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Showing posts from January, 2023

Daily Crunch: Cell network provider Google Fi confirms customer data breach

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via https://ift.tt/OEhjK0r To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here . As January is coming to a close, the TechCrunch team is firing on all cylinders (do we still say that, in a time of electric cars? What is a better expression these days?), with a wall of amazing content for you to download straight into your brain. We’ve picked the cream of the crop, even as we are further confused as to why there was cream on the crops in the first place. In summary, idiomatic English continues to confound even the biggest language nerds among us. — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 Who’s calling? : T-Mobile’s data breach last week seems to have spilled over into Google Fi, which now says hackers accessed customers’ information. Carly has more. Home sweet HomePod : Brian plugged in the 2023 Apple HomePod and shares what he likes and doesn’t like about it. More layoffs : Cloud data management...

OpenAI releases tool to detect AI-generated text, including from ChatGPT

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via https://ift.tt/cgZbolm After telegraphing the move in media appearances , OpenAI has launched a tool that attempts to distinguish between human-written and AI-generated text — like the text produced by the company’s own ChatGPT and GPT-3 models. The classifier isn’t particularly accurate — its success rate is around 26%, OpenAI notes — but OpenAI argues that it, when used in tandem with other methods, could be useful in helping prevent AI text generators from being abused. “The classifier aims to help mitigate false claims that AI-generated text was written by a human. However, it still has a number of limitations — so it should be used as a complement to other methods of determining the source of text instead of being the primary decision-making tool,” an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch via email. “We’re making this initial classifier available to get feedback on whether tools like this are useful, and hope to share improved methods in the future.” As the fervor around g...

Spotify’s test of a Friends tab on mobile hints at expanded social ambitions

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via https://ift.tt/9eXR5Iu Spotify’s success with its year-end review known as Wrapped , designed for social sharing, may be pushing the company toward building more social experiences directly into its mobile app. The company for many months has been testing different iterations of a “friends activity” tab on its mobile app, and investors have now taken notice. During the streamer’s Q4 earnings call earlier today, the company was asked to clarify some details about its social plans. Though Spotify CEO Daniel Ek declined to comment on the specific feature the investor asked about, he didn’t shoot down the idea of Spotify becoming a more social platform. Instead, he replied that social could become “a meaningful driver of creating an even stickier and more engaging experience” for the company. The exec was answering an investor question about Spotify’s recent tests of a “Friends tab” which appears in the app’s bottom navigation bar for some subset of Spotify’s users. Though only an e...

Meta starts testing ‘members-only worlds’ in Horizon Worlds

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via https://ift.tt/BJUr1Dc Meta is starting to test closed spaces called “members-only worlds” in Horizon Worlds, its social VR experience. The company has begun a limited alpha test to give creators the ability to grow and moderate their own communities. Meta has selected a small group of creators to build and obtain feedback about members-only worlds. In a blog post , Meta explained that creators can hand-select members and offer them exclusive experiences. During the alpha test, each members-only world can have up to 150 world members and 25 concurrent visitors at any given time. With members-only worlds, creators can launch a dedicated space to do things like host a book club, gather a gaming group, organize a support group or just hang out with friends and family without having to worry about uninvited guests. Image Credits: Meta “Every community develops its own norms, etiquette, and social rules over time as it fosters a unique culture,” Meta explained in its blog post. “...

Eight people dead as gunman opens fire on birthday party in South Africa

https://ift.tt/3vWCXLP Eight people were killed and three wounded after two gunmen entered a home and opened fire on a group of people celebrating a birthday in the southern port city of Gqeberha, formerly Port Elizabeth, in South Africa on Sunday evening, according to the South African police service (SAPS).

South Africa to send dozens of cheetahs to India under new deal

https://ift.tt/3vWCXLP South Africa has signed an agreement with India to reintroduce dozens of cheetahs to the South Asian country after eight of the big cats were sent from neighboring Namibia in 2022.

Eazy Digital helps Southeast Asia’s small insurers digitize their operations

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via https://ift.tt/a1fFtLr Founded by two insurance industry veterans, Eazy Digital wants to give small insurance companies in Southeast Asia the same advantage as their larger competitors. Its SaaS platform lets insurers digitize many parts of their operations, enabling them to scale up more efficiently. The Bangkok-based startup announced today it has raised $850,000 in an oversubscribed seed round led by Wavemaker Partners, with participation from Seedstars International Ventures, Wing Vasiksiri and Sasin Bangkok Venture Club. Eazy Digital was founded last year by Haprem Doowa and Maethavee Sukul. Doowa was previously co-founder and CEO of Frank Insurance, an online digital broker in Thailand that was acquired by Bolttech in 2021. Sukul was head of operations at Frank, Bolttech Insurance Broker and digital health insurance broker Benix. Eazy Digital co-founder Haprem Doowa Doowa told TechCrunch that while working together at Frank, he and Sukul “both realized that the insur...

What’s Stripe’s deal?

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via https://ift.tt/KXbC9iB Welcome to  The Interchange ! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up  here  so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. —  Mary Ann Stripe eyes exit, reportedly tried raising at a lower valuation The big news in fintech this week revolved around payments giant Stripe . On January 26, my Equity Podcast co-host and overall amazingly talented reporter Natasha Mascarenhas and I teamed up to write about how Stripe had set a 12-month deadline for itself to go public, either through a ...

The latecomer advantage in startups

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via https://ift.tt/FN7YfpC Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe here . Sometimes, due to the nature of the startup game, we over index on “the new.” Companies want to build for the pain point you never dreamed to disrupt; VCs want to invest in an emerging trend before it becomes a household name; and those breaking into tech are told to lean into their earnestness, because you never know who is going to answer your cold email. In order for entrepreneurship to feel exciting and welcoming — not even be, but feel — new needs to be one of its loudest characteristics. After all, you only get to be “it” once. But one question I’ve found myself asking over the past year, especially as some of the more tenured folks speak about past downturns and cyclical learning lessons, is the latecomer advantage. It’s partially obvious: When you’ve done this wh...

Daily Crunch: Stripe responds to report that it seeks to raise $2B with a terse ‘no comment’

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via https://ift.tt/7J4iyWm To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here . Well, it’s Friday again. And as the Equity pod team noted today, “ You could be Wasted and not even know it .” — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 The search for more money : Mary Ann follows up on yesterday’s story about Stripe setting a deadline to go public with some additional information that Stripe had reportedly tried raising additional capital at a decreased valuation. Look for more on this developing story in Mary Ann’s Interchange newsletter, which comes out on Sundays. If you don’t already get it in your inbox, click here . No music for you : Google displayed its musical chops and now won’t share it with the world, Kyle writes. The search engine giant created an artificial intelligence system that can generate music from text descriptions, but he reports that “fearing the risks, has no immediate pla...