Author: TechBrunch

Patlytics, an AI-powered patent analytics platform, wants to help companies, IP professionals, and law firms speed up patent workflows from discovery, analysis, comparison, and prosecution to litigation. The fledgling startup secured $4.5 million in seed funding led by Gradient Ventures, Google's AI-focused VC arm, but was oversubscribed within days. Patlytics was co-founded by CEO Paul Lee, a former venture capitalist at Tribe, and CTO Arthur Jen, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded and served as CTO of Web3 wallet platform Magic. Their shared vision and complementary skills laid the foundation for Patlytics, based on their first-hand experience and deep understanding of…

Nothing lasts forever. Nowhere is the truism more apt than in consumer tech. This is a land inhabited by the eternally restless — always on the make for the next big thing. The smartphone has, by all accounts, had a good run. Seventeen years after the iPhone made its public debut, the devices continue to reign. Over the last several years, however, the cracks have begun to show. The market plateaued, as sales slowed and ultimately contracted. Last year was punctuated by stories citing the worst demand in a decade, leaving an entire industry asking the same simple question: what’s…

Ambuj Kumar is nothing if not ambitious. An electrical engineer by training, Kumar led hardware design at Nvidia for eight years, contributing to the development of technologies such as widely used high-speed memory controllers for GPUs. After he left Nvidia in 2010, Kumar pivoted to cybersecurity and eventually co-founded Fortanix, his platform for cloud data security. It was while leading Fortanix that Kumar's idea for his next venture came to him. It is an AI-powered tool that automates the workflow of enterprise cybersecurity professionals, inspired by challenges observed in the cybersecurity industry. “Security leaders are stressed,” Kumar told TechCrunch. “CISOs…

If you own a single-family home, driving an electric car can be a great experience. Every morning, you wake up to a world full of possibilities, your car fully charged and ready to go anywhere. If you don't have access to a garage or driveway, your EV life won't be so rosy. Many EV owners in large cities are forced to rely on public fast chargers. Some people run cables from their home to the curb, but this can pose a safety issue. Some cities, such as Cambridge, Massachusetts, have formalized this practice, allowing people to receive permits to install…

If decisions made by a company's board can indicate where the company wants to focus its efforts, Amazon's board has made an interesting move. The company announced Thursday that Andrew Ng, known for developing AI at major technology companies, will join its board of directors. The company also announced that Judy McGrath, a longtime TV executive known for running MTV and helping build Viacom into a media powerhouse, will resign from its board. Taken together, these two moves create an interesting picture of the tech giant's intentions. After years of working hard to build an entertainment empire (Amazon spent about…

Apple on Wednesday sent a threat notification to iPhone users in 92 countries, warning them they may be the target of a spyware attack by mercenaries. The company sent an alert to individuals in 92 countries at 12pm Pacific Time on Wednesday. The iPhone maker sends these notifications multiple times a year, and has notified users in more than 150 countries since 2021, it wrote on an updated support page. Apple previously described the attacker as “state-sponsored,” but replaced all such references with “mercenary spyware attack.” “Mercenary spyware attacks are extremely well-funded and evolve over time,” the company wrote on…

A major digital market regulation in the European Union appears to be shaking up competition in the mobile browser market. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) has been in force for just over a month, but there are early signs that the law is having an impact by requiring mobile phone manufacturers to show users a browser selection screen. there is. On Wednesday, Reuters reported on growth data shared by Cyprus-based web browser Aloha and others, suggesting the new law will stir up competitiveness and allow smaller browser makers to gain market share, or at least receive more attention than before.…

Google's Cloud Next 2024 event runs through Thursday in Las Vegas. That means a lot of new cloud-focused news from Google's AI-powered chatbot, Gemini, on everything from AI to his DevOps and security. Last year's event was the first in-person Cloud Next since 2019, and Google took to the stage to share its continuation in AI, including Duet AI for Gmail and many other debuts, as well as the expansion of generative AI into its security product line. demonstrated their efforts. From other enterprise updates and debuts. Don't have time to see the full archive of Google's keynote event? That's…

The tech-wide reckoning that began in 2022 and ran throughout into 2023 has continued into this year. And while 2024’s losses are not at that scale, they’re still significant, driven by big names like Pixar, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and TikTok. It remains to be seen if this year’s layoff trends follow last year’s, in which layoffs slowed down in the summer, before cuts began ramping up yet again toward the winter. Momentum for a tech sector rebound remains slow to build, outside of bright spots within artificial intelligence and adjacent companies, resulting in tech companies continuing to cut back on their…

YouTube's comments section has historically had a bad reputation, but changes introduced could prevent kids from getting into the comment pool. In an email to parents who manage their children's accounts, the company announced that it is introducing a “read-only” comment option to children's supervised experiences on YouTube. YouTube says the feature will be rolled out in the “coming weeks.” The change is one of the biggest tweaks to YouTube's parental control features since stronger protections for minors were introduced in 2021 following increased pressure from lawmakers. Image credit: YouTube This new addition applies to two of the three content…