Author: TechBrunch
When Marissa Mayer co-founded a startup in Palo Alto, Calif., six years ago, expectations for the former Yahoo CEO and early Google employee were sky-high. When the startup Sunshine announced its first app, centered around subscription software for contact management, people wondered if something more ambitious was just around the corner. . Today, Sunshine released the Internet after he released two equally mundane features: event planning and photo sharing. Commenter definitively confused. I was also perplexed last week when Mayer told me about Sunshine's new product. Everything Sunshine offers includes an AI component, but it's hard to see how Sunshine's…
PayPal Ventures' latest investment is in an Indonesian startup that offers a personal insurance product that covers a variety of risks, including accidents, damaged phone screens, and ticket cancellations. Qoala has secured $47 million in a new round co-led by PayPal Ventures and MassMutual Ventures, the five-year-old startup announced Wednesday. In addition to MUFG Innovation Partners and Omidyar Network, existing backers Flourish Ventures, Eurazeo, and AppWorks also participated in the Series C funding, bringing Qoala's total funding to more than $130 million since its inception. Headquartered in Jakarta, Qoala is an insurance broker that works with top local insurance and…
Following Elon Musk's xAI move to open source the Grok large-scale language model in early March, He said it would be available to subscribers.in Post to XMusk announced this week that Grok will be available to Premium subscribers, instead of just the high-end Premium+ subscribers as before. The move may indicate a desire to compete more directly with other popular chatbots, such as OpemAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. But it could also indicate that X is trying to increase its subscriber base. The news comes at a time when data shows the number of people using the X platform is…
A number of accelerator programs are conducted each year with the aim of identifying and developing founders in the early stages of company formation. Only a small percentage of people look for founders who are clearly aligned with some values, let alone classic conservative values such as family, patriotism, and faith. Discipulus Ventures, which launched its first group of 10 people yesterday, is a unique exception. Mentorship programs for young founders, at least in the field of technology, are geared toward a rather unique type of talent: Platonic idealism, Aristotelian rationalism, and a strong desire to revive Norman Rockwellian Americana.…
A number of accelerator programs are conducted each year with the aim of identifying and developing founders in the early stages of company formation. Only a small percentage of people look for founders who are clearly aligned with some values, let alone classic conservative values such as family, patriotism, and faith. Discipulus Ventures, which launched its first group of 10 people yesterday, is a unique exception. Mentorship programs for young founders, at least in the field of technology, are geared toward a rather unique type of talent: Platonic idealism, Aristotelian rationalism, and a strong desire to revive Norman Rockwellian Americana.…
In 2016, Facebook launched a secret project aimed at intercepting and decrypting network traffic between people using the Snapchat app and its servers. The purpose, according to newly released court documents, was to understand user behavior and help Facebook compete with Snapchat. Facebook called it “Project Ghostbusters,” an obvious reference to Snapchat's ghostly logo. A federal court in California on Tuesday released new documents discovered as part of a class action lawsuit between consumers and Facebook's parent company Meta. Newly published documents show how Meta can determine which competitors, including Snapchat and later Amazon and YouTube, by analyzing network traffic…
As the Earth warms due to human-induced climate change, the damage caused by wildfires is also increasing. According to the National Integrated Drought Information System, the area of forest burned by wildfires increased by 320% from 1996 to 2021. While it would be ideal to build technology to slow the progression and effects of climate change, this is a large-scale and costly problem that affects every industry and requires adaptive solutions in the shorter term. . Vibrant Planet is one such solution. The startup digitizes land maps and uses AI to help users (fire departments and government agencies) better manage…
Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) startup Synctera has undergone an organizational restructuring that resulted in job cuts, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. Synctera did not disclose the number of employees affected, but a report in Fintech Business Weekly estimates the number to be around 17, or about 15% of the company. Doing the math, the company had about 113 employees before the layoffs and about 96 today. Synctera has built a platform designed to connect fintech companies with sponsoring banks. The company recently announced an $18.6 million extension round to its $15 million Series A announced in March 2023. At the time, the…
Apple SVP Greg “Joz” Joswiak confirmed via the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that the company’s annual World Wide Developer Conference will be held June 10-14. . It's definitely a nod to the company's artificial intelligence ambitions, with executives promising the event will be “absolutely incredible.” As the name “D” in WWDC suggests, this event focuses on developers of Apple's various operating systems. The event, recently held at the Steve Jobs Theater on the company's Cupertino campus, features several days of panels and workshops focused on various ecosystems. This event also serves as the starting point for the…
The European Union on Tuesday published draft election security guidelines for around 24 (large) platforms with more than 45 million monthly active users in the region, which are subject to the Digital Services Act (DSA). regulated and therefore have a legal obligation to reduce systemic risk. Enable political deepfakes and more while protecting fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and privacy. Targeted platforms include Facebook, Google Search, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, X, and more. The commission has identified elections as one of a handful of priority areas for DSA enforcement against so-called Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and Very…