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Nvidia drops $600B off its market cap amid the rise of DeepSeek
DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, became the talk of the proverbial AI town when it released its R1 model on Friday. R1’s functionality and accuracy compared to its U.S. counterparts, despite using fewer resources and less compute power, seems like a win for the overall AI industry. But it isn’t necessarily good news for everyone.…
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Alibaba’s Qwen team releases AI models that can control PCs and phones
Chinese AI lab DeepSeek might be getting the bulk of the tech industry’s attention this week. But one of its top domestic rivals, Alibaba, isn’t sitting idly by. Alibaba’s Qwen team on Monday released a new family of AI models, Qwen2.5-VL, that can perform a number of text and image analysis tasks. The models can…
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Cornell’s robot jellyfish and worm are powered by a hydraulic fluid battery
Researchers at Cornell University on Monday showcased a pair of bio-inspired robotics running on a hydraulic fluid-powered battery. The redox flow battery (RFB) also mimics biological functions, as it releases electrolytic fluids, which dissolve to create energy through chemical reaction. The first two robots on display are a modular worm and a jellyfish, designed by…
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Hackers are targeting machine identities. Token Security just raised $20M to stop them
The number of machine identities is booming thanks to the growth of cloud and AI – and it’s posing real security problems by giving hackers way more entry points than ever before. For example, a 2023 hack of authentication app Okta was caused by exploiting a service account while in 2024, Microsoft disclosed a major…
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Smartwatch pioneer and Kickstarter darling Pebble is returning in a new form
Four years after launching the (then) most lucrative crowdfunding campaign in Kickstarter’s history, Pebble abruptly ended. The hardware startup closed 2016 by filing for insolvency, before being sold off to Fitbit. The fitness-tracking giant built much of the Ionic smartwatch with help from former Pebblers, along with the company’s pioneering software stack. The first Apple…
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DeepSeek displaces ChatGPT as the App Store’s top app
The mobile app for DeepSeek, a Chinese AI lab, skyrocketed to the No. 1 spot in app stores around the globe this weekend, topping the U.S.-based AI chatbot, ChatGPT. On iOS, DeepSeek is currently the No. 1 free app in the U.S. App Store and 51 other countries, according to mobile app analytics firm Appfigures.…
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How DeepSeek’s efficient AI could stall the nuclear renaissance
The startups and power producers that are betting big on new nuclear are vulnerable to an energy efficient AI model. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
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OpenAI-backed 1X acquires Kind Humanoid
1X has acquired Kind Humanoid, the Norwegian robotics startup told TechCrunch on Monday. The deal marks a small but key consolidation for a humanoid robotics industry on the brink of a major moment in 2025. TechCrunch spoke with Kind Humanoid in October, when the then-three-person startup announced that it had enlisted famed designer Yves Behar…
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Bluesky adds video to user profiles
Social network Bluesky is doubling down on video. After it added a new TikTok-like custom video feed last week in the wake of the U.S. ban on the popular video app (now on pause), the company on Monday announced it’s adding a new video tab to Bluesky user profiles. The tab will allow people to…
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AI startup DeepSeek pauses signups amid cyber incident
DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup that made waves in the AI world last week when it released its open-source R1 model, is pausing new user signups. The company has temporarily paused new user registrations this morning, according to CNBC reporting, due to a cyberattack. Existing users can still access their accounts with no issue. TechCrunch…