Praveen chintu

Privacy-focused web browser and search engine Brave has announced that it will no longer use Microsoft's Bing search as a source for its web searches. "Every Web search result seen in Brave Search is now served by our own index. We've removed all search API (Application Programming Interface) calls to Bing," Brave said in a blogpost. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/3tMpUzJ

Group of Seven advanced nations should adopt "risk-based" regulation on artificial intelligence, their digital ministers agreed on Sunday, as European lawmakers hurry to introduce an AI Act to enforce rules on emerging tools such as ChatGPT. But such regulation should also "preserve an open and enabling environment" for the development of AI technologies and be based on democratic values, G7 ministers said in a joint statement issued at the end of a two-day meeting in Japan. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/TiNEm0D

TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 takes place on September 19–21 in San Francisco and — if you don’t already know — it’s the startup world’s big tent. It draws founders, investors, CEOs, tech professionals, scientists, policy makers, researchers and entrepreneurs. It’s where you’ll find inspiration, gain knowledge, forge new relationships and discover tools to help you build your business. Shameless, but helpful, plug: Buy your pass now for significant savings. Prices increase on May 12 at 11:59 p.m. PDT . Who doesn’t like to save money? Pivotal partners at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 We’re fortunate to partner with some of the startup world’s leading companies to help make magic at Disrupt. We say fortunate because they’re passionate, thoroughly engaged and hands-on. They consistently deliver highly relevant content, educational expertise, resources and connection to the event. Their participation elevates, engages and supports early-stage founders. Our partners also come to Disrupt to conne...

The Wall Street Journal went under the hood of the lab-grown meat industry, also known as cultivated or cell-cultured meat, and the struggles within. The Journal particularly homed in on what’s going on at UPSIDE Foods, which received a blessing from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration related to its process for making cultivated chicken, essentially saying it was safe to eat and making it the first company to receive this approval. Eat Just, which has been selling its product in Singapore, the first nation to approve the sale of cultivated meat, followed , getting its “thumbs-up” from the FDA in March. WSJ’s story pays particular attention to UPSIDE Foods’ success at making small batches of its chicken product, as well as its lack of being able to produce large amounts of product at a low cost, or at even price parity with traditional meat — and to be fair, most cultivated meat companies struggle with this too. “Initially our chicken will be sold at a price premium,” UPSIDE fou...

There are oodles of advantages to having a diverse workforce, but, as inBeta founder James Nash points out , you can’t simply take your homogenous workforce, add diversity, stir and hope for the best. Often, something subtle gets in the way of diversity at startups: Companies depend on employee referrals in the beginning, but if a startup’s makeup is already not diverse, referrals aren’t going to change that. That’s for startups. In the world of venture capital, things are more pronounced: A warm introduction is the only way to get in front of investors at many VC funds. That’s great for people who are already hooked into the startup ecosystem, but you don’t have to look for very long to realize that this is not a very diverse group of people. “We’d love to hear from you. The best way to reach us is through someone we mutually know.” A VC firm's website For many companies, employee referrals are one of the main ways to attract new talent. That’s all good until you stop to thi...

Kim Keenan Contributor Share on Twitter The first female co-chair of the DC-based Internet Innovation Alliance , Kim Keenan has fought for digital equity for more than a decade, previously serving as president and CEO of the Multicultural Media, Telecom & Internet Council (MMTC) and as general counsel and secretary of the NAACP. The finish line is within sight. “Internet for All,” as the Biden administration put it, will soon be a reality if America keeps its priorities straight. During his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden set a high bar, “We’re going to buy American,” as the U.S. spends billions of dollars on new broadband connections. This is a smart strategy to create American jobs and boost the U.S. economy, but our leaders must not sacrifice speed in the race to close the digital divide in cases where “Buy American” isn’t yet a realistic option. Strengthened during the pandemic when all finally understood that broadband is a necessity, bipartisan...

Hey, TechCrunch people. If you’re looking for a recap of the week’s news in tech, you’ve come to the right place. It’s Week in Review (WiR) , TechCrunch’s regular recap column. Glad to have you. Before we get on with the meat of it, a PSA that tickets for TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 are available now. Disrupt, of course, is TechCrunch’s flagship in-person event, focused on founders, investors and the future of tech year after year. In San Francisco on September 19–21, expect to hear from thought leaders in the fields of AI, fintech, hardware, sustainability, SaaS, security and more. It’ll be well worth the trip. In the nearer term, tune into the next TechCrunch Live show, which will spotlight Cambrian BioPharma, a startup billing itself as a pharmaceutical outfit with a revolutionary approach to managing drug development. Founder James Peyer will be joined by Maryanna Saenko of Future Ventures, who invested in Cambrian’s Series A, B and C rounds. Now, without further ado! most read E...

As recently as February, generative AI did not feature prominently in EU lawmakers' plans for regulating generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as ChatGPT. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/42F5e3I

OpenAI , the startup behind the widely used conversational AI model ChatGPT, has closed its new funding round of over $10.3 billion, TechCrunch has learned. VC firms including Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive and K2 Global are in the round, according to documents seen by TechCrunch. A source tells us Founders Fund is also investing. Altogether the VCs have put in just over $300 million at a valuation of $27 billion – $29 billion. This is alongside a big investment from Microsoft announced earlier this year , a person familiar with the development told TechCrunch. The size of Microsoft’s investment is believed to be around $10 billion, a figure we confirmed with our source. If all this is accurate, this is the closing of the round that the Wall Street Journal reported was in the works in January. We confirmed that was when discussions started, amid a viral surge of interest in OpenAI and its business. While Microsoft’s investment comes with a strong strateg...

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here . On today’s episode of our Equity podcast, the team dives in to ponder whether First Republic’s share tumble is a victim of SVB’s collapse , or whether there’s something else in the water. It’s well worth a listen — as ever! Another not-to-miss today is Jacquelyn ’s Chain Reaction newsletter, where she picks apart what’s coming down the pike now that Binance.US sailed away from its $1.3 billion deal with Voyager . Happy weekend, kids. Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do. Although we’re pretty weird, so that leaves you with quite a few options, to be fair. And actually, you should do tons of things we wouldn’t do. Like, er, go parasailing, listen to the world’s most annoying sound, or spend all day baking a cake. Or maybe create a new bluegrass/funk/j-pop fusion band, written by ChatGPT . — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 The beginning of th...

States have taxed motorists at the pump for more than a century . Yet, as electric cars gain ground, what happens when folks stop refueling altogether? State lawmakers are increasingly imposing annual fees on EV owners, arguing they should pay up because they still rely on public infrastructure to get around. Texas is on track to become the latest state to levy such a tax, following more than a dozen others , including Georgia, Michigan and Ohio. The Texas Senate passed SB 505 at the end of March. This week, the state’s House has cleared a similar bill, sending it on to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. The latest version of the bill lays out a $200 yearly registration fee for electric vehicles, with exceptions carved out for slow “ Neighborhood Electric Vehicles ,” as well as autocycles, mopeds and motorcycles. The bill states that the resulting fees “must be deposited to the credit of the state highway fund.” Though Texas is certainly not alone in moving forward with such a bill, its $200...

The prospect of contacting a satellite to send a text or contact emergency services may soon be an effortless reality as startups move from proof of concept to actual product. Canadians on the Rogers network, which just inked a deal with Lynk, will get direct satellite-phone connections across the country; and not to be outdone, AST SpaceMobile claims to have made the first satellite voice call using a regular cell phone as well. Connecting a stock smartphone like last year’s Samsung or iPhone to a satellite would have sounded like a fantasy a few years ago, when we all knew it was impossible. But now companies are jostling for position as it becomes clear that satellite services will be a compelling offering on any mobile plan or phone model over the next few years. Lynk’s approach is to offer as universal as possible an SMS service to as much of the planet as possible, in the hopes that no one who needs help or is off the grid for any other reason will ever have to face “no signal....

A refrain I hear from a lot of startups is that there’s “no need to rethink the gripper.” It’s something I appreciate from an economic standpoint. It’s expensive, resource intensive and both your time and money are probably best spent elsewhere when there are already so many effectors on the market. I also recently made an analogy to a claw machine during an interview — and got some pushback. I understand a bit better now why that’s the case — at least in part. Discussing its new approach to robotic gripping, MIT invokes the perennial arcade favorite, noting, “When manipulating an arcade claw, a player can plan all she wants. But once she presses the joystick button, it’s a game of wait-and-see. If the claw misses its target, she’ll have to start from scratch for another chance at a prize.” Image Credits: MIT If you think about that for a moment, you realize that you’re suddenly faced with something that comes up over and over again in this field of study: That’s not how humans a...

Snapchat Rolled out their generative AI chatbot, My AI to their 750 million monthly users so it feels like the right time to pause and ask whether we’re ready for the real thing – and ready or not, whether anybody wants one. This week on the TechCrunch Podcast , we’re talking to TechCrunch reporter Amanda Silberling about making robot friends on the internet. Articles from the episode: Snapchat’s AI chatbot is now free for all global us Snapchat sees spike in 1-star reviews as users pan the ‘My AI’ feature, calling for its removal Missouri trans ‘snitch form’ down after people spammed it with the ‘Bee Movie’ script SpaceX’s successful failure is a wake-up call for Starship’s timeline Google’s Bard AI chatbot can now generate and debug code Apple wins antitrust court battle with Epic Games, appeals court rules #NotMyAI and other TC news by Darrell Etherington originally published on TechCrunch from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/S0MgUxr

Founded in 2014, Blossom Finance was first intended for Muslim entrepreneurs in the United States. The microfinancing platform connects investors with small businesses using mudarabah, a shariah-compliant profit-sharing agreement. But founder Matthew Joseph Martin soon realized that the startup, backed by investors like Boost VC and Tim Draper, was serving a relatively niche market in the States. So he started researching markets with large populations of Muslim people. Indonesia emerged as the best choice. Southeast Asia is already home to a thriving fintech scene, where Grab , GoTo and Sea have built super apps that encompass financial services, and startups like Xendit , Akulaku and Dana (to name a few) have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for payments, banking services and other financial tools. Indonesia and Malaysia, in the heart of Southeast Asia, are among the countries with the largest Muslim populations in the world. These factors are proving fertile ground for ...