Author: TechBrunch

As millions of Americans open their laptops to buy presents this holiday season, tech companies are racing to hand over online shopping tasks to AI agents instead. Perplexity recently released an AI shopping agent for paying customers in the US. It's supposed to navigate retail websites for you, find the products you're looking for, and even click the checkout button for you. Perplexity may be the first major AI startup to offer this, but other companies have been exploring this space for some time, and we expect to see more AI shopping agents emerge in 2025. OpenAI and Google are…

The search interface for Instagram Threads, Meta's X competitor, has been improved, the company announced on Monday. The app offers a meta-run alternative to Elon Musk's You can filter your search by range. This is not as comprehensive as the advanced search in X. Currently, users can refine their queries by language, keywords, exact phrases, negative words, hashtags, and more. However, it makes it easier for Threads users to find specific posts. Search in Threads is also now comparable to search in Bluesky, and users can also use advanced queries to filter their searches by user profile, date range, and…

Users of conversational AI platform ChatGPT discovered an interesting phenomenon over the weekend. Well, the popular chatbot is refusing to answer questions about “David Mayer.” If you ask it to do so, it will immediately freeze. Conspiracy theories abound, but there may be a more mundane reason at the heart of this strange behavior. Word that the name is harmful to chatbots spread quickly over the weekend, with more people trying to trick the service into simply recognizing the name. Bad luck: Every time you try to get ChatGPT to spell that particular name, it may fail or cut off…

AI hardware startup Tenstorrent has raised nearly $700 million in new funding. Tenstorrent has raised $693 million in a Series D round, valuing the company at more than $2.6 billion, Bloomberg first reported. The round was led by Samsung Securities and AFW Partners. Other investors include Hyundai and Jeff Bezos' Bezos Expeditions. The Toronto-based company said it will use the capital to expand its engineering team and build an artificial intelligence training server to demonstrate its technology. Renowned microprocessor engineer and Tenstorrent CEO Jim Keller told Bloomberg that the company plans to release a new AI processor every two years…

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has more than 130,000 job cuts across 457 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized startups have also seen a fair amount of cuts, and in some cases, have shut down operations altogether. By tracking these layoffs, we’re able to understand the impact on innovation across companies large and small. We’re also able to see the potential impact of businesses…

Coinbase on Monday announced integration with Apple Pay, allowing app makers to include the ability to purchase cryptocurrencies directly in their apps with Apple Pay. This integration is part of Coinbase Onramp and provides app makers with a way for their customers to convert traditional currencies such as the US dollar into cryptocurrencies. This process has traditionally been difficult, requiring users to pay additional fees and access multiple websites and apps. With Apple Pay integration, Coinbase continues to push its products towards the average consumer by making cryptocurrency purchases more accessible. With this integration, Apple appears to be at least…

Apple's ad tech employees filed a lawsuit against their employer on Sunday over how the company monitors its employees, Semafor reported. Apple wants its employees to use Apple devices at work, but work-issued devices are so limited that many employees use personal devices or I also associate my device with my personal iCloud. To do so, the complaint says, employees must authorize Apple to install software that gives Apple access to search what's stored on their devices and in iCloud. The suit alleges that Apple's policies allow it to monitor employees even when they are off-duty. The employee claims Apple…

According to the Financial Times, OpenAI is considering expanding into advertising. Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told the newspaper that the company is considering its advertising business model and plans to be “thoughtful” about when and where to advertise. In a subsequent statement, Friar emphasized that there were “no active plans to pursue advertising,” but the idea is clearly on the table. (The FT's report highlights a recent high-profile advertiser, ex-Google's Shivakumar Venkataraman.) ChatGPT makers have traditionally relied on subscriptions to support the development of generative AI tools. However, the costs of producing and delivering these models are eye-wateringly high,…

In recent years, the Polish government under President Donald Tusk has investigated the previous government's alleged use and misuse of Pegasus cell phone spyware. On Monday, Piotr Pogonowski, the former head of Poland's internal security service, was arrested and forcibly taken to testify before parliament as part of the current government's investigation into allegations of spyware abuse carried out in recent years under the previous government. According to the Financial Times, the Justice (PiS) Party. Contact Us Want more information about NSO Group? Or other spyware companies and incidents of abuse of their technology? From non-work devices, contact Signal (+1…

Signzy, a popular vendor that provides online “know your customer” identity authentication and customer onboarding services to some of the largest financial institutions, commercial banks, and fintech companies, has confirmed the security incident, TechCrunch exclusively learned. Reporting. The Bangalore-based startup, which serves more than 600 financial institutions around the world, including India's four largest banks, suffered a cyberattack last week, according to people who spoke to TechCrunch. On Saturday, Signzy told TechCrunch that he was aware of the security incident but declined to provide further details. India's Computer Emergency Response Team, known as CERT-In, separately confirmed to TechCrunch that it…