Author: TechBrunch
Connor Galloway and Alexander Varis have been following developments in nuclear fusion research since they were roommates at MIT nearly 20 years ago. For much of that time, nuclear fusion wasn't a particularly exciting hobby. Breakthroughs were few and far between, and commercial fusion always seemed elusive, still 20 years away from providing cheap, inexhaustible, pollution-free electricity. But in August 2021, the pair saw news that suggested fusion power might finally be within reach: Scientists working on a particular type of fusion at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) had doubled their previous best results. Though it got little attention in…
Sékr, a startup that provides a mobile app for outdoor enthusiasts and campers, is releasing a new AI tool for planning road trips. The new tool, called Copilot, is available on the startup's updated website and app, which are used by more than 100,000 users. Sékr was founded in 2016 with the aim of helping the “vanlife” community find campsites that meet their needs, such as shower facilities, toilets, overnight van parking, free Wi-Fi, etc. The app also allows users to connect with fellow travelers who want to join in outdoor activities like rock climbing and skiing. The startup is…
OpenAI's chatbot ChatGPT has been down for several users around the world for the past few hours, with many users posting about the issue on X and Threads. OpenAI claims that ChatGPT has more than 100 million weekly users. OpenAI flagged the incident as a major outage on its service status site and said the company had identified the bug and was working on a fix. The company began working on resolving the issue on June 4 at 12:21 a.m. PDT, according to the status tracker. Over the past 30 days, ChatGPT users have experienced several partial outages, the most…
Solar energy has been gaining attention in Europe since the shock of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While electricity prices have risen, the investment needed to put solar panels on a roof has fallen. This is thanks to new subsidies, better technology, and several European startups working to streamline the installation process. One startup driving the energy transition for southern European homes is Samara, a Spanish company that just raised a Series A funding round of €9 million ($9.8 million at today's exchange rates) just two years after being founded. “We have supported more than 1,700 families in their…
The Great Rollback is here. The phrase refers to big tech companies starting to cut back on some of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs that were put in place shortly after the murder of George Floyd. Most recently, Zoom announced it had fired its DEI team. Google and Meta have cut funding for DEI programs, and funding for Black founders continues to decline. Lawsuits have been filed targeting DEI programs, forcing companies to hide their efforts at inclusion, while billionaires debate whether DEI efforts at X are discriminatory. This year will clearly be a turning point for DEI…
Apple will kick off its week-long World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) event with its traditional keynote on June 10 at 10am ET/7am PT. The presentation will focus on the company's software products and the developers behind them, including the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS and watchOS. You can watch the stream on Apple's event page , and there's also a stream on YouTube , but it tends to be a bit delayed. Over the past few years, critics have noted that the company has so far lagged behind companies like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI when it comes…
Venture capital firm Fearless Fund is facing a setback in its program to give grants to black female business owners: An appeals court ruled against Fearless on Monday, upholding a preliminary injunction against the program. As first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the ruling said Fearless Fund's Strivers Grants likely violate the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which bans racial language in contracts. Strivers Grants are issued through the fund's foundation arm and award grants to businesses run by Black women. Last August, the American Equal Rights Union filed a lawsuit alleging that the grants discriminate against non-Black female founders…
Threads, Meta's Twitter/X rival and the company's first bet on decentralized social media, is making it easier for users to control their Threads experience. After unveiling a customizable dashboard interface last week, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced Monday that the app is rolling out a feature that lets users know what types of posts they want to see more of, or less of. Users “swipe right on a post to like it or swipe left to indicate they're not interested,” Mosseri explained in a post on the thread. “We use these signals to show you more posts similar to the…
Bad actors are misusing generative AI music tools to create homophobic, racist and propaganda songs, and are publishing guides on how to make them. ActiveFence, a service that manages the trust and safety of online platforms, said it has seen a surge in conversations within “hate speech-related” communities since March about how AI music-making tools can be misused to create offensive songs that target minority groups. The AI-generated songs shared on these forums and discussion boards aim to incite hatred against ethnic, gender, racial and religious groups while glorifying martyrdom, self-harm and acts of terrorism, ActiveFence researchers said in the…
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference next week will be a pivotal moment in history for the iPhone maker, as the Cupertino-based tech giant will showcase its selection of integrating AI technologies into its devices and software, including its historic partnership with OpenAI. As the big event draws closer, various leaks have surfaced about what's in store for iOS 18 and its rumored AI-powered apps and features. Among the changes are reports that Apple is using Ajax LLM to power some of its new AI features, and other reports suggest that Apple plans to process data from its AI in a way…