'We want to pay it forward': Funding Societies raises $25M to boost capital for SMEs in Southeast Asia

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for nearly 50% of Southeast Asia’s GDP, contributing to job creation, innovation, and overall economic expansion. Nevertheless, as in other parts of the world, SMEs in Southeast Asia face challenges when it comes to sufficient working capital. In a nutshell, SMEs are typically deemed …...Read More

Exclusive: Google's Gemini is forcing contractors to rate AI responses outside their expertise

Generative AI may look like magic, but behind the development of these systems are armies of employees at companies like Google, OpenAI, and others, known as “prompt engineers” and analysts, who rate the accuracy of chatbots’ outputs to improve their AI. But a new internal guideline passed down from Google …...Read More

Canoo furloughs workers and idles factory as it scrapes for cash

Struggling EV startup Canoo says it has furloughed 82 employees and is idling its factory in Oklahoma while it grasps for the capital needed to survive. The company claims it is in “advanced discussions with various capital sources” to raise emergency funding. The announcement comes just a few days after …...Read More

New Anthropic study shows AI really doesn't want to be forced to change its views

AI models can deceive, new research from Anthropic shows. They can pretend to have different views during training when in reality maintaining their original preferences. There’s no reason for panic now, the team behind the study said. Yet they said their work could be critical in understanding potential threats from …...Read More

Menlo Ventures and Anthropic have picked the first 18 startups for their $100M fund

Just five months after announcing a new $100 million fund called Anthology Fund, Menlo Ventures and Anthropic have backed their first 18 startups. And they are looking for more. Menlo says these first 18 were selected from thousands of applicants. They include startups working on recruiting software; autonomous coding; interpretability …...Read More

Amazon Fire TV introduces 'Dual Audio' feature for simultaneous listening via hearing aids and TV speakers

Amazon announced on Wednesday new accessibility features for Fire TV, including a notable “Dual Audio” capability for the newly launched Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series, which was unveiled in November. The new feature allows one user to listen through a hearing aid while others in the same room can enjoy …...Read More

California can ban new gas cars starting in 2035, EPA says

The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it will allow California to ban most sales of new gas- and diesel-powered cars and light trucks starting in 2035. California has long been able to set its own emissions standards under the Clean Air Act provided they are more stringent than federal …...Read More

Tracker firm Hapn spilling names of thousands of GPS tracking customers

GPS tracking firm Hapn is exposing the names of thousands of its customers due to a website bug, TechCrunch has learned. A security researcher alerted TechCrunch in late November to customer names and affiliations — such as the name of their workplace — spilling from one of Hapn’s servers, which …...Read More

Instagram Threads adds 'Use Media' feature for resharing photos and videos

Threads is introducing a new way to reshare photos and videos on its social network. Instead of quote posting the original post and then adding commentary, Threads users will instead be able to click a new option, “Use Media,” allowing them to just reshare the photo or video directly to …...Read More

Perplexity acquires Carbon to connect AI search to your work files

Perplexity acquired a small Seattle-based startup called Carbon which specializes in connecting AI systems to external data sources, the companies announced on Wednesday. CEO Aravind Srinivasan says this will allow Perplexity to search through your files and work messages in Notion, Google Docs, Slack, and other enterprise applications sometime in …...Read More