by Google's latest large-scale language models. TechCrunch was there to test it out firsthand. Gemini Live is Google's answer to OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode, a near-identical feature from ChatGPT that's currently in limited alpha testing. OpenAI demoed the feature before Google, but Google is the first to show the finished feature publicly. In my experience, these low-latency voice features feel much more natural than sending a text with ChatGPT…

Chinese self-driving car maker WeRide has received permission to test its driverless cars with passengers in California. The move comes as WeRide begins the process of going public on the U.S. stock market at a valuation of about $5 billion, and coincides with reports that the Commerce Department is considering banning Chinese-made connected cars, including self-driving ones, due to national security concerns. As of August 2, WeRide has been approved for two permits by the California Public Utilities Commission: a piloted permit and an unmanned permit. Both permit WeRide to test its vehicles on public roads with passengers on board.…

Kristen Faulkner's incredible success in winning two Olympic gold medals was born out of lessons she learned in her previous career as a venture capitalist. Faulkner is an associate investor at Threshold Ventures and previously at Bessemer Venture Partners, but left the venture capital world in 2021 to pursue cycling. She wasn't originally scheduled to race the 158-kilometer (98-mile) road cycling race, but competed at the last minute to replace teammate Taylor Knibb. Faulkner beat the favorites that day to win the gold medal, her second medal as part of the gold-medal-winning U.S. women's track cycling team. “As a venture…

Outside of science fiction movies, there's no precedent for AI systems being used to kill people or launch cyberattacks, but some lawmakers want to put in place safeguards before bad actors make that dystopian future a reality. California's bill, SB 1047, aims to prevent real-world disasters caused by AI systems and is due for a final vote in the state senate in late August. While this seems like a goal we can all agree on, SB 1047 has drawn the ire of Silicon Valley players big and small, including venture capitalists, major tech trade associations, researchers, and startup founders. There…

Along with the announcement of the Pixel Watch 3 smartwatch, which comes in two sizes, Google is also introducing a new, potentially life-saving feature: Pulse Loss Detection. At its Made by Google 2024 event on Tuesday, the company announced the addition of this particular health emergency-sensing watch feature, along with other new tools and features, like a workout “readiness” score, an aerobic load score, and a personalized daily target load that combines the former and latter metrics to show how much intensity you can tolerate each day. But the more appealing addition, even for non-athletes, is the loss of pulse…

Most of the new camera features Google has introduced to its Pixel devices in recent years involve AI-based post-processing, but Made You Look, announced at its Made by Google 2024 event on Tuesday, is different: it reaches back through the history of photography to borrow from an old favorite technique: tricking a cranky child into smiling. Sure, there are plenty of AI features to help you out already, like Best Take, but that's not the most fun part. Following in the footsteps of generations of exhausted parents who vainly tried to make their kids laugh by waving around stuffed toys…

Google has been heavy on consumer hardware launches in August. Last week, the company unveiled the long-awaited new Nest Thermostat and the Google TV Streamer, which replaces its 11-year-old Chromecast line. And today at Made by Google 2024, the software giant refreshed its Pixel line, along with a slew of new smartphones and a host of Gemini AI announcements. You can find the details here. Previous Made by Google events were held in October on the East Coast, and this one was held at the company's Mountain View headquarters and began today, August 13, at 10am PST/1pm ET. As always,…

Coinciding with the launch of the new Pixel devices, the Pixel smartphone lineup will get its own new AI-powered weather app. Announced at its Made by Google 2024 event on Tuesday, the app offers custom AI weather forecasts created by Gemini Nano, a Google AI model designed to run on mobile devices, which the tech giant briefly showed off. The tech company touts that the new app will “free up users from having to scroll through a bunch of numbers to find out what the weather will be like for the day.” Instead, users will be able to customize the…