Author: TechBrunch

Threads, Instagram's Twitter-like app, has edged out competitors It's starting to look like. It feels more private than using the public “Like” (heart icon). Bookmarks are a popular feature for original X users and heavy news consumers. Bookmarks allow you to manage collections of links and posts that you need to refer to for any reason. Probably because of a longer article I plan to read later. Or important information you want to remember. X also allows paid subscribers to organize their bookmarks into different folders for easier access. Image credits: thread The bookmark icon is at the bottom of…

Shortly after the successful completion of a grid-connected geothermal power plant in Nevada, Fervo Energy is raising $221 million, according to SEC filings exclusively obtained by TechCrunch. The Houston-based company is one of several stepped-up geothermal startups racing to harness the heat deep in the Earth's crust. Previous geothermal power plants only scratched the surface by accessing hot springs or shallow rock formations. Fervo uses directional drilling techniques pioneered by the oil and gas industry to extend wells far beyond their surface footprint. Not surprisingly, the company's management team includes veterans in the field. Once these wells are drilled, Fervo…

With the Vision Pro finally available, many consumers are interested in Apple's AR/VR headset and the apps that come with it. Some are from familiar companies like Disney+, Max, TikTok, Zoom, and Reddit, but there are also a number of independent developers who have released apps optimized for visionOS. From spatial puzzle games to apps that let you view your interior design projects in 3D, here are some VisionOS apps from small developers that you can try out once your headset arrives. We will add more to this list as they are released. game soul spire Image credits: soul assembly…

Following Microsoft's investment in and partnership with French large-scale language modeling startup Mistral AI, the company is working hard to shake off its image of stifling competition through its deep partnership with (and financial stake in) OpenAI. I keep trying. Today, the company launched a new framework it calls the “AI Access Principles.” This is an 11-point plan that Microsoft says will “define how AI data center infrastructure and other critical AI assets around the world will be operated.” These points cover areas such as building and operating app stores that allow companies to choose from a variety of LLMs…

Two easily exploitable flaws in a popular remote access tool used by more than 1 million companies around the world are currently in mass exploitation, with hackers exploiting them to improve security, security researchers say. It is said to be deploying ransomware and stealing sensitive data. Cybersecurity giant Mandiant said in a post Friday that it has “confirmed mass exploitation” of two flaws in ConnectWise ScreenConnect, a popular remote access tool that allows IT departments and technicians to remotely provide technical support directly to customer systems over the Internet. ” he posted. The two vulnerabilities are CVE-2024-1709, an authentication bypass…

DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis said he expects Google will be able to “unpause” the portrait feature of Gemini, the company's multimodal generative AI tool. The ability to respond to human image prompts should be back online in the “coming weeks,” he said today. Google announced last week that the Gemini feature was being rolled out after users said the tool was producing historically inconsistent images, such as depicting the Founding Fathers as a diverse group of people rather than just white men. was temporarily suspended. Hassabis was responding to questions about product snafus during an on-stage interview at Mobile World…

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello. Welcome to Equity, the startup business podcast. Uncover the numbers and nuances behind the headlines. This is Monday's show, where we look back at the weekend and what's to come this week.we Also This weekend we had an additional episode that delved into Reddit IPOs. You can view it here. Here's what's on this morning's pod. Stock prices vary around the world, and so do the prices of virtual currencies. We've also had some big revenue weeks, with data coming soon from Workday, Zoom, Unity, Coupang, Klaviyo, Salesforce, Snowflake, Okta, Duolingo,…

As its latest announcement shows, Paris-based AI startup Mistral AI is gradually building an alternative solution to OpenAI and Anthropic. The company is launching a new flagship large language model called Mistral Large. In terms of inference capabilities, it is designed to be comparable to other top models such as GPT-4 and Claude 2. In addition to Mistral Large, the startup is also launching its own new service Le Chat, which replaces ChatGPT. This chat assistant is currently available in beta. For those not familiar with Mistral AI, the company is best known for its capitalization statement, as it raised…

Small and medium-sized businesses, just like their larger competitors, are keen to leverage AI technology to enhance their sales processes. However, they often lack the in-house IT expertise or capital to implement enterprise-grade tools like OpenAI and Anthropic. Darwin AI, an AI startup based in Brazil, is developing a conversational AI assistant for small and medium-sized businesses across Latin America who want to get into AI but don't have IT staff. The assistant is designed to interact with customers in a more human way and generate more revenue. If the conversation escalates negatively or becomes a sales lead, bring in…

A few months ago, OpenAI launched a GPT store. This is a marketplace where people can create and list AI-powered chatbots that are customized to perform various tasks (coding, answering trivia questions, etc.). Yes, GPT stores are powerful. However, this requires using OpenAI's model rather than other models, which some chatbot creators and users object to. So startups are creating alternatives. One FlowGPT is for GenAI models such as Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, Meta's Llama 2, and OpenAI's DALL-E 3, as well as the front-end experience for those models (think text fields and prompt suggestions). It aims to become a…