Author: TechBrunch

Not all generative AI models are created equal, especially when it comes to how they handle controversial subjects. In a recent study presented at the 2024 ACM Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT) Conference, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Amsterdam, and AI startup Hugging Face tested several open text analytics models, including Meta's Llama 3, to see how they responded to questions about LGBTQ+ rights, social welfare, surrogacy, and more. The researchers found that the models tended to answer questions inconsistently, which they say reflects biases embedded in the data used to train the models. “Through our experiments,…

More and more businesses are adopting data models – abstract models that organize elements of data and standardize how they relate to each other. But as the boom in data analytics and AI increases organizations' demands on data models, many of the old paradigms are proving to be difficult to manage and highly fragile. At least that's how engineers and entrepreneurs Artyom Kaydunov and Pavel Tyunov felt in their work. During their time at Starsbot, the data analytics startup they co-founded in 2016, Kaydunov and Tyunov frequently consulted with organizations struggling to outfit their so-called “data houses.” Cube started as…

When we look at how generative AI is being implemented across developer tools, it's mostly focused on generating code, like Github Copilot. Greptile, an early-stage startup launched by a group of Georgia Tech alumni, decided to take a different approach, using AI to help developers understand their codebase. And rather than just using a chat interface, as most vendors do, the startup has added another unique twist by building an API that allows developers to connect to its codebase and build custom apps based on AI-driven queries. On Thursday, the company announced a $4 million seed round. Daksh Gupta, CEO…

Stock trading platform Robinhood is moving deeper into the cryptocurrency space with the acquisition of cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Robinhood said it expects the transaction to close in the first half of 2025 and that it expects the final transaction value to be around $200 million. Robinhood is best known for its stock trading services, allowing consumers to invest in the world's largest publicly traded companies, but it has also expanded further into the cryptocurrency space by supporting many of the most popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, although it limited some of the cryptocurrencies it supports last year due to scrutiny from…

Fintechs are often on par with banks when it comes to using technology to improve customer experience. Commercial credit card and expense management provider Torpago is no exception, with one caveat: It builds its technology for banks, specifically community banks. True, Trupago is often lumped in with companies like Brex, Mercury, and Lampe, all well-known card and spend management platforms that “have done a great job,” according to Trupago founder and CEO Brent Jackson. But they're still competing for the same corporate customers, he adds. Instead, Jackson sees Trupago's competitors as companies like Fiserv and Finastra, which provide software to…

More than half of Americans wear corrective glasses or contact lenses, and while there are plenty of low-cost and premium frames available online and in stores, consumers need an up-to-date eyeglass prescription before they can make a purchase. That means before you can get a prescription, you have to get an eye exam by an optometrist — but because of a national shortage of ophthalmologists, it can take weeks to get an appointment, especially in rural areas. Eyebot, a startup that launched in secret on Thursday, aims to cut the time it takes to get an eye test without the…

Google on Thursday announced that its AI-powered note-taking assistant, NotebookLM, is expanding to more than 200 new countries, about six months after its launch in the U.S. Powered by Google's multimodal LLM, Gemini 1.5 Pro, the platform also adds new features and languages, allowing more people to use the AI ​​to generate summaries and ask questions based on documents. The list of countries NotebookLM currently supports includes Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, and the UK, as well as 208 other countries and regions. Google has also expanded the AI-assisted app's interface language support to 108 languages, including Arabic, Assamese, Bengali, Cantonese,…

In early 2022, fintech startup Bloom (not to be confused with Gen Z-focused investment apps or heavily capitalized revenue financing platforms) was accepted into Y Combinator, becoming the first Sudanese startup to join the prestigious accelerator. In addition to the track records of its four founders at Amazon, Meta, IBM, and Goldman Sachs, the startup's premise was also notable and crucial: helping Sudanese people protect their wealth. Now, after a limited initial launch, major political turmoil in its home country, a pivot, a small round of funding, and a rebranding to Elevate, the startup is now open to the public,…

Amazon has agreed to buy the assets of Indian video streaming service MX Player from local media giant Times Internet Ltd, the e-commerce giant's latest move to popularize its services and brand in smaller cities and towns in key overseas markets. The two companies reached a final agreement on the deal on Wednesday night, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The deal values ​​MX Player at less than $100 million, well below the $500 million valuation the streamer was at when it last raised funds, the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the companies have not yet…

Dealt, a French startup formerly known as Mon Super Voisin, raised a €6 million ($6.5 million at today's exchange rates) funding round a few months ago. More importantly, the startup underwent a significant pivot, and this funding round proves that strategy was correct. This is an interesting lesson for early-stage founders who are thinking about pivoting but aren't ready to do so yet. For our French-speaking readers, as the name suggests, Mon Super Voisin was a quintessential household freelancer marketplace: you could use the platform to find a “neighbor” who could mount your TV on the wall, help you assemble…