Author: TechBrunch
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies for more wide-ranging needs. And that growth has propelled OpenAI itself into becoming one of the most-hyped companies in recent memory, even if CEO and co-founder Sam Altman’s firing and swift return raised concerns about its direction and opened the door for competitors. What does that mean for OpenAI, ChatGPT and its other ambitions? The fallout is still settling,…
Hotelsbycity.com co-founders and former Priceline executives Andrew Loewen and Randy Schartner announced their latest project, Plannin, a global travel booking platform that enables creators to monetize hotel recommendations and share travel-focused content. As the value of the creator economy continues to grow, estimated to generate $250 billion in revenue, Plannin wants to put a new spin on travel booking by using influencers instead of travel agents. Plannin allows creators to tell their audience about their recent trips, their favorite hotels, post travel photos, and earn revenue by sharing their affiliate links on social platforms and encouraging their followers to sign…
After selling his second company, Bypass, a payments and point-of-sale software company for sports and entertainment, to Fiserv in 2020, Brandon Lloyd dove deeper into the payments industry and noticed something: software companies were being treated unfairly by the payments provider industry. “Companies like Stripe originally built their platform to make it easy for online merchants to accept credit cards,” Lloyd told TechCrunch, “and now it's being distributed to merchants through software companies, who need support. Instead of generating revenue and multiplying their SaaS revenue, they're handing all of their payments revenue over to the payment providers.” It's not uncommon…
Amazon is introducing an AI-powered search feature to Fire TV that will allow Alexa to answer open-ended questions about TV shows and movies and provide more specific recommendations tailored to the user's preferences. Announced at Amazon's annual Devices event last September, the feature is powered by a proprietary large-scale language model (LLM), which allows the AI to understand natural language and phrases and answer specific questions like, “Which movie has the line, 'Life is like a box of chocolates'?” (Forrest Gump, by the way.) It can also surface options based on actors, characters, genres, and topics. Image credit: AmazonImage credit:…
Leading tech companies including Intel, Google, Microsoft and Meta are forming a new industry group, the Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) Promoter Group, to guide the development of components that link AI accelerator chips in data centers. Announced on Thursday, the UALink Promoter Group, whose members also include AMD (but not Arm), Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Broadcom, and Cisco, is proposing a new industry standard for connecting the AI accelerator chips that are being installed in a growing number of servers. Broadly defined, an AI accelerator is any chip, from GPUs to custom-designed solutions, that speeds up the training, fine-tuning, and execution…
Fresh produce supply chains in Africa and emerging markets face cascading challenges every day. A wide range of issues are intertwined, from environmental and labor issues to logistics issues, food waste and imbalances between supply and demand. These different issues have different impacts on stakeholders. Farmers struggle to sell and retailers struggle to negotiate effectively. Several agritech startups have attempted to solve these problems by managing the fresh produce supply chain and connecting retailers directly with farmers, without the middleman: Frubana in Latin America, Meicai in China, and Waycool in India are examples. YoLa Fresh is one such startup, starting…
Instagram on Thursday announced that it is expanding its “restrict” tool for teenagers to help them limit unwanted interactions in an effort to combat harassment on the platform. When turned on, the feature will allow teenagers to only see comments, messages, story replies, tags, and mentions from their “close friends” group, muting interactions from other accounts. The company originally introduced the Limits feature as a test in 2021 after England players Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho faced online abuse following their loss to Italy in the Euro 2020 final. Now, anyone can use Limits, but you can only…
2023 was the hottest year on record, and it shows no signs of cooling down anytime soon. Rising temperatures are making farming increasingly difficult in areas that were once major agricultural resources, with heat and drought severely impacting crops. For farmers, many of whom rely on traditional methods and don't have access to high-tech greenhouses, adaptable, out-of-the-box solutions are paramount. That's where agritech companies like Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Delaware-based Iyris come in. Providing a lifeline to farmers and helping them weather the challenges of climate change with agricultural solutions, the startup is announcing a $16 million Series A funding…
These are difficult and confusing days for creatives amid ongoing controversy over visual artists being tricked by AI. Now, a London-based startup wants to use AI to help artists take back control. Exactly.ai claims to use generative AI to enable artists to retain legal ownership of their work, allowing designs to be replicated faster and at scale. The company has now raised $4.3 million in a seed funding round led by Speedinvest, with participation from InReach Ventures, Cornerstone VC, GuruDev Capital, and several angel investors. The startup claims to have 40,000 registered users. Exactly.ai was founded in 2022 by Tonia…
Chinese electric vehicle makers are facing a new challenge in winning over U.S. customers: a new House bill that would limit or ban the adoption of connected cars. The bill was introduced by Rep. Elissa Slotkin amid an escalating trade war between the U.S. and China following the Biden administration's decision to quadruple import tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles to 100%. Chinese electric vehicle makers have yet to make significant inroads in the U.S., unlike in Europe, and the bill appears aimed at curbing their entry before they can flood the U.S. market with sleeker, cheaper cars. Slotkin, a former…