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Art gallery where Princess Eugenie is a director is cleared of breaching Russian sanctions over sale of painting
An art gallery where Princess Eugenie serves as a director has been cleared of breaching UK sanctions imposed on Russia. Hauser & Wirth, along with shipping company Artay Rauchwerger Solomons, had faced criminal charges over the sale of a painting to a buyer named Alexander Popov, whom prosecutors alleged was a Russian resident. The case…
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Character.AI wants a piece of the microdrama pie
Character.AI has announced c.ai Series, a slate of short-form, episodic “microdramas” designed to be watched and interacted with on a phone, marking the latest step in the company’s push to become a broader storytelling platform beyond its LLM-powered chatbots. Unlike rival services such as ReelShort and DramaBox, which offer cheaply produced live-action shows with human…
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The newest entrant in the military’s launch competition isn’t actually a launch company
The US Space Force has added two more companies, Impulse Space and Relativity Space, to the pool of firms eligible to bid for national security launch contracts. Winning a place in the military launch market is both a mark of maturity and a valuable revenue source for rocket firms. While Relativity Space’s inclusion is unsurprising…
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Licence to drill? How a Trump-linked Texas oil company is elbowing its way into Greenland
A Texas-based oil company, Greenland Energy, is pushing to drill for oil beneath Jameson Land in eastern Greenland, backed by figures linked to Donald Trump. At a June meeting in the remote settlement of Ittoqqortoormiit, the company’s representative, Robert Price, told residents it had permission to land drilling equipment and had filed pending applications to…
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Character.ai enters the microdrama arena with its own productions, but there’s a twist
Character.AI, the platform that lets people chat with customised AI avatars, has entered the fast-growing “microdrama” market by producing its own short-form series made with AI production tools. The distinguishing feature is that users over 18 can chat with the shows’ characters, ask them questions and role-play alternative storylines, drawing on the company’s core conversational…
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AI Platform Character.ai Introduces Suite of Microseries Focused on Anime, Horror, Action Adventure: ‘Deeper Connection Between Fans and Characters’
Character.ai, the platform known for letting users create and chat with AI-generated characters, has launched “c.ai Series”, a collection of short AI-made microseries built around characters native to its platform. What sets the format apart, the company says, is that the experience does not end when an episode finishes: users aged over 18 can continue…
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Character.ai’s New Business? Microdramas
Character.ai, the chatbot company founded by former Google engineers, is launching a microdrama division, marking a notable diversification for a firm best known for its AI companion chatbots. The company will announce on Thursday that it has created AI-generated animated vertical-video series, penned by hired Hollywood writers but produced using artificial intelligence rather than traditional…
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MPs urge Labour to ditch £330m Palantir software contract with NHS
A second parliamentary body, the Commons health and social care select committee, has called on the Labour government to scrap Palantir’s £330m contract to run the NHS’s federated data platform (FDP), which unifies and analyses highly sensitive patient data. The cross-party group cited “serious mistrust” of the system among the public and medical profession, contested…
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Nandan Nilekani leaves GP role at Fundamentum as it launches $200M third fund
Nandan Nilekani, co-founder of Infosys and one of India’s best-known technology figures, is stepping down as a general partner at Fundamentum Partnership, the venture capital firm he co-founded in 2017. The change coincides with the launch of Fundamentum’s third fund, which is targeting around $200 million. Although he is relinquishing the GP title, Nilekani will…
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I quite fancy a Slate EV in a Crayola crayon color
Barebones electric vehicle maker Slate has partnered with crayon brand Crayola to offer buyers colourful wrap options for its affordable EV truck, which until now has been available only in a black or greyish finish. The tie-up matters because it plays to Slate’s core selling point: a stripped-back, customisable vehicle designed from the outset to…