Our news
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OpenAI says its AI voice assistant is now better to chat with
OpenAI released updates Monday for Advanced Voice Mode, its AI voice feature that enables real-time conversations in ChatGPT, to make the AI assistant more personable and interrupt users less frequently. Manuka Stratta, an OpenAI post-training researcher, announced the changes in a video posted Monday to the company’s official social media channels. OpenAI’s latest update aims…
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A new, challenging AGI test stumps most AI models
The Arc Prize Foundation, a nonprofit co-founded by prominent AI researcher François Chollet, announced in a blog post on Tuesday that it has created a new, challenging test to measure the general intelligence of leading AI models. So far, the new test, called ARC-AGI-2, has stumped most models. “Reasoning” AI models like OpenAI’s o1-pro and…
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A Chinese tech giant says it slashed AI costs using only Chinese chips
Earlier this year, DeepSeek briefly crashed Nvidia’s stock because of speculation that its models require far fewer chips. Now, Chinese fintech giant Ant Group, which is backed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, is claiming a major AI breakthrough. Ant was able to use Chinese chips made by Alibaba and Huawei to create methods that cut…
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a16z- and Benchmark-backed 11x has been claiming customers it doesn’t have
Last year, AI-powered sales automation startup 11x appeared to be on an explosive growth trajectory. However, nearly two dozen sources – including investors, current and former employees – tell TechCrunch that the company has experienced financial struggles, largely of its own making. Numerous people in the U.S. and U.K. told TechCrunch that the situation has…
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Vertical farming company Plenty files for bankruptcy after raising nearly $1B
Vertical farming company Plenty has filed for bankruptcy, the company said in a press release on Monday. In its statement, Plenty said it has received a commitment for $20.7 million in debtor-in-possession financing as part of a proposed restructuring plan. It plans to continue to operate a strawberry farm in Virginia and a plant science…
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French VC firm Founders Future plans US expansion
Founders Future, a Paris-based VC firm with €300 million in assets under management (around $324 million at current exchange rates), is opening up the capital of the holding company that manages Founders Future’s funds and Sowefund. The company has sold a 25% stake in the holding company to MACSF, the Dassault family, CMA CGM Group,…
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The Trump administration planned Yemen strikes in an unauthorized Signal chat
The Trump administration’s national security leaders accidentally included the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, in a chat on Signal discussing confidential plans to attack Yemen’s Houthis. “I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans,” Goldberg wrote of the March 15 messages, which…
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Fair-code pioneer n8n raises $60M for AI-powered workflow automation
Developer tooling is changing rapidly with AI. So companies that are making it easier to adopt AI in their workflows are seeing a boom of attention. After a startup called n8n (pronounced “enay-ten”) pivoted its workflow automation platform to become more AI-friendly in 2022, it said it saw its revenues increase 5X, doubling in the…
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AI creation platform Arcade expands from jewelry to home goods
Arcade, a generative AI marketplace for designing jewelry, is expanding its offerings to include home goods, starting with rugs. The company on Monday also introduced a new feature called “Match My Room,” which allows users to upload a photo of their room so that their design complements the existing colors and style. Alongside this expansion,…
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US lifts sanctions on Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer linked to North Korean money laundering
Tornado Cash was used to launder billions in stolen crypto, according to the Treasury.