Author: TechBrunch
Geoff Ralston, known for his long-standing startup community at Y Combinator, has returned to the official investment ring, he announced Thursday. His new fund is called the Safe Artificial Intelligence Fund, or SAIF. This is both an explanation of the paper and a verbal play. Ralston is specifically looking for startups that “enhance AI safety, security and responsible deployment,” as his fund's website explains. He plans to write a $100,000 check for safety with a $10 million cap and “pun intended.” Of course, a safe is an investment investment tool before the present/price of investments pioneered by the Y-combinator (represents…
Chatbot Arena, a crowdsourced benchmark project by Major AI Labs, relies on testing and selling AI models, is setting up a company called Arena Intelligence Inc., reports Bloomberg. In a blog post published Thursday, Chatbot Arena said the company would “give” it [it] Resources to improve [its platform] It's way beyond what we did today. ” The team also committed to continuing to provide a neutral testing ground for AI that is not affected by external interests. Founded in 2023, Chatbot Arena has become a kind of obsession in the AI industry. Run by researchers primarily in Berkeley, California, Chatbot…
The Florida bill, which requires social media companies to provide encryption backgrounds for law enforcement officials to access user accounts, clears key legislative hurdles and advances to the state senator's floor for votes. Florida lawmakers unanimously approved a push for the bill through the committee for each Florida politics. The “Use of Social Media by Minors” (SB 868) bill, when passed to the law, requires a social media platform to provide a mechanism for law enforcement to decipher end-to-end encryption when it obtains a subpoena.” The bill also requires social media companies to allow parents or guardians to access their…
On Thursday, Instagram announced it will be rolling out Blend, a new feature that allows you to create custom, personalized reel feeds for you and your friends. Blends are only invited and can be created with peculiar friends and group chats. Custom feeds are updated daily with new content. The launch is no surprise, as TechCrunch reported in March 2024 that social networks were developing the feature. By joining or accepting Blend Invite, you can view selected reels in chat. When someone in the group responds to the reel, Instagram will notify you, so you can continue the combo with…
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In Meta's antitrust trial on Wednesday, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tiktok's success was a risk to Meta's business, a “first priority” when it arrived in 2018 and a “very urgent” competitive threat, according to Bloomberg and other outlets. The report comes from the first week of packing of testimony in the US Federal Trade Commission trial against the social networking giant. If the FTC lawyer wins, the trial could require META to spin out Instagram or WhatsApp as separate companies. In particular, Zuckerberg confirmed on Wednesday that Tiktok's arrival had a direct impact on the meta. His company said…
Building an app dedicated to helping people to consolidate and read news, articles and social media posts in one place is a tough proposal these days. Smashing, an AI-powered app that can curate news and posts that users want to read, is shutting down because it cannot scale rapidly. “We simply didn't grow quickly enough to continue. We couldn't expand it to a sustainable product,” the company announced the closure in an email to customers. Otis Chandler, founder of Goodreads, launched Smashing last June and aims to use AI and the community to curate news articles, blog posts, podcasts and…
Crisk Revs, a former top Trump Cybersecurity official, told the Wall Street Journal in an interview Wednesday that he vowed to fight back against the federal investigations President Trump ordered him to do so. In an interview, Krebs said he would resign from his position at cybersecurity company Sentinelon to challenge a federal investigation that alleges that the 2020 elections were consolidated and stolen. The order also stripped Krebs of his security clearance. “It's about the government's challenge and pulling levers to chase the profits and business relationships of the company,” Krebs told the Journal. Trump hired Krebs in 2018…
In Meta's antitrust trial this week, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Snapchat would have grown faster if he accepted his company's offer to buy social networks in 2013, Business Insider reports. Court documents revealed that Meta, later called Facebook, had offered to buy Snapchat for $6 billion (reports at the time stated that the dollar amount was $3 billion). In response to a question from an FTC lawyer, Zuckerberg said he believes Snapchat “isn't increasing the likelihood” and believes his company has improved the app. “As to what it's worth, I think if we had bought them we'd accelerated their…
Apple has released new software updates throughout its product line to fix two security vulnerabilities. The company said it could be actively used to hack customers iOS running mobile software. A security advisory posted to the website confirmed that Apple has fixed two zero-day vulnerabilities. Bugs are considered zero days. Because they are misused and are not known to Apple. It remains to be seen who is behind the attack, how many Apple customers were targeted, or what was successfully breached. An Apple spokesman did not return a TechCrunch investigation. Apple has confirmed the discovery of one of two bugs…