Author: TechBrunch
Lawmakers passed a bill early Saturday that would reauthorize and expand a controversial U.S. surveillance law shortly after its powers expired at midnight, rejecting objections from privacy advocates and lawmakers. The bill, which passed on a 60-34 vote, reauthorizes the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), known as Section 702, which allows the government to access the records of high-tech and telephone providers. It allows the collection of communications of foreigners. Critics, including some members of Congress who voted against reauthorization, argue that while FISA spies on foreign targets, it also scrutinizes Americans' communications. White House officials and spy leaders have…
To give female academics and others focused on AI their well-deserved and overdue spotlight time, TechCrunch is launching a series of interviews highlighting notable women who have contributed to the AI revolution. Start. As the AI boom continues, we'll be publishing several articles throughout the year highlighting key research that may go unrecognized. Click here for a detailed profile. Alison Cohen is a senior applied AI project manager at Mila, a Quebec community of more than 1,200 researchers specializing in AI and machine learning. She collaborates with researchers, social scientists, and external partners to develop AI projects that benefit society.…
Consumer spyware apps that covertly and continuously monitor private messages, photos, calls, and real-time location are a major problem for Android users. This guide will help you identify and remove common surveillance apps from your Android smartphone, including TheTruthSpy, KidsGuard, and other apps. Read our exclusive research Consumer spyware apps are often sold under the guise of child monitoring or family tracking software, but their ability to track and monitor partners or spouses without their consent makes them known as “stalkerware” or “stalkerware.” Also called “sport wear”. These spyware apps are downloaded from outside the Google Play app store, implanted…
Is the number of AI models too many? Depending on your point of view, 10 models per week may be a bit much. This is the number we've gotten, or close to it, over the past few days, making it increasingly difficult to say whether and how these models compare to each other. – Even if it was possible in the first place. So what does it mean? We are at a strange time in the evolution of AI. Of course, this has always been a rather strange situation. Models large and small are proliferating, from niche developers to large,…
Validating consumer demand is a critical step for any startup, and TechCrunch Early Stage provides a great opportunity to learn how to do it right. Peter Gladstone, senior startup advisor at the Harvard Innovation Lab, will lead an engaging roundtable entitled “Examining Consumer Demand: How to Make the Most of Your Expertise.” With decades of experience as an entrepreneur, marketer and investor, Gladstone brings a wealth of knowledge. He has previously served as head of innovation at the Boston Beer Company and Gillette, and is well versed in navigating the complexities of bringing a product to market. In this workshop,…
Welcome to Startups Weekly — a weekly roundup of must-sees from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Friday. After years of rapid growth, the AI industry is now seeing a significant slowdown in investment, as detailed in a recent report from Stanford University's Human Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute (HAI). The report highlights a significant decline in private and corporate investment in AI for the second year in a row, with overall investment expected to decline by 20% year-on-year in 2023. He reports. Despite this overall downturn, certain segments, such as generative…
Midas, a fintech startup that allows people in Turkey to invest in US and Turkish stocks, announced it has raised $45 million in a funding round led by Canada's Portage. The startup targets the retail investor market in Turkey and claims to have over 2 million users. Its pitch is to offer significantly lower trading fees and commissions to Turkish clients who want to invest in U.S. and Turkish stocks. We also provide financial content, real-time stock market data and news, and company profiles to help you understand what many consider to be emerging markets. “If you came to Turkey…
Ukraine-based startup Geodesic.Life is challenging traditional notions of housing by introducing affordable and eco-friendly prefabricated dome homes. This concept addresses two pressing global concerns: the need for accessible housing and the urgency of environmental conservation. By normalizing sustainable living habits, Geodesic aims to have a positive impact on both individuals and the planet. The company just completed his small $500,000 round of funding from friends and family to make that vision a reality. The startup's dome homes have several advantages. They are significantly more affordable than traditional housing options, making them an attractive option for individuals, families, and communities with…
Meta's new AI model is making waves in the tech world. The two new models, part of Facebook's parent company's Llama series of artificial intelligence tools, are both open source, helping differentiate them from competing products from OpenAI and other big-name companies. Meta's new Llama models have underlying datasets of different sizes, with the Llama 3 8B model featuring 8 billion parameters and the Llama 3 70B model having around 70 billion parameters. The more parameters, the more powerful the model, but not all AI tasks require the largest possible dataset. The company's new model, trained on a 24,000 GPU…
It's been more than a minute since Tesla went public, but we couldn't avoid talking about the EV company on TechCrunch this week. It's been a Tesla-filled week, from layoffs to price changes and more, so we needed to discuss the latest updates. But that's just one element of what we covered in Equity this week. We also dug into Mary Ann's report on Ramp's latest round and its valuation hike. This fits right in with Ripling's own impending fundraising. If you're dealing with money, it's a good time to become a startup. The team also delved into the consumer…