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How a former DeepMind researcher raised at a $300M pre-seed valuation before launching a product
Andrew Dai, a former Google DeepMind researcher, secured a $55 million seed round at a $300 million valuation for his new company, Elorian, just months after leaving Google. The deal, discussed on TechCrunch’s Build Mode podcast, reportedly carries a more aggressive valuation-to-capital ratio than Thinking Machines’ record-breaking raise, underlining how investors are racing to back…
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Brain implant helps paralysed man to feed himself and drink from cup
A man paralysed from the chest down after a swimming accident has regained the ability to feed himself and drink from a cup, thanks to a brain implant developed by US researchers. Keith Thomas, from Massapequa, New York, broke his neck diving into a pool in July 2020, but after being fitted with a “double…
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Sheryl Sandberg leads $10 million investment in AI-powered vehicle inspection service
Sheryl Sandberg has led a $10 million investment in Self Inspection, a San Diego-based startup that uses AI and smartphone photos to assess vehicle damage, replacing the need for physical inspections. The deal underscores growing investor interest in applying AI to modernise the automotive industry, an area Sandberg described as essential but data-fragmented, with several…
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Suno brings its gen AI music gunk to iMessage
Suno, the AI music generation company, has launched an iMessage integration allowing iPhone users with its app to create 30-second AI-generated songs directly within their text conversations. The update lets users prompt the tool with text or a voice note, including pasting in a friend’s message, and reflects the broader push by generative AI firms…
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Former Rockstar Dev Explains GTA 6’s Console-First Approach
Former Rockstar developer Obbe Vermeij has explained why Grand Theft Auto 6 is launching on consoles before PC, describing the approach as consistent with Rockstar’s past release strategy. The decision matters because PC players may face a longer wait for one of the industry’s most anticipated games, while the initial launch will focus on the…
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Tesla driver who blamed crash on autopilot pressed accelerator 100%, NTSB finds
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released preliminary findings supporting Tesla’s claim that a driver, rather than its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, was responsible for a fatal crash in Texas. Michael Butler, 44, had told police FSD was engaged when his Tesla struck a house, killing 76-year-old Martha Avila, but Elon Musk and…
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Smart speakers could help OpenAI lose even more money
OpenAI is reportedly preparing to launch its first hardware product, a rechargeable “humanlike” smart speaker, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The move comes despite warnings from former executive Fidji Simo that the company risks being distracted by costly side projects, and analysts note it is entering a smart speaker market that is stagnant or shrinking,…
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Why AMI Labs’ Alexandre LeBrun won’t call his AI ‘AGI’ or ‘superintelligence’
Alexandre LeBrun, CEO of Yann LeCun’s “world model” startup AMI Labs, has publicly rejected the terms “AGI” and “superintelligence,” arguing they lack meaningful definitions and are simply industry buzzwords that keep shifting. His comments, made in a TechCrunch interview while attending a machine learning conference in Seoul, stand out against a wider AI industry trend…
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Moonshot’s upcoming Kimi 3 is expected to close the gap with Anthropic’s Opus 4.8
Chinese AI lab Moonshot AI is preparing to release Kimi K3, an open-weight model reportedly expected to match or even exceed the performance of Anthropic’s Opus 4.8, according to the Financial Times citing anonymous sources. This matters because it would mark another significant step by a Chinese developer to close the performance gap with leading…