After a lengthy trial and conviction, we finally learned how long former crypto baron Sam Bankman-Fried will be behind bars: up to 25 years. It’s a lengthy sentence, but one that given the scale of the crimes he was convicted of, doesn’t come as a shock. For the crypto industry, it’s also the final page … Read more
As deepfakes proliferate, OpenAI is refining the tech used to clone voices — but the company insists it’s doing so responsibly. Today marks the preview debut of OpenAI’s Voice Engine, an expansion of the company’s existing text-to-speech API. Under development for about two years, Voice Engine allows users to upload any 15-second voice sample to … Read more
If the 2023 crypto venture landscape was an ice-cold pot of water, the first quarter of 2024 is the part where the bubbles start to form right before water boils, Tom Schmidt, a partner at Dragonfly Capital, said to TechCrunch. And he’s not wrong: $2.52 billion in total capital has been raised across the crypto … Read more
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. There’s not that much news from me this week, but I’ve been doing a ton of prep for TechCrunch Early Stage taking place in Boston on … Read more
A day after researchers surfaced X’s plans to test NSFW adult communities on the platform formerly known as Twitter, the company confirmed that Community admins can now set an “Adult Content” label in their settings to avoid having their communities’ content auto-filtered. Otherwise, all NSFW content will be soon filtered across X’s Communities by default. … Read more
Move over Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri. There’s a new digital assistant in town, although you need to be a facilities manager to appreciate it. On Tuesday, BrainBox AI, the maker of an AI-powered facilities management solution, announced a virtual building assistant called ARIA (Artificial Responsive Intelligent Assistant). Powered by AWS Bedrock, ARIA is designed … Read more
Organizations are increasingly taking to the offensive to foil threats before they become attacks, according to a report released Wednesday by a breach and attack simulation company. In its 2024 State of Exposure Management & Security Validation report, Cymulate maintained that security leaders are recognizing that the pattern of buying new tech and the frantic … Read more
A new video venture announced by Elon Musk will face some strong challenges from entrenched incumbents, according to pundits interviewed by TechNewsWorld. Reports began appearing last week that the bête noire of social media is crafting an app to stream long-form videos to users of X (formerly Twitter). “You can soon watch your favorite X … Read more
As is typically the case when one company jumps ahead of the others, analysts like me get asked what makes Nvidia so much more successful than its peers. While my peers may have different answers, I think there is one predominant cause for this success: Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang. Huang has had three clear advantages … Read more
Apple and Google are huddling over a potential deal to bring the search king’s Gemini generative AI offerings to the iPhone. The negotiations, first reported by Bloomberg on Monday, aim to let Apple license Gemini’s set of AI models to drive some new features for the iPhone later this year. While a deal would give … Read more