Amazon Echo users will no longer have the option to process their Alexa requests locally, which means all of their voice recordings will be sent to the company’s cloud. Ars Technica reports that on Friday, Amazon sent an email to customers who have “Do Not...
Plus: iRobot unveils its new robo vacs, JBL pimps its most beloved speakers, a bright future for TCL TVs, and more....
The old “teach a man to fish” proverb, but for AI chatbots....
A directive from the National Institute of Standards and Technology eliminates mention of “AI safety” and “AI fairness.”...
On Thursday, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent letters to 16 American technology firms, including Google and OpenAI, asking for past communications with the Biden Administration that might suggest the former President “coerced or colluded” with companies to “censor lawful speech” in AI products. The...
Bench customers say they're being required to pay for services they already paid for. Bench's new owners deny it. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only....
As businesses race to replace humans with AI agents, coding assistant Cursor just gave a peek at the attitude bots could bring to work, too. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only....
Swedish fintech Klarna took the next step in its highly anticipated U.S. IPO on Friday when it made its F-1 public. Here are the top take-aways. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only....
Google will replace Google Assistant on Android phones with Gemini later this year, the company announced on Friday. Google said in a blog post that it’ll upgrade more users from Google Assistant to Gemini “over the coming months.” Later this year, Assistant will no longer...
This week, Google released a family of open AI models, Gemma 3, that quickly garnered praise for their impressive efficiency. But as a number of developers lamented on X, Gemma 3’s license makes commercial use of the models a risky proposition. It’s not a problem...
We’ve all experienced that moment of frustration when the GPS glitches and you miss an exit on the highway. The team at Tern AI, which is building a low-cost GPS alternative, says that’s because the current technology is limited by its reliance on satellite positioning. ...
China appears to think homegrown AI startup DeepSeek could become a notable tech success story for the country. After DeepSeek’s sudden rise to fame in January with the release of its open “reasoning” model, R1, the company is now operating under new, tighter government-influenced restrictions,...
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week showed more optimism among startups than in other corners of the world, with entrepreneurs feeling...
Silicon Valley is bullish on AI agents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said agents will “join the workforce” this year. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted that agents will replace certain knowledge work. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that Salesforce’s goal is to be “the number one...
This week, OpenAI inked a five-year, $11.9 billion deal with CoreWeave, the GPU-heavy cloud provider, securing its own AI computing pipeline—and a $350 million equity stake in the company. With CoreWeave’s pending IPO and deep ties to Microsoft, OpenAI’s deal marks a significant shift in...
Mark Zuckerberg might be in his post-fact-checking-era. But that hasn’t stopped Meta from going after the author of Careless People....
Kerry Washington is expanding her angel investment portfolio, serving as lead investor in the pre-seed round of the wedding marketplace Cheersy. Cheersy, which was founded in 2024 by Amy Shack Egan, helps couples find day-of service wedding coordinators and has raised a total of $550,000,...
Is work religion, or is religion work? Both....
SoftBank is marching ahead on its ambitions to build out a major AI operation in its home market of Japan, on its own steam and in strategic partnership with others like OpenAI. On Friday, the tech company confirmed it would pay $676 million for factory...
AI company Sesame has released the base model that powers Maya, the impressively realistic voice assistant. The model, which is 1 billion parameters in size (“parameters” referring to individual components of the model), is under an Apache 2.0 license, meaning it can be used commercially with few restrictions....
Flock Safety and one of its long-time VCs, Bedrock Capital, announced Thursday that the startup raised a fresh $275 million at a $7.5 billion valuation. Flock makes computer vision-enabled video surveillance technology used by law enforcement as well as businesses, property management companies, and so...
Google, following on the heels of OpenAI, published a policy proposal in response to the Trump Administration’s call for a national “AI Action Plan.” The tech giant endorsed weak copyright restrictions on AI training, as well as “balanced” export controls that “protect national security while...
This week on Uncanny Valley, we look ahead into a future where driverless cars are mainstream....
Light, the maker of a minimalist phone designed to help consumers disconnect from smartphone distractions and social media, will launch its newest model, the Light Phone III, on March 27. This version of the device, like its older counterpart, offers a simple black-and-white display and...
One of Silicon Valley’s most storied startup accelerators, Y Combinator, held its Winter 2025 Demo Day on Wednesday, showcasing what its latest batch of 160 startups are cooking up. Some of Silicon Valley’s most successful startups – including Stripe, AirBnB, and Reddit – started out...
In a new policy proposal, OpenAI describes Chinese AI lab DeepSeek as “state-subsidized” and “state-controlled,” and recommends that the U.S. government consider banning models from the outfit and similar People’s Republic of China (PRC)-supported operations. The proposal, a submission for the Trump Administration’s “AI Action Plan”...
In the AI chatbot wars, Google thinks the key to retaining users is serving up content they can’t get elsewhere, like answers shaped by their internet habits. On Thursday, the company announced Gemini with personalization, a new “experimental capability” for its Gemini chatbot apps that...
When I was 16, I attended a writing workshop with a group of precocious young poets, where we all tried very hard to prove who among us was the most tortured upper-middle-class teenager. One boy refused to tell anyone where he was from, declaring, “I’m...
After identifying major flaws in popular AI models, researchers are pushing for a new system to identify and report bugs....
Ahead of the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC), Xbox revealed on Thursday that it’s experimenting with an AI-powered gaming sidekick. “Copilot for Gaming,” powered by Microsoft’s AI technology, is a voice-activated assistant designed to enhance the gaming experience and is designed to answer questions, complete tasks,...