February 5, 2025

XOi raises $230M, acquires Specifx to expand its tech for field service technicians

Field service engineers may not be the first group of customers that come to mind when you think about lucrative opportunities in B2B technology. But that same blind spot speaks of the opportunity in the space for those who are stepping up and targeting “the job site.” One of the players in that space, XOi  […]

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Technology

The Download: how criminals use AI, and OpenAI’s Chinese data blunder

May 22, 2024
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Five ways criminals are using AI Artificial intelligence has brought a big boost in productivity—to the criminal underworld. Generative AI provides a new, powerful tool kit that allows malicious actors to work far…

OpenAI’s latest blunder shows the challenges facing Chinese AI models

May 22, 2024
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Last week’s release of GPT-4o, a new AI “omnimodel” that you can interact with using voice, text, or video, was supposed to be a big moment for OpenAI. But just days later,…

Spotify’s ‘Listening Party’ feature falls short of expectations

May 21, 2024

It’s been three years since Spotify acquired live audio startup Betty Labs, and yet the music streaming service isn’t leveraging the technology to its fullest potential—at least not in our opinion.  Betty Labs-owned Locker Room launched in 2020 as a sports-focused social audio app where sports fans could engage in live conversations, create watch parties, […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Five ways criminals are using AI

May 21, 2024
Artificial intelligence has brought a big boost in productivity—to the criminal underworld.  Generative AI provides a new, powerful tool kit that allows malicious actors to work far more efficiently and internationally than ever before, says Vincenzo Ciancaglini, a senior threat researcher at the security company Trend Micro.  Most criminals are “not living in some dark…

The Download: how to test AI, and treating paralysis

May 21, 2024
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. AI models can outperform humans in tests to identify mental states Humans are complicated beings. The ways we communicate are multilayered, and psychologists have devised many kinds of tests to measure our ability…

Join me at EmTech Digital this week!

May 21, 2024
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. I’m excited to spend this week in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’m visiting the mothership for MIT Technology Review’s annual flagship AI conference, EmTech Digital, on May 22-23.  Between the world leaders gathering in Seoul…

AI models can outperform humans in tests to identify mental states

May 20, 2024
Humans are complicated beings. The ways we communicate are multilayered, and psychologists have devised many kinds of tests to measure our ability to infer meaning and understanding from interactions with each other.  AI models are getting better at these tests. New research published today in Nature Human Behavior found that some large language models (LLMs)…

A device that zaps the spinal cord gave paralyzed people better control of their hands

May 20, 2024
Fourteen years ago, a journalist named Melanie Reid attempted a jump on horseback and fell. The accident left her mostly paralyzed from the chest down. Eventually she regained control of her right hand, but her left remained “useless,” she told reporters at a press conference last week.  Now, thanks to a new noninvasive device that…

ChatGPT’s mobile app revenue saw biggest spike yet following GPT-4o launch

May 20, 2024

Consumer demand for the latest AI technology is heating up. The launch of OpenAI’s latest flagship model, GPT-4o, has now driven the company’s biggest-ever spike in revenue on mobile, despite the model being freely available on the web. GPT-4o, launched last Monday, can handle text, speech, and video, and delivers real-time responsiveness and a range […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Download: GPT-4o’s polluted Chinese training data, and astronomy’s AI challenge

May 20, 2024
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. GPT-4o’s Chinese token-training data is polluted by spam and porn websites Soon after OpenAI released GPT-4o last Monday, some Chinese speakers started to notice that something seemed off about this newest version of…