Author: TechBrunch

Spurred by the growing threat of deepfakes, the FTC is amending existing rules that prohibit impersonation of businesses and government agencies to include all consumers. Depending on the final language and the public comments the FTC receives, the rule changes will allow GenAI platforms to identify products and services that they know or have reason to know are being used to harm consumers through identity theft. It may also be illegal to provide such information. “Scammers are using AI tools to impersonate a wider range of individuals with uncanny accuracy,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a press release. “With…

After announcing results that exceeded expectations US-based Coinbase has big plans, announced in its fourth quarter earnings report. The second-largest cryptocurrency exchange will focus this year on its popular USDC stablecoin efforts, leveraging its recently launched Layer 2 blockchain base as a way to experiment and improve the utility of blockchain. The company has told investors that it intends to do so, and is committed to continuing to work on regulation on behalf of its company and the larger Web3 industry. Meanwhile, the bull market and capital flows into financial institutions are starting to pick up again. Coinbase’s strong fourth-quarter…

There's some joy in this A cold world is the equivalent of opening a new comic book on a lazy Sunday morning. There's nothing to do and no need to be anywhere. Just you, a mug of coffee, and some continuous art. Not much has fundamentally changed about American comics since publishers began collecting newspaper bindings in the early 20th century. True, the content has radically changed, but at the end of the day the basics still remain: characters and text captured in panels designed to be read in sequence. However, in recent decades, the variety of shipping methods has…

There have been many attempts at open-source AI-powered voice assistants (see Rhasspy, Mycroft, and Jasper to name a few), all of which have focused on privacy without compromising functionality. Established with the goal of creating a protected offline experience. However, development has proven to be very slow. That's because, in addition to the usual challenges associated with open source projects, programming the assistant is extremely difficult. difficult. Technologies like Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa have years, if not decades, of research and development and huge infrastructures to boot. But that doesn't deter the people at Large-Scale Artificial Intelligence Open Network…

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected OpenAI's attempt to trademark “GPT,” ruling that the term is “merely descriptive” and cannot be registered. This is a blow to his OpenAI brand, but don't expect competitors to start releasing their own versions of the ubiquitous chatbot. ChatGPT is certainly the best-known brand in AI today, the most popular conversation model on the market, and the model that most visibly took large-scale language models from curiosity to global trend. is. However, according to the USPTO, this name does not meet the criteria for trademark registration and protection by the “TM” suffix.…

July 2021, someone sent Google a batch of malicious code that can be used to hack PCs running Chrome, Firefox, and Windows Defender. That code was part of an exploitation framework called Heliconia. According to Google, the exploits targeting these applications were zero-day at the time, meaning the software maker was unaware of the bug. More than a year later, in November 2022, Google's Threat Analysis Group, the company's team that investigates government-backed threats, published a blog post analyzing these exploits and the Heliconia framework. Google researchers concluded that the code belonged to Variston, a little-known start-up based in Barcelona.…

Welcome to TechCrunch Crypto, formerly known as Chain Reaction. Get a roundup of TechCrunch's biggest and most important crypto articles delivered to your inbox every Thursday at 12pm PT. Subscribe here. Hello. Welcome to the new and improved TechCrunch Crypto newsletter. This is our 5th edition and includes a regular news schedule, as well as some regular segments and features. So if you like what you see (or don't), let us know at jacquelyn@techcrunch.com. This week, roses were red, violets were blue, and the crypto market was green – for you.If you Follow me on Xyou may have already seen…

OpenAI is moving into video generation, following in the footsteps of startups like Runway and tech giants like Google and Meta. OpenAI today announced Sora, a GenAI model that creates videos from text. According to OpenAI, given a brief (or detailed) description and a still image, Sora can generate 1080p movie-like scenes with multiple characters, different types of motion, and background details. It means. Sora can also “enhance” existing video clips, doing its best to fill in any missing details. “Sora has a deep understanding of language, allowing it to accurately interpret prompts and generate engaging characters that express vivid…

Well, it turns out it's not a bug that breaks iPhone web apps, also known as Progressive Web Apps (PWA) in the EU. Following developer complaints and reports that his PWA stopped working in the EU after installing the latest iOS beta, Apple updated his website to explain why. Unsurprisingly, the tech giant blames this change on a new EU regulation, the Digital Markets Act, which allows for different browser engines, and he believes that the complexity involved in the DMA's requirements is the root cause. It states that there is. On a side note, security researcher Tommy Mysk and…

Apple's recent move to increase interest rates on Apple Card savings accounts to 4.5% has prompted competitors to do the same. Cash App announced today that it is offering Cash App Savings customers “up to” 4.5% APY (Annual Percentage Yield). However, there are some caveats. Apple's Savings Account requires a customer to qualify for his Apple Card credit card, but Cash App otherwise limits high percentages to cardholders. The company said that in order to increase the interest rate to 4.5%, customers must directly deposit at least $300 in salary each month. This can be more difficult for people who…