Author: TechBrunch

The U.S. House of Representatives this afternoon passed a bill that would require TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the popular social media app or be banned in the United States. Efforts to ban TikTok date back to the Trump administration, but the issue has flared up again in recent months. The House already passed a similar bill in March, but the Senate has shown little interest in taking it up. The new version expands the period in which ByteDance can sell TikTok to nine months (versus six months under the previous bill) and allows the president to grant one additional…

Vector databases are all the rage, judging by the number of startups entering the space and investors vying for a piece of the pie. The proliferation of large-scale language models (LLMs) and the generative AI (GenAI) movement have created fertile ground for vector database technologies to flourish. Traditional relational databases like Postgres and MySQL are great for structured data (predefined data types that can be neatly filed into rows and columns), but they're great for unstructured data like images, video, email, social media, etc. Not very good for data. posts, and data that does not conform to a predefined data…

“Down round” is a dirty word for some investors, but not for Notable Capital's Hans Tung. Hans is his partner in managing Notable Capital (formerly GGV Capital), a venture firm focused on investments in the United States, Latin America, Israel and Europe. Hans, whose portfolio includes Airbnb, StockX, and Slack, appeared on TechCrunch's Equity podcast to talk about the overall state of venture and why he still believes down rounds make so much sense. According to Hans, “IPOs are really just a milestone, not the end goal. An IPO is the beginning of retail investors getting on board with this.…

Keeping up with an industry as rapidly changing as AI is a challenge. So until AI can do it for you, here's a quick recap of recent stories in the world of machine learning, as well as notable research and experiments that we couldn't cover on our own. This week, Meta released the latest editions of the Llama series of generative AI models, Llama 3 8B and Llama 3 70B. Mehta said the model, which can analyze and write text, is “open source” and intended to be a “foundational part” of systems that developers design with their own goals in…

Lawmakers passed a bill early Saturday that would reauthorize and expand a controversial U.S. surveillance law shortly after its powers expired at midnight, rejecting objections from privacy advocates and lawmakers. The bill, which passed on a 60-34 vote, reauthorizes the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), known as Section 702, which allows the government to access the records of high-tech and telephone providers. It allows the collection of communications of foreigners. Critics, including some members of Congress who voted against reauthorization, argue that while FISA spies on foreign targets, it also scrutinizes Americans' communications. White House officials and spy leaders have…

To give female academics and others focused on AI their well-deserved and overdue spotlight time, TechCrunch is launching a series of interviews highlighting notable women who have contributed to the AI ​​revolution. Start. As the AI ​​boom continues, we'll be publishing several articles throughout the year highlighting key research that may go unrecognized. Click here for a detailed profile. Alison Cohen is a senior applied AI project manager at Mila, a Quebec community of more than 1,200 researchers specializing in AI and machine learning. She collaborates with researchers, social scientists, and external partners to develop AI projects that benefit society.…

Consumer spyware apps that covertly and continuously monitor private messages, photos, calls, and real-time location are a major problem for Android users. This guide will help you identify and remove common surveillance apps from your Android smartphone, including TheTruthSpy, KidsGuard, and other apps. Read our exclusive research Consumer spyware apps are often sold under the guise of child monitoring or family tracking software, but their ability to track and monitor partners or spouses without their consent makes them known as “stalkerware” or “stalkerware.” Also called “sport wear”. These spyware apps are downloaded from outside the Google Play app store, implanted…

Is the number of AI models too many? Depending on your point of view, 10 models per week may be a bit much. This is the number we've gotten, or close to it, over the past few days, making it increasingly difficult to say whether and how these models compare to each other. – Even if it was possible in the first place. So what does it mean? We are at a strange time in the evolution of AI. Of course, this has always been a rather strange situation. Models large and small are proliferating, from niche developers to large,…

Validating consumer demand is a critical step for any startup, and TechCrunch Early Stage provides a great opportunity to learn how to do it right. Peter Gladstone, senior startup advisor at the Harvard Innovation Lab, will lead an engaging roundtable entitled “Examining Consumer Demand: How to Make the Most of Your Expertise.” With decades of experience as an entrepreneur, marketer and investor, Gladstone brings a wealth of knowledge. He has previously served as head of innovation at the Boston Beer Company and Gillette, and is well versed in navigating the complexities of bringing a product to market. In this workshop,…

Welcome to Startups Weekly — a weekly roundup of must-sees from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox every Friday. After years of rapid growth, the AI ​​industry is now seeing a significant slowdown in investment, as detailed in a recent report from Stanford University's Human Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute (HAI). The report highlights a significant decline in private and corporate investment in AI for the second year in a row, with overall investment expected to decline by 20% year-on-year in 2023. He reports. Despite this overall downturn, certain segments, such as generative…