July 4, 2025

Inside India’s scramble for AI independence

In Bengaluru, India, Adithya Kolavi felt a mix of excitement and validation as he watched DeepSeek unleash its disruptive language model on the world earlier this year. The Chinese technology rivaled the best of the West in terms of benchmarks, but it had been built with far less capital in far less time.  “I thought:…

Twilio Segment introduces new portable customer records with reverse ETL

March 29, 2023

Gathering customer information in a CDP is about understanding your customers better and delivering more tailored experiences, but getting that information where it needs to be to make that happen has proven challenging. Perhaps Twilio Segment, the CDP Twilio bought in 2020 for $3.2 billion, can help with some new features designed to make it […]

Twilio Segment introduces new portable customer records with reverse ETL by Ron Miller originally published on TechCrunch

UK to avoid fixed rules for AI – in favor of ‘context-specific guidance’

March 29, 2023

The UK isn’t going to be setting hard rules for AI any time soon. Today, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) published a white paper setting out the government’s preference for a light-touch approach to regulating artificial intelligence. It’s kicking off a public consultation process — seeking feedback on its plans up to […]

UK to avoid fixed rules for AI – in favor of ‘context-specific guidance’ by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

Kevin Costner’s location-based audio storytelling app Autio raises $5.9M

March 29, 2023

Autio, a location-based audio entertainment app co-founded by actor Kevin Costner and formerly known as HearHere, has raised a $5.9 million seed extension led by iHeartMedia. The app uses GPS to tell stories based on a user’s geographic location. Autio narrates stories of landmarks, cities and towns nearby with the aim of fostering deep connections […]

Kevin Costner’s location-based audio storytelling app Autio raises $5.9M by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch

Google Cloud launches AlloyDB Omni, a downloadable version of its PostgreSQL-compatible database

March 29, 2023

AlloyDB for PostgreSQL is Google Cloud’s fully managed cloud-based database service. And typically, that’s where the story ends with these born-in-the-cloud services. But Google Cloud is taking a somewhat unusual approach with AlloyDB. Today, the company is launching AlloyDB Omni, a downloadable edition of AlloyDB that its users can install on premises, at the edge […]

Google Cloud launches AlloyDB Omni, a downloadable version of its PostgreSQL-compatible database by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

Meditation app Simple Habit sells to wellness marketplace Ingenio, pivots the company to Sleep Reset

March 29, 2023

Y-Combinator and Foundation Capital-backed mediation app Simple Habit has been acquired by Alpine Investors-backed wellness marketplace company Ingenio. Because of this deal, Simple Habit will rebrand itself to Sleep Reset —eponymous to a sleep-focused app it launched last year. Simple Habit was founded by Yunha Kim in 2016 with the aim to be the “Netflix […]

Meditation app Simple Habit sells to wellness marketplace Ingenio, pivots the company to Sleep Reset by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Jigso is building an AI assistant to surface the data employees need automatically

March 29, 2023

Workers are being bombarded with data from a variety of sources. If the point is to make people more productive, as the volume increases, the more difficult it is to find the information you need to do your job. AI thrives in large data environments and can help cut through the noise, move across applications, […]

Jigso is building an AI assistant to surface the data employees need automatically by Ron Miller originally published on TechCrunch

The Download: China’s retro AI photos, and experts’ AI fears

March 29, 2023
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. Chinese creators use Midjourney’s AI to generate retro urban “photography” Across social media, a number of creators are generating nostalgic photographs of China with the help of AI. Even though these images get…