Google's 3D video conferencing platform, Project Starline, is coming in 2025 with help from HP

In 2021, Google kicked off work on Project Starline, a corporate-focused teleconferencing platform that uses 3D imaging, cameras and a custom-designed screen to let people converse with someone as if they were in the same room — more or less. Now, after years of testing and private technical previews, Google’s …...Read More

OpenAI's ChatGPT announcement: Watch live here

OpenAI has a livestreamed announcement planned for 10 a.m. PT today — but it’s trying to keep expectations under control. The company is describing the event as “a chance to demo some ChatGPT and GPT-4 updates.” CEO Sam Altman, meanwhile, promoted the event with the message, “not gpt-5, not a …...Read More

Instagram expands its creator marketplace to 10 new countries

Over the weekend, Instagram announced that it is expanding its creator marketplace to 10 new countries — this marketplace connects brands with creators to foster collaboration. The new regions include South Korea, Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, Israel, Turkey, Mexico, Argentina and Indonesia. Meta first introduced this marketplace to facilitate paid …...Read More

Aplazo is using buy-now-pay-later as a stepping stone to financial ubiquity in Mexico

Buy-now-pay-later services have become so ubiquitous that BNPL may as well just be another way to say ‘debt.’ But in Mexico, where BNPL platform Aplazo operates, a large underbanked population makes BNPL more like an alternative to cash. The four-year-old Mexican fintech startup facilitates fractionated payments to offline and online …...Read More

Vote for your Disrupt 2024 Audience Choice favs

We received countless submissions to speak at this year’s Disrupt 2024. After carefully sifting through all the applications, we’ve narrowed it down to 19 session finalists. Now we need your help to choose who will actually speak at the conference! Vote for the sessions you most want to see at …...Read More

Healthy growth helps B2B food e-commerce startup Pepper nab $30 million led by ICONIQ Growth

Pepper, the e-commerce platform for food distributors, continues to edge into Sysco and US Foods territory by giving smaller, independent distributors a technology leg up. The company developed an ordering system specifically for independent food distributors that supports catalogs of over 100,000 items and enables these companies to launch mobile …...Read More

Booking latest to fall under EU market power rules

Booking.com has been designated a gatekeeper under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), meaning the online travel agency will face regulation under the bloc’s market fairness and contestability framework — with the risk of major fines (of up to 10% or even 20%) for non-compliance. The travel platform has been …...Read More

'Got that boomer!': How cyber-criminals steal one-time passcodes for SIM swap attacks and raiding bank accounts

The incoming phone call flashes on a victim’s phone. It may only last a few seconds, but can end with the victim handing over codes that give cybercriminals the ability to hijack their online accounts or drain their crypto and digital wallets. “This is the PayPal security team here. We’ve …...Read More

Permira is taking Squarespace private in $6.6 billion deal

Website building software provider Squarespace is going private in an all-cash deal that values the company on equity basis at $6.6 billion, or a $6.9 billion enterprise valuation. The acquiring company is U.K.-based private equity firm Permira, which acquired a majority stake in Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity firm BioCatch just a …...Read More

Buymeacoffee's founder has built an AI-powered voice note app

AI-powered tools like OpenAI’s Whisper have enabled many apps to make transcription an integral part of their feature set for personal note-taking, and the space has quickly flourished as a result. Apps like AudioPen, Cleft Notes, and TalkNotes have proliferated across app stores and the Internet, but most offer a …...Read More