Author: TechBrunch
Despite an overall decline in investment in startups, funding for AI has surged over the past year. Capital in generative AI ventures alone increased almost eightfold from 2022 to 2023, reaching $25.2 billion by the end of December. So it's no surprise that AI startups dominated Y Combinator's Winter 2024 Demo Day. According to YC's official startup directory, Y Combinator's Winter 2024 cohort includes 86 AI startups. This is almost double his number for the winter 2023 batch and nearly triple his number for the winter 2021 batch. Call it a bubble or a hype, but clearly AI is the…
Spring means rain, the return of flowers, and of course, the day of Y Combinator's first demo of the year. On the first of two pitch days for this prestigious accelerator's 2024 Winter Cohort, the entire TechCrunch staff tuned in, took notes, joked, and slowly whittled down the dozens of presenting companies and early stages. We have compiled a list of our favorite companies. From AI-generated music and grant applications to cool new fintech applications and even healthtech initiatives, there was something for everyone. It will resume for the second day of pitching on Thursday. In case you weren't able…
For the second time in just over a month, Meta's apps, including WhatsApp, as well as Messenger and Instagram, are facing outages and intermittent issues. While it's rare for a service as large as those operated by Meta to go down completely, Meta's status page details disruptions to key business services, including Ads Manager, Messenger Platform, WhatsApp Business API, and more. I am. WhatsApp too Confirmed X Stop updating your account. At 2:55 p.m. ET, the company said: “We understand that some people are currently experiencing issues. We are working to get everyone back to 100% as quickly as possible.”…
Nightside is the brainchild of Jess Gupta. The $350 LED bedside lamp is an intentionally simple product. It doesn't have Wi-Fi or Alexa built-in, but it does have some neat tricks. “I went to design school at CCA. [in San Francisco], currently studying furniture design. “I was interested in lighting and wanted to play with optics and different ways of working with light, rather than just putting a light source behind a shade,” Gupta told his TechCrunch. “I realized that I could create the equivalent of a theater spotlight, like a focused disk of light. I like to read at…
Brave announced Wednesday that it is bringing its AI assistant, Leo, to iPhone and iPad users. You can use the AI assistant to ask questions, summarize pages, and create content. The iOS rollout follows the launch of AI Assistant on Android and desktop. The release of Leo on iOS offers voice-to-text features not available on the Android version of the AI assistant. This feature allows users to say something out loud and convert it into text, eliminating the need to type queries or questions. Brave says this additional feature will make it easier to interact with his AI. In addition…
OnePlus has always marched to the beat of its own drummer, for better or worse. Take, for example, the company's latest foray into mobile artificial intelligence, AI Eraser. Before you ask, this is not just a rebadged version of the very good Magic Eraser that Google has offered for years. No, OnePlus built its own version to show the world that it has its own AI ambitions. The Oppo-owned company has presumably been working on AI Eraser for some time, but the world has only known about Google's version since the Pixel 6 event in March 2021 (while Magic Editor…
See the cutting edge of hard technology innovation in a special session hosted by HAX at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024. This session, led by SOSV General's partner Duncan Turner and his HAX chief scientific officer Dr. Susan Schofer, and moderated by SOSV's Sabriya Stokes, will provide detailed information. Enter the world of hard tech entrepreneurs. Focused on solving challenges in climate change, industrial independence, and healthcare, HAX brings together expertise and investment to drive impactful change. Learn first-hand how HAX helps startups commercialize their breakthrough research. Duncan and Susan share insight into HAX's investment philosophy and the exciting opportunities they…
Facebook on Wednesday announced new full-screen videos designed to provide a more consistent design and experience for all types of video lengths, including short-form Reels, long-form videos, and even live content. The company says it will announce the player. The upgraded player was first released in the US and Canada and is intended to streamline the experience of both viewing and sharing video content. But more importantly, you'll now see videos in portrait mode by default, and Facebook will also show you which videos are most relevant to watch next, no matter what type of video (long, short, live, etc.)…
Yesterday, news of Yahoo's acquisition of Artifact stirred the technology water cooler. Artifact was an interesting app that employed AI to help users discover and consume more and more targeted news. Although it had some devoted fans, it never reached the scale that would make it an attractive long-term project. So the founders who built Instagram decided to retire the service. TechCrunch's parent company, Yahoo, then decided to capitalize on the technology. The app itself hasn't been around for that long, but the deal is still an echo of an older era when Yahoo was famous for acquiring small, mobile-focused…
Cynicism is an almost taken-for-granted trait in technology journalism, and we're certainly as guilty as the next publication. But the risks and promise of technology are both real, and a new documentary series seeks to emphasize the latter without downplaying the former. “A Brief History of the Future,” hosted by Ali Wallach, also has the appealing property of being completely free as a PBS production. The show's theme is that while the dangers and disappointments of technology (often due to its subversion by business interests) are worth considering and documenting, the other side of the coin should also be highlighted.…