When Stable Diffusion, the text-to-image AI developed by startup Stability AI, was open sourced earlier this year, it didn’t take long for the internet to wield it for porn-creating purposes. Communities across Reddit and 4chan tapped the AI system to generate realistic and anime-style images of nude characters, mostly women, as well as non-consensual fake
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If someone offers you a seat on a rocket, you don’t ask which seat. So goes one of Silicon Valley’s favorite platitudes, one that you can trace back (at a minimum) to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. The idea is that if you are given a shot at working
Narwhal, the company behind the popular monorepo-focused open source Nx build system for JavaScript code, today announced that it has raised an $8.6 million seed funding round co-led by Nexus Venture Partners and Andreesen Horowitz. A number of angel investors, including GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner, also participated in this round. Founded by two former Google
Let’s face it: Most people aren’t early adopters, especially when it comes to their homes. Take the kitchen, for example, where many people still buy gas cooktops despite induction’s superiority. It’s not because everyone’s busy charring peppers over an open flame — it’s because they’re slow to adopt changes. When it comes to heating and
Venture-backed startups have had to make myriad spending cuts this year in an attempt to either live up to a high valuation, minimize their burn rate or both. But new data from fintech Capchase shows that many startups — especially venture-backed ones — seem to be getting the wrong advice concerning where to downsize. Capchase,
Roku wrote in a new SEC filing that it plans to cut 200 jobs in the U.S. as it braces for economic headwinds. Thanks to the workforce reduction, the company expects to incur a non-recurring charge of between $28 to $31 million, mainly because of severance payments, employee benefits contributions, other related expenses and notice
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong joins Emily Chang to discuss the news of Binance buying rival FTX.com after a bitter feud between the two crypto exchange owners, and whether Coinbase would consider buying FTX US. ——– Like this video? Subscribe to Bloomberg Technology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrM7B7SL_g1edFOnmj-SDKg Watch the latest full episodes of “Bloomberg Technology” with Emily
In a major first, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration just offered its safety blessing to a cultivated meat product startup. It completed its first pre-market consultation with Upside Foods to examine human food made from the cultured cells of animals, and it concluded that it had “no further questions” related to the way Upside
If you follow #beautytok, #beautytube or any beauty content on social media platforms, you know that popular product trends are hard to keep up with. Summer International stays ahead of the game by identifying the most influential content creators, and working with them to incubate new brands. Founded in Singapore and based in Los Angeles
Two years ago, South Korea unveiled a plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Getting there will be another story. Although Korean manufacturers say they are trying to change their ways, the country’s GDP is linked to some uniquely pollutive industries, including petrochemical producers, automakers and shipbuilders. Though some businesses may never be truly sustainable,
French startup Virgil has raised a $15.6 million funding round (€15 million). The company invests in apartments alongside home buyers before they even get the keys for their new home. This way, future homeowners can buy a bigger place in exchange for an equity stake in their apartment. Home equity is a much more fluid
Disney+’s adorable new short film, “Zen – Grogu and Dust Bunnies,” premiered on Saturday, November 12. From Lucasfilm and Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli, the hand-drawn short film will excite many fans as it features Grogu — a.k.a Baby Yoda or The Child — from the “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian” and the coal dust
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. Hello, and welcome to your…checks the top right of the screen…Wednesday. Several of our TechCrunch colleagues headed to Miami today for the TC Sessions: Crypto event tomorrow. Given the past week, it
Proteins are the molecules that get work done in nature, and there’s a whole industry emerging around successfully modifying and manufacturing them for various uses. But doing so is time consuming and haphazard; Cradle aims to change that with an AI-powered tool that tells scientists what new structures and sequences will make a protein do
For all its promise, the current state of solid-waste recycling leaves a lot to be desired. Plastic waste is among the worst: It represents about 12% of solid waste in the U.S., but only about 4.5% of what gets recycled. There are plenty of reasons why we’re terrible at recycling plastics. For one, not all
Germany’s antitrust watchdog has moved to widen an existing investigation of Amazon’s business in the market in light of special abuse powers it confirmed are applicable to the ecommerce giant’s business in the country this summer. The Federal Cartel Office (FCO) said yesterday it is extending two ongoing “abuse control proceedings” against Amazon to include
Today, Apple announced the launch date and price of its upcoming subscription service for Major League Soccer (MLS) fans, “MLS Season Pass.” Starting February 1, 2023, subscribers in 100+ countries and regions can get MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app for $14.99 per month during the season or $99 per season. Notably, Apple
Evernote, the note-taking and task management app founded over 20 years ago, has been acquired by Milan-based app developer Bending Spoons. In a post on Evernote’s newsroom, Evernote CEO Ian Small said that Bending Spoons will take ownership of Evernote in a transaction expected to close in early 2023. “For Evernote, this decision is the
It’s time for another shout-out to recognize more of our partner companies that are dedicating their time and resources to make TC Sessions: Crypto — taking place tomorrow on November 17 in Miami — an awesome experience for everyone. The cure for FOMO: Buy your pass right now to keep your fingers on the pulse
Alternative meat, seafood, and dairy products are all the rage in startup land, with countless companies raising bucketloads of cash and showcasing their first products throughout 2022. There are two broad categories within the meat-substitute space specifically: plant-based foods that strive to mimic the texture, look, and feel of real meat, and “lab-grown” cultivated meat that’s
The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) enters into force today — setting the clock ticking on designations that will determine which larger Internet platforms face an extra layer of rules in areas likes algorithmic transparency and risk assessment. Larger platforms will also face centralized oversight by the European Commission in a marked change to
Descript, the audio and video editing platform founded in 2017 by former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, has raised $50 million in a Series C round led by the OpenAI Startup Fund, a tranche through which OpenAI and its partners, including Microsoft, are investing in early-stage companies. Descript is the second startup to receive a cash
Bloomberg Technology’s Emily Chang says a final farewell to viewers after 12 years. ——– Like this video? Subscribe to Bloomberg Technology on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrM7B7SL_g1edFOnmj-SDKg Watch the latest full episodes of “Bloomberg Technology” with Emily Chang here: Get the latest in tech from Silicon Valley and around the world here: https://www.bloomberg.com/technology Connect with us on… Twitter:
After a particularly slow summer, the mood in venture capital seemed to change with the season come Labor Day. By the end of September, it felt that maybe the worst had already come in terms of this year’s falling venture funding numbers. Investment volume had stopped declining and was starting to make up ground. Investors
Ring today announced that local government agencies will be able to have an official presence on the company’s Neighbors app. Beginning with the City of North Port and Pinellas County Government in Florida and the City of Fulton in New York, the new program will allow government organizations to provide safety information through Neighbors, the
Today, the electrical grid works because utilities have a time-tested playbook. They may not know exactly when you do your laundry, but they generally know washers and dryers run more in the evenings or on weekends. Air conditioners wind up when temperatures soar, and more lights click on during the dark winter months. But in
Algorithmiq, a Helsinki-based quantum computing startup, has pulled in a deal with IBM to super-charge its exploration of quantum algorithms applied to the life sciences. The collaboration will attempt to dramatically cut the time and cost of drug discovery and development. The widely accepted maxim is that it takes around a decade and $1 billion
YouTube today is addressing one of creators’ chief complaints with filming videos for its TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts: to date, the music and sounds added to videos could only be 15 seconds in length, even though Shorts themselves can be as long as 60 seconds. Now, thanks to revised licensing deals, YouTube says the majority
The social commerce market is already worth more than $13 billion in Southeast Asia, but the checkout process is filled with friction. Many sellers don’t have online storefronts and instead use social media and messaging apps, which means payment is made by switching to banking apps or wallets. This means low conversion rates, say the
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. Greetings on this fine Tuesday. There was a lot of news today, so I’m not going to waste time and instead will get right to what you came here for. — Christine.