Author: TechBrunch
Earlier this week, accelerator group Techstars announced changes to its operations. But what was supposed to be an exciting new chapter for the organization ended up being a PR nightmare for him. Techstars has found itself facing criticism for some of its decisions and executions after recently announcing it would close its Boulder and Seattle accelerators. Exit the Austin-based programfirst reported by TechCrunch in December. For example, Zillow co-founder Spencer Raskoff said: said in X Techstars’ memo regarding the end of the program in Seattle reads:“The brutal destruction of that city’s startup scene.”Techstars Boulder graduate Liz his Jorge too Vent…
A document filed in court by the U.S. Department of Justice in a lawsuit against Google over Google's alleged monopoly in the search market, containing some notable information about the competitive landscape of the search market, including its internal structure, revenue, and in some cases, exit price. It became clear. Potential Google competitors include DuckDuckGo and Neeva, the latter of which was sold to Snowflake last year after pivoting to enterprises. Google's proposed “fact-finding” submission documents the history of search competition, including Google's own beginnings, innovation, competitive environment, Google's search advertising business, distribution agreements, and more. Of particular interest to…
Google this week apologized (or came very close to apologizing) for another embarrassing AI failure: an image generation model that injected diversity into photos with a farcical disregard for historical context. While the underlying problem is completely understandable, Google is accusing the model of being “over-sensitive.” But I didn't create the model myself. The AI system in question is Gemini, the company's flagship conversational AI platform, which invokes a version of the Imagen 2 model to create images on demand when requested. But recently it was discovered that asking it to generate images of specific historical situations or people can…
House staging is an important part of the real estate industry, and real estate agents have traditionally physically staged homes before listing them, which is an expensive and time-consuming process. A startup called Virtual Staging AI is enabling real estate agents to virtually stage homes using generative AI. Virtual Staging AI, part of Harvard Innovation Labs, currently has 4,500 monthly paid subscribers and aims to transform the real estate and staging industry. The startup has reached $1 million in ARR over the past 10 months and is generating over 500,000 renders each month. Michael Bonacina, the company's co-founder and CEO,…
Welcome to Startups Weekly — Every week, we bring you must-sees from the world of startups. sign up here Delivered to your inbox every Friday. Rivian launched with the promise of revolutionizing the way we think about trucks and SUVs, but now it's slowing down a bit. In a move that screams, “Whoa, we might have gotten a little ahead of ourselves,” the company announced it would lay off 10% of its workforce. Why do you ask? Well, the EV market is looking a little tougher than expected, with pricing pressures building like the suspense of a sordid thriller. Rivian…
People are more likely to do something if you ask kindly. It's a fact that most of us are familiar with. But do generative AI models behave the same way? Up to a certain point. With chatbots like ChatGPT, you may get better results by phrasing your request in a certain way rather than in a more neutral tone. One Reddit user claimed that he gave ChatGPT a $100,000 bounty that made him “try harder” and “work better.” Other she Redditors said they noticed a difference in the quality of responses when they expressed politeness to the chatbot. It's not…
To paraphrase a famous saying: Hardware is hard. First-generation products of new startups are notorious for being like that, no matter how much money and excitement they muster. With all this in mind, few will be surprised that Humane's upcoming Ai Pin has been pushed back a bit from his March date to “mid-April.” new video From Sam Shaffer, head of media for a Bay Area startup. In a Sorkin-style walk and talk, he explained that the first units are scheduled to “start leaving the factory at the end of March.” If Humane meets that deadline, “priority access” customers will…
Browser company Arc, a browser focused on a clean web experience, has introduced a new feature to its mobile app Arc Search that uses AI to summarize web pages. This feature includes a clever “pinch” gesture that displays a well-formatted summary with key points. This feature is gaining traction because it presents new dynamics for interacting with AI, but there are also concerns that it could impact traffic to news publishers like us. We've also seen other efforts by big tech companies to consider AI-powered summarization, such as Artifact, the now-shuttered app from Instagram's co-founders, and the web page summarization…
Reddit's long-awaited IPO is approaching, and it's expected to be the biggest social media IPO since Pinterest. However, in the company's S-1 filing, Reddit fails to adequately address the complex issues arising from changes to its developer platform and API pricing. The changes led to site-wide protests, community blackouts, site stability issues, and a drop in traffic late last year. Moderators and Reddit users alike protested that the company is forcing popular third-party apps out of business by increasing API fees. Nor does it address the potential fallout from these protests, that Reddit itself could someday face competition from a…
To give female academics and others focused on AI their well-deserved and overdue spotlight time, TechCrunch is launching a series of interviews highlighting notable women who have contributed to the AI revolution. Start. As the AI boom continues, we'll be publishing several articles throughout the year highlighting key research that may go unrecognized. Click here for a detailed profile. Mutare Nkonde is the founding CEO of AI For the People (AFP), a nonprofit organization that aims to increase the number of Black voices in the technology industry. Prior to this, she helped introduce the No Biometric Barriers to Housing Act,…