Author: TechBrunch

Every business, large or small, needs to choose software, and the larger the business, the more complicated the task. Some businesses have in-house tools and processes to narrow down the list of potential vendors and make a final selection, while others turn to companies like Gartner or G2 to guide them through the process. Taloflow, an early-stage startup and Y Combinator alumnus, believes it has come up with a better, software-driven way to help businesses select software by shortening decision time and lowering the overall cost of the process. The company announced Wednesday that it has raised $1.3 million in…

In 1816, French physician René Laennec invented an instrument that could listen to the human heart and lungs. That device, the stethoscope, evolved from a simple wooden tube to the lightweight, two-earpiece version that most physicians today wear around their necks. Founded in 2013, startup Eko Health is using AI to enhance this ubiquitous medical tool and bring it into the digital age. Over the past decade, Eko has sold stethoscopes to more than 500,000 doctors and healthcare professionals. Because the stethoscopes have been used by millions of patients, the company has amassed a large dataset of chest sounds and…

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized startups have also seen a fair amount of cuts, and in some cases, have shut down operations altogether. By tracking these layoffs, we’re able to understand the impact on innovation across companies large and small. We’re also able to see the potential impact of businesses…

Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off on Monday at 10am PST/1pm ET with the customary Tim Cook keynote. Last year's WWDC will be remembered as the event where Vision Pro was finally introduced to the world, but the company is hoping to make next week's event even more memorable by finally revealing its generative AI plans. Find out how to live stream your event here. The opening of WWDC is different from other Apple keynotes in that it kicks off a week of online and in-person events that will run from June 10 to 14. Although the company began…

Last week, we announced the winners of our breakout sessions. Now, it's time to introduce the roundtable sessions that truly “closed out” the competition for this year's Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice Program. With thousands of votes from around the world and five incredible sessions earning finalist spots, these finalists proved they have what it takes to make things happen. You can take that same can-do attitude and know-how with you when you join us for our roundtable sessions this October. Now, meet the winners! Your Enterprise GTM is broken—here's how to fix it Speaker: SC Moatti, Founding Managing Partner, Mighty…

TikTok said its security team was working to address the issue after hackers breached the accounts of several celebrities and brands on its video platform, including Paris Hilton, CNN and Sony. The ByteDance-owned video app maker did not provide any information about the nature of the attack or its mitigation techniques, saying only that it thwarted it and has taken steps to prevent such an incident from happening in the future. As previously reported by Semaphore and Forbes, the malicious attack likely involved malware sent through TikTok direct messages, potentially impacting account owners' ability to access their TikTok profiles. None…

After experiencing an outage that lasted for several hours in the early morning, OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot was down again, but this time it wasn't the only AI provider affected: Anthropic's Claude and Perplexity both began experiencing issues on Tuesday morning as well, though these were resolved more quickly. Google's Gemini appears to still be operational, although some users have reported that it may have gone offline temporarily. It's unusual for all three major AI providers to be down at the same time and could indicate a broader infrastructure or internet-wide issue, such as affecting multiple social media sites at the…

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies for more wide-ranging needs. And that growth has propelled OpenAI itself into becoming one of the most-hyped companies in recent memory, even if CEO and co-founder Sam Altman’s firing and swift return raised concerns about its direction and opened the door for competitors. What does that mean for OpenAI, ChatGPT and its other ambitions? The fallout is still settling,…

The coming weeks could be pivotal for WorldCoin, the controversial eye-scanning crypto venture co-founded by OpenAI's Sam Altman, whose operations remain almost entirely shuttered following a series of privacy violation complaints in the European Union, including in France, Germany, Portugal and Spain. According to the Worldcoin.org website, the only EU market where Worldcoin is still under investigation is Germany, where developer Tools for Humanity (TfH) has a local office, but that could soon change depending on the outcome of an investigation launched by the Bavarian data protection authority. The agency told TechCrunch that it expects a decision on the investigation…

True Fit, an AI-powered size and fit personalization tool, has been providing size recommendation solutions to thousands of retailers for nearly two decades. Now the company is branching out into the generative AI space with a new tool called “Fit Hub,” which aims to make it easier for online shoppers to find the right clothes for their body type. Size issues remain one of the biggest sources of friction for online consumers, with an average e-commerce return rate of 17.6%. Many customers carefully study size charts, descriptions, and customer reviews on product detail pages to determine how a garment will…