TechCrunch Industry News

Yelp is releasing several new features as part of its year-end release, including AI-powered review insights, a personalized home feed with new content types, and a redesigned inbox for business owners. When it comes to user-facing features, the company is now highlighting reviews in different categories, including food quality, service, and ambiance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Many VCs, particularly newer firms, readily admit that 2024 has been a challenging year for raising fresh capital. Dimension Capital, a two-year-old venture outfit, had a different experience when raising its second fund. “Every investor from fund one came back very quickly." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ByteDance and TikTok filed an emergency motion on Monday asking an appeals court to temporally block the law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. unless the social network divests from Chinese ownership by January 19. Also, Apple is being sued over its decision not to implement a system that would have scanned iCloud photos for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The lawsuit argues that by not doing more to prevent the spread of this material, it’s forcing victims to relive their trauma, according to The New York Times; A U.S. breast-screening program claims to demonstrate the potential benefits of using artificial intelligence (AI) in mammography screening, with women who paid for AI-enhanced scans 21% more likely to have cancer detected. DeepHealth, an AI firm owned by radiology giant RadNet, presented its findings at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America; When it comes to market capitalization, Nvidia is currently the second-biggest public company in the world, behind Apple. That’s why all eyes are on Nvidia these days. And now, as Bloomberg spotted, China Central Television, a public TV broadcaster, is reporting that China’s market regulator has opened a probe into Nvidia’s acquisition of Mellanox; Nikola Corp., a producer of battery and hydrogen-electric trucks, has taken several steps to repay its debts and raise equity, including offering up to $100 million in a common stock sale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former NBA Lakers star Metta Sandiford-Artest (formerly known as Metta World Peace), has teamed up with Stephen Stokols, the former CEO of Boost Mobile, to launch Tru Skye Ventures, a firm looking to invest in sports and health tech, according to Sportico. Also, The first Lucid Motors Gravity SUV has rolled off the company’s production line in Casa Grande, Arizona, according to a post on X. The company will now set its aim on ramping up production of the new electric vehicle and making the first deliveries. Recently, Amp Robotics changed its business model to focus on running entire facilities that sort recyclables. Fly Ventures, the Berlin-based VC that invests in seed-stage European startups within enterprise and deep tech, has launched its third fund at €80 million. The firm raised its last €53 million fund in 2020. Aiming at technical founders, the firm claims Fund III was oversubscribed and raised in a single closing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

OpenAI finally released the full version of o1, which gives smarter answers than GPT-4o by using additional compute to “think” about questions. However, AI safety testers found that o1’s reasoning abilities also make it try to deceive humans at a higher rate than GPT-4o. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Waymo is partnering with Moove, an African mobility fintech that offers vehicle financing to gig workers, to handle fleet management operations for its robotaxi service in Phoenix and, soon, Miami. The partnership marks several firsts, like Waymo’s entry into Miami. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bluesky has blown up this year thanks to a vibrant community of posters, user customization choices, and a decentralized protocol that doesn’t lock users into the choices of a billionaire CEO. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s a new connected fitness device in town and it’s called Growl. Inspired by hardware companies like Peloton or Tonal, Growl is building a boxing bag that you can attach to your wall at home. Users can then start immersive, gamified boxing classes from the comfort of their home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spotify Wrapped, the streamer’s highly anticipated annual listening recap, has arrived. In addition to its usual personalized summary detailing your favorite artists, songs, podcasts, and more, the company this year is introducing two new features, including most notably, an AI-powered podcast of your 2024 Wrapped created with Google’s AI summarization tool, NotebookLM. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Millions of Americans will pop open their laptops to buy gifts this holiday season, but tech companies are racing to turn the job of online shopping over to AI agents instead. Perplexity recently released an AI shopping agent for its paying customers in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.S. consumer protection agency said it's closing the loophole to block the "widespread evasion" of federal law by data brokers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As more publishers cut content licensing deals with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, a study put out this week by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism — looking at how the AI chatbot produces citations (i.e. sources) for publishers’ content — makes for interesting, or, well, concerning, reading Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As more celebrities and popular influencers join Bluesky, the fast-growing social media service has been facing more concerns around impersonation and verified identity. The Bluesky Safety team posted Friday that the company has updated its impersonation policy to be “more aggressive,” adding that “impersonation and handle-squatting accounts will be removed.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Intentional phone usage is a tricky habit to develop. Operating systems like iOS and Android, along with social media networks like Instagram and TikTok, have built timers, nudges, and controls around the usage of the apps or the platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meta, the parent of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is the second-biggest driver of internet usage globally. Its properties — and their billions of users — account for 10% of all fixed and 22% of all mobile traffic. Meta’s investments into artificial intelligence stand to boost that usage even further. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new paper from the Federal Trade Commission found that many smart device makers fail to disclose to consumers how long they will provide software updates for their products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

India-based audio platform Pocket FM has more than 200,000 hours of content on the service. However, the company’s CEO, Rohan Nayak, believes that the platform still has room to grow in terms of creating original content and expanding its library to multiple genres and sub-genres. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.S. Department of Commerce today confirmed it has awarded $7.865 billion to chip giant Intel under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, a federal statute signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022 to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

London is putting the brakes on the mess of e-bikes that litter the streets of the city. Today, the local transportation authority, Transport for London, announced a new enforcement policy that will restrict parking for the tens of thousands of e-bikes rented on-demand from companies like Lime, HumanForest and Dott. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s not exactly a secret that Apple has explored the possibility of building a television. Before his death in 2011, co-founder Steve Jobs famously told biographer Walter Isaacson that he’d “finally cracked it,” but no full-fledged Apple TV (as opposed to the Apple TV set-top box) has emerged in the years since; The Australian government has withdrawn a bill that would have fined online platforms up to 5 percent of their global revenue if they failed to stop the spread of misinformation. The bill, which was backed by the Labor government, would have allowed the Australian Communications and Media Authority to create enforceable rules around misinformation; Brightcove, a cloud platform that helps businesses manage and monetize video content, is being taken private by Italian technology company Bending Spoons, in a deal valued at $233 million. Founded in 2004, Brightcove develops tools and services for creating, hosting, streaming, marketing, and monetizing video content; Now you can appear to be on a Zoom call in your office, even when you’re sipping a margarita in a hammock far, far away. Courtesy of a months-old startup called Pickle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W, a tiny board designed around a microcontroller that lets you build hardware projects at scale. Raspberry Pi is once again using the RP2350, its own, well-documented microcontroller. But what is a microcontroller again? As the name suggests, microcontrollers let you control other electronic components or devices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brave announced on Thursday that it’s introducing an AI chat mode for follow-up questions based on initial queries on Brave Search. Earlier this year, the company launched “Answer with AI” summaries that appear above search results after you submit a query to give you an easy-to-read answer in response to a question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Thursday he is opening an investigation into the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) to determine whether the trade group’s members conspired to boycott “certain social media platforms.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI may be the hottest thing since sliced bread. But that doesn’t mean it’s getting easier to develop and run. According to a recent Boston Consulting Group poll, 74% of organizations are struggling to derive value from their AI investments Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Several AI-based study tools are capitalizing on a “PDF to Brainrot” trend, which will read the text of a document you upload over “oddly satisfying” videos, like ASMR clips of mixing paint and cutting soap, or gameplay footage from Minecraft and Subway Surfers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kim Kardashian’s new beaux is a Tesla bot named Optimus. The fashion mogul got some hands-on experience with Tesla’s bipedal, human-shaped robot, which is not yet available to the general public. In Kardashian’s videos with the robot — posted to X and her Instagram story; Volkswagen of America has a new CEO: Rivian’s recently departed chief commercial officer Kjell Gruner. The appointment comes just one week after VW parent company Volkswagen Group formalized a $5.8 billion joint venture with Rivian, which will be focused on EV architecture and software; Apple said the security update for Macs, iPhones, and iPads is "recommended for all users."; Meta hired Salesforce’s CEO of AI, Clara Shih, to lead a new organization building AI tools for businesses that use Meta’s apps to reach consumers, according to a LinkedIn post from Shih on Tuesday. Meta confirmed the appointment and the new Business AI group in a statement to TechCrunch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.K. government is not ruling out further beefing up existing online safety rules by adding an Australian-style ban on social media for under 16s technology secretary, Peter Kyle, has said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Generative AI has upended how we write things… or even if we write at all. Now a startup wants to be the main character in the next chapter of that story: AI that replaces the role of the publisher. Spines is a self-publishing platform that claims that — thanks to being powered by artificial intelligence Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After building out Google Lens to help users shop online more easily, Google is now updating the product to help people shop when they’re in a physical store by offering product insights, price comparisons, and local inventory availability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Roblox will not let users under the age of 13 message others outside of games and experiences on the platform, the company said Friday. Roblox also announced a series of other built-in protections for young users, such as age-gating certain experiences, along with enhanced parental controls. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bluesky is having a moment — a moment that’s already stretched on for nearly three months. Over the summer, the social media app saw a wave of new signups in Brazil after X (formerly Twitter) was temporarily banned there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you’re an hourly worker, the number of go-to options you have for finding new jobs is shrinking a little. JobGet — a Boston startup that operates an hourly job-hunting site with social features built in, a la LinkedIn — is acquiring Snagajob, one of its rivals in the U.S. market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social networking rivals continue to benefit from the user exodus from X. Spill, the social app founded by two former Twitter employees, released a statement claiming it has also seen a jump in users after the U.S. Presidential election, following similar news by Bluesky, which gained more than 2 million users during that time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spotify announced on Wednesday that it will start paying podcast hosts who make popular videos on its streaming platform, as the company looks to take on YouTube’s dominance in the video podcast space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

PayPal is launching a few features that let users in groups pool money with friends or family, to collectively pay for trips, travels, gifts, and anything else. The company is launching this feature in the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Italy, and Spain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Many feared that the 2024 election would be affected, and perhaps decided, by AI-generated disinformation. While there was some to be found, it was far less than anticipated. But don’t let that fool you: the disinfo threat is real — you’re just not the target. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The future of aircraft may look very similar to today’s superficially — but under the hood (or sitting next to the tailfins) they will likely be quite different. That’s the future NASA is hoping to nurture with five research awards worth $11.5 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Red Hat, the IBM-owned open source software firm, is acquiring Neural Magic, a startup that optimizes AI algorithms to run on commodity processors. The transaction is subject to applicable regulatory reviews and other customary closing conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s an AI chip battle brewing among the major cloud vendors. Google’s Trillium, a custom chip for training and running AI models, recently entered preview, and Microsoft’s Maia is expected to follow in short order. Not to be outdone, Amazon Web Services has AI chips, too: Trainium, Inferentia, and Graviton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Over the years, numerous startups have gained traction by designing, making and selling standing desks as part of a workspace innovation trend to promote better health, and a lot of executives swear by them, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, who once called sitting “the new cancer.”; Social network X has so far limited its AI chatbot Grok (built by Elon Musk’s other company xAI) to its premium, paying users. However, the platform is seemingly preparing to open up the chatbot to free users; After a chip manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company was found inside a Huawei processor, the US Department of Commerce has ordered the company to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers, according to a report in Reuters; Former Apple engineer Alex Ruber and former Twitter and Asana engineer Parth Chopra first met on Y Combinator’s founder match platform, then met in person at a thrift store for shopping. They later went on a thrift store shopping trip where they talked about solving problems with finding the right product in the online space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A founder who was an early mover in the race to build autonomous vehicles has raised $15 million for his next act: a startup that claims its AI can write enterprise software on its own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What’s the secret to success? It isn’t any of the trends that so many founders in Silicon Valley subscribe to. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The PRESS Act would protect a journalist's sources, and gained unanimous bipartisan support when passed by the House in January. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic today announced that it’s teaming up with Palantir, the data-mining company, and Amazon Web Services to provide U.S. intelligence and defense agencies access to Anthropic’s Claude 3 and 3.5 family of AI models. The news comes as a growing number of AI vendors, for strategic and revenue-related reasons, look to ink deals with U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Tuesday it will be taking action against the online cash app and neobank Dave, which it says used “misleading marketing to deceive consumers.” At issue is how Dave marketed $500 cash advances to consumers that it rarely offered. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By now, there’s hardly a coder in the world who isn’t using an AI copilot in some way. But using GitHub Copilot or Cursor.AI to ask technical questions and get debugging help could be just the beginning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It seems Lyft is hoping to catch up to Uber’s string of autonomous vehicle partnerships. Lyft announced Wednesday three separate partnerships — with startup May Mobility, automated driving company Mobileye and smart dashcam firm Nexar — all aimed at establishing a foothold in the emerging autonomous vehicle market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Move cautiously and red-team things” is sadly not as catchy as “move fast and break things.” But three AI safety advocates made it clear to startup founders that going too fast can lead to ethical issues in the long run. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most AI benchmarks don’t tell us much. They ask questions that can be solved with rote memorization, or cover topics that aren’t relevant to the majority of users. So some AI enthusiasts are turning to games as a way to test AIs’ problem-solving skills. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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