March 2024

Waymo to launch commercial robotaxi service in Austin by end of the year

March 13, 2024

Waymo will begin offering a robotaxi service to the public in Los Angeles this week and in Austin by the end of the year, the company’s co-CEO Tekedra Mawakan said Wednesday at SXSW. The Alphabet company has been testing and validating its driverless vehicles across about 43 square miles around downtown, Barton Hills, Riverside, East […]

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UK chips in $44M for a piece of Europe’s $1.4B pot for semiconductors

March 13, 2024

The UK has exited the European Union, but semiconductor development is emerging as one of the areas where it hopes to partner for better economies of scale — and much-needed funding. Today, the government announced that it was joining up with the EU’s “Chips Joint Undertaking” as a “participating state” so that organizations in the […]

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Zendesk adds flexible AI agent capabilities with Ultimate acquisition

March 13, 2024

Zendesk has been trying to transform customer service since it launched in 2007, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the company sees the industry being altered in a big way by the rise of generative AI. On Wednesday, the company announced it intends to acquire Ultimate, a German customer automation startup. The companies […]

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The bill that could ban TikTok passes in the House

March 13, 2024

The House voted on Wednesday in favor of a bill to require TikTok to sever its connection with parent company ByteDance or face a ban, moving the legislation forward with surprising speed. President Joe Biden has already said that he would support the legislation, but TikTok faces an uncertain fate as the bill heads to […]

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Startups are hiring fewer workers, and paying out less in equity comp

March 13, 2024

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday episode, in which we dig into critical startup news to stay abreast of what founders and venture capitalists are working on. Today […]

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An AI that can play Goat Simulator is a step towards more useful AI

March 13, 2024
Fly, goat, fly! A new AI agent from Google DeepMind can play different games, including ones it has never seen before such as Goat Simulator 3, a fun action game with exaggerated physics. Researchers were able to get it to follow text commands to play seven different games and move around in three different 3D…