Author: TechBrunch

After weeks of anticipation, some Spotify users are underwhelmed by Spotify Wrapped, the streamer's personalized annual review feature, with many calling it “boring” or even a “failure.” Masu. The main complaint is that Spotify prioritized Wrapped's AI podcast over the other smart and creative data stories it typically offers. For example, stories that identify musical personalities, match you with cities that share your musical tastes, and explain the characteristics of music. Take advantage of your “audio aura” and turn your music playback history into a game to share with friends. Some are upset about the lack of more detailed statistics…

World Labs has announced a new AI feature that turns 2D images into miniature worlds. The tool, the first from Fei-Fei Li's highly touted startup, takes a prompt or 2D reference image and spits out a fully navigable 3D environment. By producing in 3D, World Labs can avoid some of the control and consistency issues with other image and video production devices. GenAI tools create scenes with persistent visual aspects, real-time control, and consistent geometry, allowing creators to create precise camera movements within the generated environment. However, the scene boundaries are still quite close. This kind of rapid generation could…

AWS, Amazon's cloud computing division, today announced the Education Equity Initiative, which aims to “empower educational institutions with technology to build digital learning innovations for underrepresented communities.” AWS is committing $100 million in cloud credits to this effort over the next five years. Tom Berry, who leads education efforts within AWS' social impact and responsibility team, told me that this initiative is a bit different from how the company has traditionally thought about these projects. Typically, these programs focus on building projects that directly train teachers and children. “We are learning from that work (which we have been doing with…

A new update to Instagram Threads, Meta's X competitor, will allow users to further connect with the Fediverse, also known as the open social web, which includes services like Flipboard, Mastodon, Pixelfed, and PeerTube. On Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that users can now follow profiles from other Fediverse servers. Starting today, users who have turned on sharing to fediverse will be able to follow users on other fediverse servers who have liked, followed, or replied to federated profiles on threads. . Scrolling through a thread now takes users to someone's profile and allows them to see all their…

As companies move from experimenting with generative AI in limited prototypes to moving into production, they are becoming increasingly price-conscious. After all, using large language models isn't cheap. One way to reduce costs is to return to the old concept of caching. Another is to route simpler queries to smaller, more cost-effective models. AWS announced both of these features for its Bedrock LLM hosting service today at the re:invent conference in Las Vegas. First, let's talk about cash advance services. “Say you have a document and multiple people are asking questions about the same document, and you're paying money every…

When a startup raises a seed round, the eternal question arises: how much should the founders pay themselves and their first few employees? Kruze Consulting, a CPA firm specializing in venture-backed startups, recently analyzed the average salary range of over 450 seed-stage startups and shared the data with TechCrunch. The averages below are based on actual payroll records, not survey responses, Kruse said. Perhaps unsurprisingly, technical engineering/product positions tend to pay more than CEOs. One surprise is that salaries for those with the COO/Operations title tend to be even higher on average. This is frowned upon. This is because the…

In an interview Wednesday at the New York Times' Dealbook Summit, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that X and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are “hurting competitors.” He said it was “deeply un-American” to use political influence for the sake of the United States. and “advantage” [his] own business. ” “I don't think people would tolerate that,” he said, according to Bloomberg. Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, heads DOGE, an advisory committee that will recommend deep cuts to federal agencies. Musk, who owns OpenAI competitor xAI, will reportedly provide input to President Trump if he decides to appoint an AI policy…

Two U.S. senators want the Pentagon to take sufficient steps to protect service members' communications as the U.S. government counters China's continued hacking efforts targeting major U.S. cell phone and internet companies. They are accusing the government of not taking proper precautions. The senators argue that the Pentagon remains overly reliant on traditional landline calls and unencrypted cell phone calls and text messages, leaving them vulnerable to snooping by foreign spies. . Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Republican Sen. Eric Schmidt of Missouri are among those most recently accused of infiltrating and spying on major U.S. telecommunications providers,…

What do Tim Cook, Jay-Z, and Fred Asum (co-founder of Coinbase) have in common? That could be their interest in Frère, a bespoke ready-to-wear brand that's making a name for itself throughout the tech world. The brand, which launched in March, will open its first store in New York's SoHo district. Frères is known for its suits, but it also sells items like a $3,490 wool knit tracksuit and a $5,990 cashmere overcoat. It's a luxury. A quiet luxury, as kids might call it on TikTok. It's that subtle high-tech look that the CEO wears in neutrals that cost about…

“If you build it, they won't come,” Bison Ventures co-founder Tom Biegala said on the Equity podcast on Wednesday. The phrase is an internal mantra at Bison, an early-stage venture firm betting on “frontier technology” companies building in materials science, robotics, biotechnology, climate change and sustainability. This is intended to discourage founders from solving problems they believe exist. According to Biegala, Bison's mantra is, “When these entrepreneurs aren't talking to their customers and testing their hypotheses around their pain points, value propositions, and product specifications, we're keenly aware that that's a big red flag for us.'' I'll let you.'' So…