The first self-checkout system was installed in 1986 in a Kroger grocery store just outside of Atlanta. It took several decades, but the technology has finally proliferated across the U.S. Given the automated direction grocery stores are heading, it seems that robotic bagging can’t be too far behind. MIT’s CSAIL department this week is showcasing
Month: June 2024
We live in a very different world since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. With global military expenditure reaching $2.4 trillion last year, startups are hoping to get a share of the pie, and formerly reluctant investors are keen to help them do so. The U.S. budget
When Til Klein and Jochen Beutgen came across Gaingels, the U.S.-based syndicate of angel investors backing LGBTQ+ founders, they wondered why there wasn’t a firm looking to do the same for the European LGBTQ+ startup community. Five years later, when a firm like that still didn’t exist, Klein and Beutgen decided they should try to
If data is truly the fuel for generative AI, and one of the keys to a successful implementation is access to data meaningful to running the business, it would seem that certain SaaS vendors have a built-in advantage where the data is concerned. Executing is another matter, but if the data is there, the models
Apple’s AI plans go beyond the previously announced Apple Intelligence launches on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, the company is also working to bring these features to its Vision Pro headsets. It’s not the most surprising move — if Apple Intelligence (a whole suite of features including an improved Siri,
In the early 1990s, a researcher at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology began work on what would become Paro. More than 30 years after its development, the doe-eyed seal pup remains the best-known example of a therapeutic robot for older adults. In 2011, the robot reached the zenith of pop cultural
Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. This week, Apple finally added support for Rich Communication Services (RCS) to Messages as part of the second developer beta of iOS 18. Until now, iPhone users could only send
One of the selling points of Google’s flagship generative AI models, Gemini 1.5 Pro and 1.5 Flash, is the amount of data they can supposedly process and analyze. In press briefings and demos, Google has repeatedly claimed that the models can accomplish previously impossible tasks thanks to their “long context,” like summarizing multiple hundred-page documents
The airline industry is headed for record revenue this year — $996 billion — as the demand for travel soars. But the margins remain razor-thin. According to the trade association IATA, total expenses for airlines are projected to reach $936 billion, with earnings coming out to around $6.14 per passenger. That’s about the price of
There’s something of a trend around legacy software firms and their soaring valuations: Companies founded in dinosaur times are on a tear, evidenced this week with SAP‘s shares topping $200 for the first time. Founded in 1972, SAP’s valuation currently sits at an all-time high of $234 billion. The Germany-based enterprise software provider was valued
Who had the better performance at Thursday night’s presidential debate, X or Threads? Though not the top concern among social media users, it’s one of the questions people are asking themselves after watching the disastrous debate play out across the two platforms. Meta, which nearly a year ago launched Threads as a rival to the
Artificial intelligence startups continue to dominate the headlines with immense venture capital rounds, but there’s enough opportunity out there for companies building tools that make it easier to work with data-heavy applications like AI. That’s especially true for organizations that may still have one foot (or both feet) in the legacy data camp. In one
There are plenty of resources to learn English, but not so many for near-native speakers who still want to improve their fluency. That description applies to Stan Beliaev and Yurii Rebryk, and this is what inspired them to create Fluently. Making use of AI, Fluently operates as a coach that gives users feedback and tips
Adept, a startup developing AI-powered “agents” to complete various software-based tasks, has agreed to license its tech to Amazon and the startup’s co-founders and portions of its team have joined the ecommerce giant. Geekwire’s Taylor Soper first reported the news. According to Soper, Adept co-founder and CEO David Luan will join Amazon, along with Adept
President Joe Biden’s administration is doubling down on its interest in the creator economy. In August, the White House will host the first-ever White House Creator Economy Conference, which will invite a group of influential social media personalities and industry professionals to discuss issues like data privacy, fair pay, AI and mental health with senior
Welcome back to another recap of Equity, TechCrunch’s flagship podcast about the business of startups. This episode is jam-packed with deals, hot topics, and the latest dramaaaaaa in the tech world. If you haven’t listened yet, consider this your spoiler-filled invitation to dive in. Three Deals of the Week Formation Bio’s $372M Raise First up,
Get ready to unlock the secrets of successful fundraising in the upcoming year at Disrupt 2024. Our featured session, “How to Raise in 2025 if You’ve Taken a Flat, Down, or Extension Round,” is designed to equip startups with the knowledge and strategies needed to navigate the evolving investment landscape. This session will challenge outdated
Hannah Sieber knows just how transformative batteries can be. At her previous startup, EcoFlow, she used them to replace generators, whether for powering homes after a bad storm or RVs at a campsite. The experience made her wonder what else batteries could do, especially smaller ones. “What are the other industries that could dramatically change?”
Securing cloud services remains a challenge for enterprises. That’s why several companies have been working on security solutions that specifically address that need. In the latest example of that, Odaseva has raised $54 million in funding. This startup focuses on one sole use case: securing Salesforce environments. Silver Lake Waterman is leading this round, with
If you love gadgets and gizmos, this year’s product conferences are having them aplenty. We’ve poked through the many product announcements made by the biggest tech companies and product trade shows of the year, so far, and compiled them into this list. It features the items we think are the most important, or the most
Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. I just came off recording an episode of Equity, where I learned about the newest wave of stupidity. The tech industry’s DEI allergy has hit a
X still has a verified bot problem. Also, grass is green. We knew it would be a bad idea to let anyone pay for a verified checkmark on the platform formerly known as Twitter, but it’s still shocking how much discord the feature has caused. Last summer, X admitted it had a problem with users
Reliance Jio, India’s largest telecoms operator, has initiated what analysts expect to be an industry-wide increase in tariffs in the world’s second largest wireless market, raising some of its plans by more than 20%. Jio’s revised pricing structure, effective July 3, sees its entry-level Rs 155 ($1.87) plan, offering 2GB of data and unlimited calls,
By now we know how crucial it is to have quality data for use by large language models (LLMs), but getting data ready for the models has been an early challenge for companies, an opening that represents an opportunity for an enterprising entrepreneur. Enter Illumex, a two-year-old Israeli startup from the former VP of AI
Photographers are claiming that Meta is tagging their real photos as “Made with AI.” Meta introduced this automated tag to help people understand when what they’re seeing is real and when it’s been computer generated. But even AI itself isn’t good at telling what is or is not AI. So, users like a former White
AI “agents” are generative AI models that can perform actions autonomously, like copying info from an email and pasting it into a spreadsheet, and have been hailed as productivity superchargers. That might be a bit premature, given models’ tendency to make mistakes. But at least a few founders (and analysts and investors) seem convinced that
A travel hack that went viral on TikTok teaches users how to save money on hotels and Airbnbs by booking directly with the properties themselves. Now, a new startup, Directo, will help travelers find those same deals with the help of a Chrome extension that points you to the property’s website, where you’ll often find
Hebbia, a startup using generative AI to search large documents and return answers, has raised a nearly $100 million series B led by Andreessen Horowitz, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. The round valued the company between $700 – $800 million although TechCrunch couldn’t verify whether that valuation is pre- or post-money.
Meta has fixed the bug that caused people to believe the company had adjusted their selections in a political content settings tool without their consent. The issue had impacted users on both Instagram and Threads, seemingly resetting users’ content settings back to the default, which limits the amount of political content users see from people
Reddit is taking a stand against AI companies — or at least asking them to pay up. Earlier this week, Reddit announced that it’s changing its Robots Exclusion Protocol, also known as its robots.txt file. This dry-sounding edit is part of a larger negotiation/battle between the AI companies that are hungry for content they can
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 11
- Next Page »