Author: TechBrunch

Meta's Twitter/X rival, Threads, is growing at a steady pace. The social network now has more than 150 million monthly active users, up from 130 million in February, Mark Zuckerberg said in the company's first quarter 2024 financial results. mentioned at the press conference. Since its last quarterly earnings report, Threads has made significant progress toward integrating with ActivityPub, a decentralized protocol that powers networks such as Mastodon. In March, the company began allowing U.S.-based users age 18 and older to connect their accounts to Fediverse, allowing their posts to appear on other servers. The company also plans to release…

Advances in generative AI are taking the technology world by storm. Biotech investors are making big bets that similar computational techniques could revolutionize drug discovery. On Tuesday, Foresite Labs, an affiliate of ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Capital, announced the formation of Xaira Therapeutics and $1 billion in funding for the AI ​​biotech. Other investors in the new company, which has been operating in stealth mode for about six months, include F-Prime, NEA, Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures and SV Angel. Zaira CEO Marc Tessier-Lavigne, a former Stanford University president and Genentech's chief…

If there's one big takeaway from last night's Rabbit R1 launch event, it's this: Hardware can be fun again. After a decade of unquestionable dominance of smartphones, there is renewed excitement in consumer electronics. The wisdom and longevity of individual products and form factors, while important, can be set aside for a moment. Just sit back and enjoy the show. Despite flying out of the airport almost every month, last night was my first night at the TWA Hotel, located at the maze-like junction of JFK Airport's Terminal 5. After all, people rarely stay in hotels where they live. The…

JioCinema, India's popular on-demand video streaming service, introduced new monthly subscription plans on Wednesday. The lowest level costs just 35 cents. The revamped pricing strategy comes as the market-leading service seeks to put more pressure on rivals such as Netflix and Prime Video and “redefine the premium entertainment narrative.” The service, backed by Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, has introduced two monthly pricing plans. One costs INR 89 ($1), which features support for four simultaneous screen accesses, and the other costs INR 29 for single screen access. Aside from simultaneous viewing, both tiers offer identical features, including an ad-free experience,…

AI is greatly enhancing coding, and developers are embracing it. In a recent StackOverflow poll, 44% of software engineers said they currently use AI tools as part of their development process, and 26% said they plan to use them in the near future. Gartner estimates that more than half of organizations are currently piloting or have deployed AI-driven coding assistants, and that 75% of developers will use some form of coding assistant by 2028. . Igor Ostrovsky, a former Microsoft software developer, believes that soon there will be no developer who does not use AI in their workflows. “Software engineering…

While much attention is focused on space as orbit develops into a thriving business ecosystem, Radical is bringing things a little closer to Earth, but not too close. Its high-altitude, solar-powered aircraft aims to succeed where Facebook's infamous Aquila failed by honing its technology and reaching more markets. It's hard to believe that Facebook's ambitious plan to use solar-powered planes to provide internet access to far-flung places began 10 years ago. However, that dream fell apart when the project fell through, but the concept remained. Ultralight aircraft in the stratosphere could theoretically stay in the air almost forever by powering…

It's a universal truth of human nature that the developers who build the code shouldn't test it. First of all, most of them really hate the job. Second, as with any good audit protocol, the person doing the work should not be the one verifying it. So it's no surprise that code testing in all its forms, including usability, language or task-specific testing, and end-to-end testing, is a focus for executives at growing generative AI startups. Every week, TechCrunch features a different project like Antithesis ($47 million raised). CodiumAI (raised $11 million) QA Wolf (raised $20 million). And new companies…

WhatsApp introduces support for passkey verification on iOS, eliminating the need for users to deal with SMS one-time passcodes. The iOS release comes six months after WhatsApp introduced passkey support on Android. The company announced Wednesday that the feature is currently rolling out and will be available to all iOS users in the coming weeks. Once enabled, iOS users will be able to log back into WhatsApp using passkey verification via facial recognition, biometrics, or a PIN stored in Apple's Passkey Manager. Passkey login makes it difficult for a malicious attacker to remotely access your account because they also need…

Reddit is rolling out several new updates to its iOS and Android apps to make it easier for users to find and participate in conversations on the platform. The company announced Wednesday that it is launching a new integrated media player with instant loading of comments and direct shortcuts to conversations. Given that a large part of Reddit's appeal is based on its ability to foster conversation across a large number of topics, it makes sense for the platform to take a conversation-first approach to its mobile app. To create a more seamless flow between post types on Reddit, the…

When the global pandemic confined people to their homes, small coffee shops that relied on foot traffic were forced to get back on their feet. At this time, many coffee shop owners turned to technology to assist with online ordering and payment. Start-ups were also keen to help these companies continue operating safely, and venture capital firms followed suit. For example, Joe Coffee raised money to help coffee shops with mobile ordering, and Odeko and his Cloosiv merged to integrate inventory and mobile ordering apps. As an integrated entity, Odeco subsequently raised tens of millions of dollars in venture-backed financing.…