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Women in AI: Catherine Breslin helps companies develop AI strategies
Catherine Breslin is the founder and director of Kingfisher Labs, where she helps companies develop AI strategies. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Why NASA is betting on a 36-pixel camera
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is making strides in astronomy with its 122-megapixel primarily infrared photos taken 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth. Impressive stuff. The space agency’s newest sky-peeper takes a different approach, however, performing groundbreaking space science with 36 pixels. It’s not a typo—36 pixels, not 36
Alternative clouds are booming as companies seek cheaper access to GPUs
The appetite for alternative clouds has never been bigger. Case in point: CoreWeave, the GPU infrastructure provider that began life as a cryptocurrency mining operation, this week raised $1.1 billion in new funding from investors including Coatue, Fidelity and Altimeter Capital. The round brings its valuation to $19 billion post-money, and its tot
The Rabbit r1 shipped half-baked, but that’s kind of the point
I finally received the rabbit r1 (the company insists on this lowercase styling) I’ve been writing about since its debut at CES in January. And I was able to tell within about 30 seconds of turning it on that it was shipped a couple months too soon — but honestly…that’s fine? It’s weird, relatively cheap, […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rig
Google lays off workers, Tesla cans its Supercharger team and UnitedHealthcare reveals security lapses
Welcome, folks, to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that recaps the week that was in tech. This edition’s a tad bittersweet for me — it’ll be my last (for a while, anyway). Soon, I’ll be shifting my attention to a new AI-focused newsletter, which I’m super thrilled about. Stay tuned! Now, on with […] © 2024 TechC
Human composting and timber marketplaces: talking “industrial” VC with investor Dayna Grayson
While the venture world is abuzz over generative AI, Dayna Grayson, a longtime venture capitalist who five years ago co-founded her own firm, Construct Capital, has been focused on comparatively boring software that can transform industrial sectors. Her mission doesn’t exclude AI, but it also doesn’t depend on it. Construct recently led a seed-
Women in AI: Tara Chklovski is teaching the next generation of AI innovators
Tara Chklovski is the CEO and founder of Technovation, a nonprofit that helps teach young girls about technology and entrepreneurship. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Farewell, dunks? Threads launches quote controls for all users
Threads users can now exert more control over who can quote their posts. This builds on a feature that already allows Threads users to limit who can reply to their posts (competing services like X and Bluesky offer similar reply controls). Threads outlined its plans for quote controls last month, and last night Adam Mosseri […] © 2024 TechCrunch
Deal Dive: Amae Health is building an in-person approach to mental healthcare in an increasingly digital space
While many recent mental health-focused startups are digital first, Amae Health focuses on the importance of in-person care. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Why RAG won’t solve generative AI’s hallucination problem
RAG is being pitched as a solution of sorts to generative AI hallucinations. But there's limits to what the technique can do. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
This Week in AI: Generative AI and the problem of compensating creators
Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world of machine learning, along with notable research and experiments we didn’t cover on their own. By the way — TechCrunch plans to launch an […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For
ICONIQ Growth raises $5.75B seventh flagship fund
ICONIQ Growth has raised $5.21 billion across two funds associated with the seventh growth fund family, according to SEC filings. However, the firm’s actual fundraise was $5.75 billion, according to a source familiar with the firm. The late-stage investment unit is a part of ICONIQ Capital, which launched in 2011 as a private office managing [
Luminar cuts 20% of staff and outsources lidar production
Lidar company Luminar is slashing its workforce by 20% and will lean harder on its contract manufacturing partner as part of a restructuring that will shift the company to a more “asset-light” business model, as it aims to scale production. The cuts will affect around 140 employees, and are starting immediately. Luminar is also cutting […] ©
X launches Stories, delivering news summarized by Grok AI
X's Premium subscribers will be able to read a summary of posts on X associated with each trending story featured on the For You tab in Explore. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Match-owned Archer hits over half a million installs amid dating app slump
With Match and other online dating companies facing a downturn, Archer’s growth is certainly notable. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Musk is raising $6B for AI startup. Also, is TikTok dodging Apple’s commissions?
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. Musk’s 10-month-old baby, xAI, is closing in on a whoppin’ $6 billion funding round. The social network X, née Twitter — also part of Elon’s tech […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All ri
A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs
The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 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
Three things we learned about Apple’s AI plans from its earnings
Despite spending more than $100 billion on R&D over the last five years, Apple isn't planning to spin up too many new data centers to run or train AI models. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Fisker stiffed the engineering firm developing its low-cost EV and pickup truck, lawsuit claims
Henrik Fisker stood on a stage last August and proudly debuted two prototypes designed to catapult his eponymous EV startup Fisker into the mainstream. There was the Pear, a low-cost EV meant for the masses, and the Alaska, Fisker’s entry into the red-hot pickup truck market. In the weeks that followed, Fisker stopped paying the […] © 2024 Tec
Instagram now lets you post a secret Story that viewers can uncover with a DM
Instagram is adding a handful of new features for Stories to give users more creative ways to share content and engage with each other, the company announced on Friday. Most notably, the social network is introducing a new “Reveal” feature that lets you post a hidden Story for your followers to uncover by sending you […] © 2024 TechCrunch. A