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13

Palmsy is a device-only “social network” to satisfy your posting itch

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When you sign up to a new social network, you have zero friend, zero follower, zero like. But as you start posting content, you might get more and more likes and comments. That could lead to new followers. And that dopamine boost will…

08

Google hints that Apple is set to support RCS by this fall

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Google showed a section on the new Google Messages page claiming that Apple is set to roll out (RCS) support for iPhones this fall.

02

Bumble’s new CEO talks about her critical mission: to spice things up at the company

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The bigger concern for Bumble is user fatigue. People aren't downloading dating apps as enthusiastically as they once were, which means less subscription revenue.

Thursday, Mar 28

00

Apple dismisses Microsoft monopoly comparisons

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A week after finding itself at the business end of a landmark lawsuit from the United States Department of Justice, Apple is staunchly denying any parallels between itself and Microsoft in the 1990s. It’s a comparison into which the U.S.…

22

Elon Musk’s Twitter a year later: Everything you need to know

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Welcome to Elon Musk’s Twitter (now X), where the rules are made up and the check marks don’t matter. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO announced his bid to buy Twitter in April 2022, zealously driven to rid the platform of spam bots and protect…

20

YouTube now lets creators share exclusive Shorts with their paying subscribers

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YouTube is launching “members only” Shorts, allowing creators to share short-form videos exclusively to their paying viewers.

Skyflow raises $30M more as AI spikes demand for its privacy business

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This morning, Skyflow announced that it has raised a $30 million Series B extension led by Khosla Ventures. The deal is interesting on a number of fronts, including the round’s structure and how Skyflow has been impacted by the growth of…

17

LinkedIn targets users caught between TikTok and what used to be Twitter

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Two weeks ago, TechCrunch broke the news that LinkedIn was getting into games, helping users “deepen relationships” through puzzle-based interactions. And on Wednesday, TechCrunch reported that the Microsoft-owned social network was…

16

After spat with TikTok, UMG expands Spotify partnership to include music videos and more

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In the wake of Universal Music Group’s (UMG) public spat with TikTok, which saw the label pulling its full catalog from the video app earlier this year, the company is doubling down on its deal with Spotify. On Thursday, UMG announced an…

Why a16z-backed Wonderschool is acquiring EarlyDay

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Wonderschool, a startup that provides software and support to help individuals and local governments spin up childcare businesses, has acquired EarlyDay, which operates an early childhood educator marketplace. TechCrunch has covered…

Google.org launches $20M generative AI accelerator program

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Google.org, Google’s charitable wing, is launching a new program to help fund nonprofits developing tech that leverages generative AI. Called Google.org Accelerator: Generative AI, the program is to be funded by $20 million in grants and…

AI21 Labs’ new AI model can handle more context than most

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Increasingly, the AI industry is moving toward generative AI models with longer contexts. But models with large context windows tend to be compute-intensive. Ori Goshen, the CEO of AI startup AI21 Labs, asserts that this doesn’t have to be…

Google will soon roll out on-device AI-powered features on Pixel 8

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Google announced today that it will soon roll out on-device AI-powered features such as recording summaries and smart replies on the Pixel 8. These features will be based on Gemini Nano, a small-sized model Google released last year,…

15

YouTube says over 25% of its creator partners now monetize via Shorts

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With TikTok potentially poised for a U.S. ban, YouTube is touting how well its own TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, is paying off for creators. The company on Thursday said its short-form video platform now averages over 70 billion daily…

Amazon One launches new app to scan your palm for checkout

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Amazon announced Thursday the launch of its new app for Amazon One, its contactless palm recognition service that allows customers to hover their palm over a device in order to purchase from select places, including over 500 Whole Foods…

10

This startup believes mobile apps for businesses should work more like consumer apps

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Have you noticed the massive gap between consumer and business apps on your phone? While consumer apps are both beautifully designed and easy to use, business apps are simply painful to use. A European startup is developing a suite of B2B…

05

StealthMole raises $7M Series A for its AI-powered dark web intelligence platform

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StealthMole, an AI-powered dark web intelligence startup that specializes in monitoring cyber threats and detecting cybercrime, announced Thursday that it has raised a $7 million Series A funding round. The Singapore-headquartered startup…

Wednesday, Mar 27

22

LinkedIn is experimenting with a TikTok-like video feed in its app

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LinkedIn is testing a new TikTok-like short-form video feed, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Wednesday. With this new test, LinkedIn joins numerous other popular apps that have launched their own short-form video feeds following…

18

Google will now let you use AI to build travel itineraries for your vacations

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As we inch toward the summer holidays, Google is announcing a slate of travel updates that place it squarely in the travel planning process and give it a lot more insight into purchasing intent in the travel sector. First up, Google is…

Google will let you swipe right or left on clothes to get better fashion recommendations

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Google is rolling out an update that makes it easier for users to find personalized shopping results, the company announced on Wednesday. The new feature lets users rate different products in order to get style recommendations when…

15

Observe, the data observability platform, raises $115M with Snowflake investing

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Enterprises today store and use data across an ever-growing number of applications and locations — making it challenging — if not impossible — to manage and query that data in a holistic way. That spells opportunity for startups building…

Century Health, now with $2M, taps AI to give pharma access to good patient data

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Century Health is applying AI to clinical data to uncover new applications for drugs.

14

Amazon will have to publish an ads library in EU after all

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Amazon will have to provide information about the ads running on its platform in a publicly accessible online archive after all, following a decision by the European Union’s highest court Wednesday. The ads transparency requirement is…

Databricks spent $10M on new DBRX generative AI model

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If you wanted to raise the profile of your major tech company and had $10 million to spend, how would you spend it? On a Super Bowl ad? An F1 sponsorship? You could spend it training a generative AI model. While not marketing in the…

09

Rabbit partners with ElevenLabs to power voice commands on its device

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Hardware maker Rabbit has tapped a partnership with ElevenLabs to power voice commands on its devices. Rabbit is set to ship the first set of r1 devices next month after getting a ton of attention at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) at…

Marissa Mayer’s startup just rolled out photo sharing and event planning apps, and the internet isn’t sure what to think

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When Marissa Mayer co-founded a startup six years ago in Palo Alto, Ca., expectations were sky high for the former Yahoo CEO and early Google employee. When that startup, Sunshine, revealed that its first app centered around subscription…

Tuesday, Mar 26

00

Elon Musk says all Premium subscribers on X will gain access to AI chatbot Grok this week

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Following Elon Musk’s xAI’s move to open source its Grok large language model earlier in March, the X owner on Tuesday said that the company formerly known as Twitter will soon offer the Grok chatbot to more paying subscribers. In a post…

23

How to turn off Instagram’s political content filter

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It’s election season in the U.S., and Instagram has changed the way that it recommends political content. On both Instagram and the newer X competitor Threads, this change won’t impact what you see from accounts you already follow. But the…

Facebook snooped on users’ Snapchat traffic in secret project, documents reveal

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In 2016, Facebook launched a secret project designed to intercept and decrypt the network traffic between people using Snapchat’s app and its servers. The goal was to understand users’ behavior and help Facebook compete with Snapchat,…

22

NASA’s snake robot is designed to search out life in the icy oceans of a Saturn moon

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The snake robot form factor has existed for decades. In addition to the diversity it adds to the world of automation, the design has several pragmatic attributes. The first is redundancy, which allows for the system to keep chugging even…