Author: TechBrunch
Microsoft is facing a full regulatory investigation in the UK after it hired the core team from Inflection AI, a US-based rival to OpenAI in which Microsoft had previously invested. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) today announced that it will open a “phase one” merger investigation, kicking off a 40-working day investigation period during which it will gather evidence and decide whether to proceed with a full investigation. The news comes four months after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella launched a new consumer AI division spearheaded by Inflection AI founders, including deep learning scientist Karen Simonyan and Google DeepMind co-founder…
Russian cybersecurity giant Kaspersky Lab is laying off dozens of employees and withdrawing from the U.S. market after receiving a U.S. government order in June banning the sale of its software due to security risks. Kaspersky said it would “gradually wind down” its US operations from July 20, when the ban comes into effect, adding that its US operations were “no longer viable.” Independent journalist Kim Zetter first broke the news on Monday that the company was closing its US operations. Zetter said the layoffs would affect “fewer than 50” employees in the US. CNN also reported the same statement.…
Among my friends, Lindsay Dorff is the individual investor's superpower when it comes to understanding investments, and she has become the go-to person for advice. “I had a lot of friends asking me for investment advice,” Dolph told TechCrunch. “What I really saw was two things: One, the people I was around were smart, but they didn't have the confidence to invest. And two, what I was figuring out on the institutional side from my time at BlackRock wasn't translating to the retail sector.” She started thinking about building her own tool to help her friends, especially her female friends,…
Developer Marco Arment released the popular podcast app Overcast 10 years ago. Now, he's rebuilt and redesigned the app for the modern era. Most of the changes are invisible, but one key difference is that you can no longer stream podcast episodes; instead, you'll have to rely on downloading them. Arment justified the move by saying that the dynamic ad insertion used by most podcasts interrupts streaming playback, and that with today's network speeds, downloading episodes before playing them is a more reliable way to consume podcasts. Image credit: Overcast In addition to the changes, Arment spent nearly 18 months…
There are a number of startups aiming to replace Google with AI-powered search (Perplexity is one of them), but a startup called Exa has a different idea: an AI version of Google. Exa's founders believe it's not humans who are in desperate need of a new kind of search engine: rather, as AI becomes more and more prevalent in businesses and consumers' lives, the AI platforms themselves will need to periodically go to the internet to search for information and return real answers, not hallucinated ones, and they won't just let you type requests into a keyboard. Exa is building…
According to Pitchbook data, funding to women-founded companies overall (including mixed-gender teams) is up $15.5 billion (17%) out of $93 billion in the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of 2023, down from $24.8 billion (28%) out of $87.7 billion in the first half of 2023. So far this year, companies with all-female founding teams have raised 2.2% of the venture capital allocated this year. The data shows that all-female founding teams have not raised more than 3% of venture capital funding since at least 2014, and over the past four years, even as the amount of…
An Indian court on Tuesday launched bankruptcy proceedings for Bijoux, once India's most valuable start-up, following a petition by the Indian Cricket Board. The ruling effectively installs an interim resolution professional to manage the company's operations and ousts the start-up's founders. The National Company Law Tribunal's ruling (PDF) came in response to a petition by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which is seeking recovery of nearly $19 million from the Bengaluru-based ed-tech startup. Byju's was previously a sponsor of the Indian cricket team. The court called on creditors, employees and vendors to file lawsuits against the…
As it gears up for the summer travel season, Uber on Tuesday unveiled a new feature that streamlines the planning process for riders, giving users a convenient way to search for destinations in another city and book a ride in advance before their plane even touches down. Uber's new feature is aimed at catering to a surge in summer travel and making it easier for travelers to arrange transportation before they arrive. Airlines for America predicts that about 271 million passengers will fly worldwide from June through August, up sharply from the 255 million that flew last summer. The company…
The tech world has long promised to democratize software development through “visual” tools that help non-coders develop digital products. In the past, this might have been something like Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) or Dreamweaver. More recently, no-code and low-code startups have raised a ton of funding, widening access to the software development process. That's why Danish startup Toddle has entered the visual development space, launching a full-featured no-code platform alternative to Javascript frameworks with real-time collaboration, version control, and hosting capabilities. Ultimately, the company says it wants to “change the way software is built.” Todor in action Image…
If you've ever bought a sofa from an online store, have you ever thought about the house you see in the background? When launching a new collection, furniture brands usually spend a lot of money on photo shoots, a tedious and expensive process because it's not easy to move furniture around. That's why French startup Presti, which uses generative AI to turn single product images into lifelike photographs, has already raised $3.5 million in a seed round led by Partech and with participation from several angel investors. “We immediately got on the phone and spoke to 50 potential users,” Presti…