Author: TechBrunch
Amnon Shashua, founder and CEO of Mobileye, believes that complex problems can be solved with AI, and that AI itself can be modified to make it more reliable. In addition to founding and running a self-driving car technology company that he took public, sold to Intel, and then spun out again, he has many other ideas. One of them is currently raising money and gaining significant momentum. One Zero, a fintech company aiming to leverage AI in retail banking services, is raising at least $100 million, TechCrunch has learned. Despite being co-founded by one of Israel's most high-profile and successful…
In an interesting variation on the usual “stop stealing our stuff” lawsuits that have already been deployed dozens of times against AI companies, a more subtle form of theft charge is being filed today. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Blade Runner 2049 production company Alcon Entertainment is suing Tesla, Elon Musk, and Warner Bros. Digital for intentional circumvention of intellectual property rights. Ta. Musk had asked Tesla to use images from the movie to promote its latest futuristic concept car at its unveiling on the grounds of Warner Studios. Since Alcon did not agree to provide the rights through Warner,…
Is the grass greener next door? I'm not sure, but I'm sure the sky is bluer. It's been about two years since Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X) and people started setting up shop on alternative platforms. Mastodon, Post, Pebble (now defunct), and Spill have been mentioned as possible replacements, but apart from Meta's Threads, few companies have achieved the speed of growth that Bluesky achieved. Bluesky was invite-only for almost a year, but became available to everyone in February 2024, gaining about 800,000 new users in a single day. As of October 2024, Bluesky has over 10 million users.…
Los Angeles is known for its glitz, but it also has a lot of grit, literally. Thousands of containers move in and out of ships every day at the region's two main ports, most often transported in polluting diesel trucks. This makes Los Angeles a hotbed for all kinds of new electric vehicle and charging infrastructure projects. A startup called Nevoya is jumping on the opportunity. “This is the best place in the country” for electric trucks, founder Sami Khan told TechCrunch in a recent interview. “The incentives are the strongest,” he said, “and there's just a huge market here.”…
While the funding size of many venture capital firms has ballooned into the billions of dollars over the past decade, Benchmark Partners, one of Silicon Valley's most successful investors, has raised approximately $425 million every few years. We have focused on raising funds for That's what the prestigious firm said in a letter to its limited partners when it announced its latest fund this summer, according to the Information. However, Benchmark's partners do not place limits on the capital commitments they make to major investment funds. The company has now raised an additional $170 million for a fund called Benchmark…
Amid increased competition from new entrants like Bluesky and Threads, X on Monday launched its “Radar” trend analysis tool aimed at providing subscribers with real-time insights into emerging trends and conversations on the platform. launched. The tool, formerly known as Insights, was originally targeted at verified organizations (companies) and allowed marketers to track topics and trends on the app. By subscribing, marketers can perform keyword analysis, visualize trending activity, and filter conversations in real-time. In addition to tracking conversation volume over time, Radar can also track conversation velocity. Its features help marketers better understand trends in X and help them…
News Corp's Dow Jones and the NY Post have sued growing AI startup Perplexity over what they call “content theft politics.” In a lawsuit filed in New York on Monday, the media organization alleges that Perplexity engages in copyright infringement on a “massive scale” while simultaneously copying and misrepresenting original content created by others. he claimed. Its AI “response engine” extensively copies, among other things, copyrighted news content, analysis, and opinion into an internal database as input. That copyrighted content is then used to generate responses to user queries that are intended to serve as an alternative to news and…
Shortly after social marketplace Poshmark announced it was lowering selling fees and increasing fees for buyers, the company decided to revert to its original pricing structure following anger from sellers. In an email sent to merchants on Monday and seen by TechCrunch, founder and CEO Manish Chandra apologized for the fee change, saying it would result in shoppers spending less on purchases and “sellers' There's less cash left in their pockets — despite that.” Reduced sales commissions. ” Chandra added: “The results of the changes did not meet our expectations. We sincerely apologize for the confusion and impact this has…
In August, Elon Musk's xAI promised to make Grok, its flagship generative AI model that powers many of the features on X, available via API. Well, that API is here. However, it currently only has the bare minimum functionality. The xAI API has only one model, “grok-beta”, and is priced at $5 per million input tokens (approximately 750,000 words) or $15 per million output tokens. Tokens are subdivisions of raw data, such as the syllables “fan,” “tas,” and “tic” in the word “fantastic.” It is unclear which Grok model “grok-beta” is. Grok 2 is the latest version of X. The…
On TikTok, Daze's most popular video has been viewed 8 million times. Across TikTok and Instagram, the startup, which has developed a new messaging app aimed at Gen Z, has amassed around 48 million views combined. Before its release, the app's waiting list was already filled with around 156,000 subscribers. Demand for this next-generation alternative to iMessage and WhatsApp isn't driven by glib influencers or paid ads, but product demo videos of the app in action that are impressing young viewers. It's just that. Founded by New York-based serial entrepreneur Willem Simons, Daze offers a freestyle messaging app inspired by…