Author: TechBrunch
President Biden signed a bill that would ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company ByteDance fails to sell it within a year. The bill, which includes aid to Ukraine and Israel, passed the U.S. Senate by a 79-18 vote late Tuesday, after overwhelmingly passing the House of Representatives over the weekend. The bill gives ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok, with a 90-day extension to complete the deal. If ByteDance does not sell TikTok, it will be illegal for app stores to distribute the app in the US. In a statement emailed to TechCrunch, TikTok said it would challenge the…
Sanlo, a fintech startup that helps gaming companies manage their finances, on Wednesday announced the release of a closed beta of its webshop tool, giving some game developers and studios a plug-and-play tool that works alongside their existing technology stack. We provided play solutions. Gaming companies will be able to join the waiting list starting today. With Google and Apple charging 30% fees on in-app purchases, it's harder than ever for small and medium-sized gaming companies to run a profitable business. Gaming giant Epic has complained in recent years about Apple's declining revenue and accused it of being predatory against…
As the concept of AI agents begins to take hold and more tasks can be completed without human involvement, new types of authentication will be needed to ensure that only agents with appropriate authorization can access specific resources. . Anon, an early-stage startup, helps developers add automatic authentication in a secure way. On Wednesday, the company announced a $6.5 million investment and said the product is now generally available to everyone. The founders came up with the idea for this company out of necessity. Their initial idea was actually to build an AI agent, but according to CEO Daniel Mason,…
Well, if you're a big fan of TikTok and live in the US, we have bad news for you. A bill has passed the Senate that would force the sale of TikTok or ban it in the United States. And the president is expected to sign it. The situation doesn't bode well for TikTok in the U.S., given that China has been vocal about not allowing the sale of the Singapore-based social media company owned by Chinese company ByteDance. But if that leaves you disappointed, don't worry. There is also a lot of very positive news to discuss. News such…
Nvidia is acquiring Run:ai, a Tel Aviv-based company that makes it easier for developers and operations teams to manage and optimize their AI hardware infrastructure, for an undisclosed amount. Ctech reported early this morning that the two companies are in “advanced negotiations” and that Nvidia could pay more than $1 billion for Run:ai. It appears that the negotiations went smoothly. Officials told TechCrunch that the exact price was $700 million. Nvidia says it will continue to offer Run:ai's products “with the same business model” and will invest in Run:ai's product roadmap as part of Nvidia's DGX Cloud AI platform. This…
Last week, when security researchers said they could easily obtain precise location information from any of the millions of users of a widely used phone tracking app, we saw it for ourselves. I needed to. Eric Daigle, a computer science and economics student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, discovered the vulnerability in the tracking app iSharing as part of his research into the security of location tracking apps. iSharing is one of the most popular location tracking apps and has over 35 million users so far. Daigle said the bug allowed anyone using the app to access…
Block, the company behind Square, Cash App, and other services, today announced a new program that allows merchants using Square's solutions to convert a percentage of their daily sales into Bitcoin. The feature is rolling out in the U.S. starting today, and will send 1% to 10% of Square merchants' daily sales to their personal Cash App accounts. This amount will be converted to Bitcoin at the end of the day. Once the transaction is completed, the seller will receive confirmation of the conversion. Block said the Bitcoin conversion feature will be available to all sole proprietorships or individual member…
Diddo is an API for streaming services and other platforms to integrate shoppable videos, allowing consumers to purchase clothing and accessories featuring their favorite characters directly on their screen. The company announced Wednesday that it had raised $2.8 million in seed funding. Diddo was founded in late 2022 by Rishi Nair, Ryan Sullivan, and Pamela Chen for Nair and Sullivan's mother, who is a fan of “Selling Sunset” and wants to dress like her favorite reality TV star. It started as a Google Chrome extension built on . Now, the company has developed an API that uses proprietary computer vision…
Spotify announced Wednesday that it has submitted a new version of its app for EU users with pricing information and basic site information. Importantly, this version does not include a link to his website. The music streaming company said it does not agree with Apple's new Digital Markets Act (DMA) changes that would impose a “core technology fee” on developers with more than 1 million downloads a year. The company said the new update includes minimal details in line with the European Commission's ruling. “Despite Apple's efforts to impose new fees on developers, we remain committed to giving consumers a…
All-around highly generalizable generative AI models were, and perhaps still are, the name of the game. But as cloud vendors large and small increasingly join the generative AI fray, new models are emerging that focus on the most deep-pocketed potential customers: enterprises. Case in point: Cloud computing company Snowflake today announced Arctic LLM, a generative AI model described as “enterprise grade.” Snowflake says Arctic LLM, available under the Apache 2.0 license, is optimized for “enterprise workloads,” including database code generation, and is free for research and commercial use. “I think this is the foundation for us at Snowflake and our…