Author: TechBrunch

Just before the holidays, WhatsApp announced new video calling features, including the ability to select participants for group video calls, improved resolution, and a revamped calling tab on the desktop. This is another step by Meta in making WhatsApp a viable option for both personal and work calls instead of using Google Meet or Zoom. If you're in a group chat, the messaging app allows you to call the entire group. However, there may be times when you don't want or need to call everyone in the group and disturb them. The company is currently rolling out the option to…

Syndicate One debuts as a Belgian investment company, raising €6.5 million in funding to support Belgian founders and startups. Although the amount is small, the important point is that it is the first Belgian fund to receive support from all four federal regions of the country. The country is so divided that there are even periodic periods where there is no real government. Founded in 2022, the fund is backed by over 100 entrepreneurs and startup operators and has since been backed by Techwolf, Aikido Security, Sirona Technologies, Donna, Cosmic Aerospace, Vendorvue, SAPI, Powernaut, Kennek, and more. invests in early-stage…

Disinformation is on the rise, making businesses just as susceptible to it as individuals, especially given the explosion in AI. Refute is a London-based startup that detects and responds to disinformation on behalf of these commercial organizations. It has now raised £2.3 million ($2.9 million) in a pre-seed round led by British investors Playfair and Episode 1. There are many factors that facilitate disinformation attacks, including geopolitical instability and the use of generative AI to create misleading content. More sophisticated campaigns, often created by state-sponsored or commercial competitors, focus on companies, their supply chains, and even top executives. This can…

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday launched an investigation into Character.AI and 14 other technology platforms over children's privacy and safety concerns. The investigation will assess whether Character.AI and other platforms popular with young people, such as Reddit, Instagram, and Discord, comply with Texas child privacy and safety laws. Research by Paxton, who often takes a tough stance on technology companies, found that these platforms are subject to two Texas laws: the Parental Empowerment to Protect Children Online Act (SCOPE Act) and the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act. (DPSA) compliance will be investigated. These laws require platforms to…

Microsoft announced the latest addition to the Phi family of generative AI models. Microsoft claims that this model, called Phi-4, is improved in several ways over previous versions, particularly in math problem solving. This is partly a result of improved training data quality. Phi-4 is available with very limited access as of Thursday night. Available only on Microsoft's recently launched Azure AI Foundry development platform and for research purposes under the Microsoft Research License Agreement. Notably, the Phi-4 is the first Phi series model to be launched after Sebastien Bubeck's retirement. Bubeck, who previously served as Microsoft's AI VP and…

If you throw a rock, there's a good chance you'll hit a deepfake. The commoditization of generative AI has led to an explosion of fake content online. According to identity verification platform Sumsub, deepfakes have quadrupled worldwide from 2023 to 2024. According to Sumsub, deepfakes accounted for 7% of all fraud in 2024. , ranging from identity theft and account takeover to sophisticated social engineering campaigns. Meta is releasing a tool that applies imperceptible watermarks to AI-generated video clips in hopes of making a meaningful contribution to the fight against deepfakes. The tool, announced Thursday, is called Meta Video Seal,…

Google’s trying to make waves with Gemini, its flagship suite of generative AI models, apps, and services. But what’s Gemini? How can you use it? And how does it stack up to other generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta’s Llama, and Microsoft’s Copilot? To make it easier to keep up with the latest Gemini developments, we’ve put together this handy guide, which we’ll keep updated as new Gemini models, features, and news about Google’s plans for Gemini are released. What is Gemini? Gemini is Google’s long-promised, next-gen generative AI model family. Developed by Google’s AI research labs DeepMind and Google…

Running a startup can be expensive and require various subscriptions. Cap table management software that helps founders organize their finances can cost thousands of dollars per year. San Francisco-based Carta is the market leader in this industry. But some startup founders say Carta makes it extremely difficult to cancel subscriptions. The issue started when Sudarshan Sridharan, founder of Pipeline, posted about his struggle to cancel, writing, “I am speechless at the attitude of the anti-founder @cartainc. You won't be able to talk to a human support agent.” Carta requested a “cancellation request” meeting with a customer success manager to terminate…

Nearly half of U.S. teens are online most of the time, and the platform they use most is YouTube, a new Pew Research Center study finds. The center reports that 46% of teens say they go online “almost all the time,” and 90% of teens surveyed use Google-owned video platforms. 73% of respondents said they use the platform every day. TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat round out the list of top platforms for teens. 60% of teens report using TikTok and Instagram, and 55% say the same about Snapchat. It's no secret that teenagers aren't using Facebook as much as they…

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 has been a big year for OpenAI, from its partnership with Apple for its generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, the release of GPT-4o with voice and vision capabilities, and the highly-anticipated launch of its text-to-video model Sora. OpenAI is closing the year with “12 Days of OpenAI,” a series of 12 streams highlighting new…