Author: TechBrunch

Privacy app maker Proton has launched a new AI-enabled writing assistant that can help users compose emails with simple prompts, rewrite them and proofread them before sending. With this release, Proton continues its trajectory of mimicking many of Google's products and features in the productivity tool space. Last month, Google introduced its own Gemini AI to Gmail to help users write and summarize emails, and now Proton is following suit with its own flavor. In the case of Proton, a Swiss company known for its privacy-focused suite of apps including email, VPN, password manager, calendar, cloud storage, and documents, as…

Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX confirmed it had suffered a security breach on Thursday after approximately $230 million in assets were stolen from the platform in “suspicious transfers” early that morning. The Mumbai-based company announced that it was temporarily suspending withdrawals from its platform following a security breach of one of its multi-sig wallets, which require two or more private keys for authentication. Lookchain, a third-party blockchain explorer, reported that 5.43 billion SHIB tokens, over 15,200 Ethereum tokens, 20.5 million Matic tokens, 640 billion Pepe tokens, 5.79 million USDT, and 135 million Gala tokens were “stolen” from the platform. The identity…

Samsung has been hard at work pursuing its AI ambitions for consumer devices. Earlier this year, the electronics giant announced that its products, including its flagship smartphone, the Galaxy 24, would feature Galaxy AI and Google's AI model Gemini, and last week, it unveiled its latest bi-fold smartphones, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. Both phones prominently feature Galaxy AI and Google Gemini. Now Samsung is adding a knowledge graph to power its AI offerings: The South Korean tech giant said Thursday it is acquiring Oxford Semantic Technologies, a U.K.-based knowledge graph startup that has developed…

A group of ex-Google DeepMind researchers have developed an AI behavior engine that aims to turn traditional video games into a more dynamic experience by improving non-player character (NPC) behavior and interactions with gamers. There are plenty of companies using AI to generate more realistic NPCs, but Canada-based Artificial Agency, which just emerged from stealth after raising $16 million in funding, is confident that its behavioral engine will help it differentiate itself from the pack. Traditionally, NPCs are guided by decision trees and pre-written scripts, which often limit the number of outcomes the player can experience. For example, most NPCs…

When war broke out between Israel and Hamas last October, we explored its potential impact on the Israeli-Palestinian tech ecosystem. Now, nine months later, in Israel, conversations with founders and investors alike suggest the conflict has made the startup and VC ecosystem more resilient, particularly in the cyber and AI sectors. The technology sector is a key pillar of the Israeli economy: as of 2022, the sector employs more than 14% of the workforce, accounts for more than 18% of GDP, and accounts for half of the country's exports, according to the Israel Innovation Authority's 2023 annual report. So far…

Fast-growing payroll services provider Deal is making its third major acquisition this year. Deal announced on Thursday that it had acquired Hofy, a London-based company that helps deliver and manage office equipment for remote employees. Financial terms were not disclosed, but a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the deal was worth more than $100 million. Alex Bouaziz, co-founder and CEO of Deel, said the acquisition will allow Deel, which already has a partnership with Hofy, to achieve “tighter integration” with Hofy's services. In the long term, it will lay the foundation for Deel's new IT-focused product, “Deel…

It's not everyday that OpenAI founder Sam Altman teaches a class at Stanford University, but Lawrence Lynn Murata, co-founder and CEO of Slope, displayed just that entrepreneurial spirit when founding the B2B payments company with Alice Deng. “We met in 2016 when he was teaching a class called 'How to Start a Startup,'” Lynn Murata told TechCrunch. “He was doing some talks and we started to keep in touch.” After Lynn Murata and Deng launched Slope in 2021, that relationship blossomed and eventually turned into a vote of confidence from the famous startup investor: After raising a seed round in…

After years of dominance of a form of AI called Transformers, the search for new architectures has begun. Transformers are the foundation of OpenAI's video generation model Sora, and are at the core of text generation models such as Anthropic's Claude, Google's Gemini, and GPT-4o. But Transformers are starting to run into technical hurdles, particularly those related to computation. Transformers, at least when running on commodity hardware, are not particularly efficient at processing and analyzing vast amounts of data, which is why as companies build and expand infrastructure to accommodate the requirements of transformers, electricity demand is growing exponentially, perhaps…

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on Wednesday warned against choosing a candidate solely on whether they claim to be “pro-crypto.” In a blog post, Buterin said it’s more important to scrutinize a candidate’s broader policies to ensure they support fundamental crypto goals, like internationalism and protecting private communications. “If politicians are pro-crypto, a key question to ask is: are they pro-crypto for the right reasons?,” Buterin wrote. “Do they share your vision for what 21st century technology, politics, and economics should look like?” While Buterin did not name any politicians or crypto investors, his comments came a day after Marc Andreessen…

Adtech startup InMobi is seeking a valuation of around $10 billion in its planned initial public offering next year, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The company is planning to list in India, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. InMobi is profitable and plans to relocate its headquarters to India from Singapore in the coming months, the people added. If the IPO goes ahead in India at a $10 billion valuation, it would be one of the largest listings by a domestic software startup. Most startups to go public in India…