EyeEm, the Berlin-based photo-sharing community that exited last year to Spanish company Freepik after going bankrupt, is now licensing its users’ photos to train AI models. Earlier this month, the company informed users via email that it was adding a new clause to its Terms & Conditions that would grant it the rights to upload […]
Meta AI tested: Doesn’t quite justify its own existence, but free is free
Meta’s new large language model, Llama 3, powers the imaginatively named “Meta AI,” a newish chatbot that the social media and advertising company has installed in as many of its apps and interfaces as possible. How does this model stack up against other all-purpose conversational AIs? It tends to regurgitate a lot of web search […]
Curio raises funds for Rio, an ‘AI news anchor’ in an app
AI may be inching its way into the newsroom, as outlets like Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, CNET and others have experimented with articles written by AI. But while most respectable journalists will condemn this use case, there are a number of startups that think AI can enhance the news experience — at least on […]
Watch: Between Rabbit’s R1 vs Humane’s Ai Pin, which had the best launch?
After a successful unveiling at CES, Rabbit is letting journalists try out the R1 — a small orange gadget with an AI-powered voice interface. This comes just weeks after the launch of the Humane Ai Pin, which is similarly pitched as a new kind of mobile device with AI at its center. While we’re still […]
OpenAI Startup Fund quietly raises $15M
The OpenAI Startup Fund, a venture fund related to — but technically separate from — OpenAI that invests in early-stage, typically AI-related companies across education, law, and the sciences, has quietly closed a $15 million tranche. According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, two unnamed investors contributed the $15 million in […]
xAI, Elon Musk’s OpenAI rival, is closing on $6B in funding and X, his social network, is already one of its shareholders
xAI, Elon Musk’s 10-month-old competitor to the AI phenom OpenAI, is raising $6 billion on a pre-money valuation of $18 billion, according to one trusted source close to the deal. The deal – which would give investors one quarter of the company – is expected to close in the next few weeks unless the terms […]
Sanctuary’s new humanoid robot learns faster and costs less
Sanctuary AI often isn’t mentioned in the same breath as humanoid robotics firms like Boston Dynamics, Agility, Figure and 1X, but the Canadian company has been operating in the space for some time. In fact, a new robot introduced on Thursday is actually the seventh-generation of its Phoenix line. While a recent iteration introduced legs […]
Watch it and weep (or smile): Synthesia’s AI video avatars now feature emotions
Generative AI has captured the public imagination with a leap into creating elaborate, plausibly real text and imagery out of verbal prompts. But the catch — and there is often a catch — is that the results are often far from perfect when you look a little closer. People point out strange fingers, floor tiles […]
Rabbit’s R1 is a little AI gadget that grows on you
If there’s one overarching takeaway from last night’s Rabbit R1 launch event, it’s this: Hardware can be fun again. After a decade of unquestioned smartphone dominance, there is, once again, excitement to be found in consumer electronics. The wisdom and longevity of any individual product or form factor — while important — can be set […]
Eric Schmidt-backed Augment, a GitHub Copilot rival, launches out of stealth with $252M
AI is supercharging coding — and developers are embracing it. In a recent StackOverflow poll, 44% of software engineers said that they use AI tools as part of their development processes now and 26% plan to soon. Gartner estimates that over half of organizations are currently piloting or have already deployed AI-driven coding assistants, and […]
Why code-testing startup Nova AI uses open source LLMs more than OpenAI
It is a universal truth of human nature that the developers who build the code should not be the ones to test it. First of all, most of them pretty much detest that task. Second, like any good auditing protocol, those who do the work should not be the ones who verify it. Not surprisingly, […]
Watch: Why Perplexity AI could be worth up to $3B
Perplexity AI‘s latest, large fundraising event could be quickly superseded by another, even larger chunk of capital, Nike Tech reports. Yes, the $62.7 million that the startup raised at just over a $1 billion valuation could be quickly stomped on by a raise of as much as $250 million at a valuation that is up […]
The TikTok ban clears key hurdle while Perplexity AI continues to shake up search
Well, if you are a big TikTok fan and live in the United States, I have some bad news for you: A bill that would force a sale of TikTok or ban it in the United States passed the Senate. And the President is expected to sign it. Given that China has made noise that […]
Nvidia acquires AI workload management startup Run:ai
Nvidia is acquiring Run:ai, a startup that makes it easier for developers and operations teams to manage and optimize their AI infrastructure, for an undisclosed sum. Ctech reported earlier this morning the companies were in “advanced negotiations” that could see Nvidia pay upwards of $1 billion for Run:ai. Evidently, those negotiations went well. Nvidia says […]
Snowflake releases a flagship generative AI model of its own
All-around, highly generalizable generative AI models were the name of the game once, and they arguably still are. But increasingly, as cloud vendors large and small join the generative AI fray, we’re seeing a new crop of models focused on the deepest-pocketed potential customers: the enterprise. Case in point: Snowflake, the cloud computing company, today […]
UK probes Amazon and Microsoft over AI partnerships with Mistral, Anthropic, and Inflection
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is launching preliminary enquiries into whether the close-knit tie-ups and hiring practices involving Microsoft, Amazon and a trio of AI startups falls within the scope of its merger rules — and whether the arrangements could impact competition in the U.K. market. The announcement comes amid growing scrutiny of […]