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ElevenLabs has raised a new round at $3B+ valuation led by ICONIQ Growth, sources say
Companies that want to build AI voice into their products are rushing to work with ElevenLabs, the startup that develops synthetic voice technology like voice cloning and dubbing tools. Now ElevenLabs is turning up the volume on its business with a huge series C raise, just a year after a sizable series B. The New…
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X expands its vertical video feed to global users
X has started expanding its dedicated vertical video feed to users outside the U.S., TechCrunch has exclusively learned and confirmed with the company. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
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Waymo lobbyist activity in SF skyrocketed in 2024
Waymo lobbyists had a busy 2024. A recent review of lobbyist disclosure data by the San Francisco Examiner revealed Waymo paid lobbyists to meet with San Francisco government officials 348 times last year, more than double the 137 times it reported in 2023. The pop in lobbyist activity is in sync with Waymo’s expansion in…
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Open source alternatives to Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp raise funds on Kickstarter
The developer behind Pixelfed, Loops, and Sup, open source alternatives to Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp, respectively, is now raising funds on Kickstarter to fuel the apps’ further development. The trio is part of the growing open social web, also known as the fediverse, powered by the same ActivityPub protocol used by X alternative Mastodon. The…
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Stargate will use solar and batteries to power $100B AI venture
Solar farms can be completed far faster than nuclear reactors and natural gas power plants. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
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iOS 18 hits 68% adoption across iPhones, per new Apple figures
Apple released new figures Friday, highlighting user adoption of iOS 18. Released in public form back in September 2024, the mobile operating system is now installed on 68% of compatible devices. That number jumps to 78% on iPhones released in the last four years. As for the remaining iPhones out there, 19% are running iOS…
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Neko Health’s unicorn-sized Series B is larger than some Series C rounds
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week was supposed to be a short one in the U.S., as it started with a holiday. But Inauguration Day kept some founders busy, and the…
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The EU wants to talk to US tech companies ahead of Germany’s upcoming election
The European Union will give tech and social media companies a “stress test” to see how they handle misinformation ahead of Germany’s election next month. European Commission officials have invited tech companies, including: X, Meta, Snap, TikTok, Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn, to a meeting on January 31, according to multiple news outlets. During this meeting,…
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The AI industry’s pace has researchers stressed
To outside observers, AI researchers are in an enviable position. They’re sought after by tech giants. They’re taking home eye-popping salaries. And they’re in the hottest industry of the moment. But all this comes with intense pressure. More than half a dozen researchers TechCrunch spoke with, some of whom requested anonymity for fear of reprisals,…
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People are benchmarking AI by having it make balls bounce in rotating shapes
The list of informal, weird AI benchmarks keeps growing. Over the past few days, some in the AI community on X have become obsessed with a test of how different AI models, particularly so-called reasoning models, handle prompts like this: “Write a Python script for a bouncing yellow ball within a shape. Make the shape…