Author: TechBrunch
Mark Zuckerberg said today that in an initial test in the US, Instagram is making AI characters built by creators through its Meta AI studio available to the public. In a post on his broadcast channel, Zuckerberg said these chatbots will be clearly marked as AI to inform users. “We're rolling out initial tests of AI Studio in the US and you'll start seeing AI from your favourite creators and interest-based AI on Instagram in the coming weeks. These will appear primarily in messages for now and will be clearly labelled as AI,” he said. “These AIs are still in…
Reddit is speaking out against AI companies — or at least asking them to pay damages. Earlier this week, Reddit announced it was changing its Robots Exclusion Protocol (also known as its robots.txt file), and this dry edit is part of a larger negotiation/battle between AI companies that want content they can use to train their language models, and the companies that actually own the content. “robots.txt” is a way for a website to tell third parties how to crawl the website. A typical example is a website that allows Google to crawl it for inclusion in search results. With…
Outside of AI, few startups have attracted as much venture funding as climate tech, and like AI, companies in this space need big infusions of capital to reach a scale where they can make a difference, sometimes far beyond what a typical venture capitalist can provide. A new deal with Rondo Energy, a manufacturer of thermal energy batteries, suggests a new avenue for philanthropic grants. Climate tech startups like Rondo, especially those that manufacture hardware, face a special challenge as they move beyond the prototype and testing phase and start selling finished products to customers. Some call this the “commercial…
Meta has fixed a bug that led users to believe the company had adjusted their choices in its political content settings tool without their consent. The issue affected both Instagram and Threads users, and appeared to have reset users' content settings to defaults that limited the amount of political content from people they didn't follow. On Wednesday, Meta confirmed that it was investigating the issue and working on a fix. Late Wednesday evening, Meta's communications director, Andy Stone, announced in a thread post that the issue had been resolved. He also shared more details about the nature of the bug,…
YouTube is adding several new features for premium users, including support for smart downloads and picture-in-picture mode for Short videos, as well as a wider rollout of its “Jump Ahead” feature for navigating between videos. The Google-owned video streaming platform already supports background playback for long-form videos and picture-in-picture mode so you can watch content while browsing other apps, and the company is now extending this support to Shorts, starting with Android users. YouTube will also add a “jump ahead” button that will appear when users double-tap to skip. When a user taps the button, YouTube will jump to the…
TechCrunch is teaming up with Google Cloud as a featured partner for Startup Battlefield 200, an event that will highlight and support the most promising startups from around the world at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, taking place in San Francisco from October 28-30. At the heart of this collaboration is a shared vision to accelerate innovation. Google Cloud is committed to helping startups scale faster and smarter by combining our robust infrastructure, advanced AI capabilities, and global network. This approach aligns perfectly with the goals of TechCrunch Disrupt and Startup Battlefield 200, which aim to spotlight and nurture the next wave…
a16z-backed Character.AI today announced that users can now converse with AI characters over phone calls, a feature that currently supports multiple languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Japanese and Chinese. The company tested the calling feature ahead of today's public launch. During the test period, more than 3 million users made more than 20 million calls. The company also noted that calling with AI characters can be useful for practicing language skills, mock interviews, and adding to role-playing gameplay. With the tap of a button, users can initiate a call directly with the user-created AI character, a feature that…
TikTok is gearing up to compete with Amazon's Prime Day event in July, as the social network announced on Thursday that its TikTok Shop will host a “Deals For You Days” sales event in the US starting July 9. The announcement comes just days after Amazon announced that its annual Prime Day sale will take place on July 16th and 17th. Prime Day's success has prompted other retailers, big and small, to use the day to run competing sales, and now TikTok is one of them. According to TikTok, the sale event will offer great deals on fashion and beauty…
SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son announced on Thursday that the Japanese technology giant has formed a joint venture in Japan with Chicago-based health tech company Tempus. The two companies plan to conduct data analytics in Japan and develop personalized medical services using AI under the name SB Tempus. The company plans to start with oncology, which remains the biggest cause of death in Japan, according to Son, whose father died of the disease last year. The move underscores Son's ambitious and broad focus on AI. At a special press conference today, Son detailed one more specific application of AI: the…
Startup valuations have plummeted since the 2021-2022 bull market, which has hit the European startup ecosystem particularly hard, but there is one European region where the correction has worked slightly in its favor: the South. Evidence of this was apparent at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, as TechCrunch reporters repeatedly encountered Nordic venture capitalists scouting startups in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). These startups bring a winning combination that venture capitalists love: significantly lower operating costs and much lower valuations. Further evidence of this “southern trend” comes with the news that Enrique Linares, one of the…