July 23, 2025

The Download: what’s next for AI agents, and how Trump protects US tech companies overseas

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. Navigating the rise of AI agents AI agents is a buzzy term that essentially refers to AI models and algorithms that can not only provide you with information, but take actions on your…

How China is building a parallel generative AI universe

December 31, 2022

The gigantic technological leap that machine learning models have shown in the last few months is getting everyone excited about the future of AI — but also nervous about its uncomfortable consequences. After text-to-image tools from Stability AI and OpenAI became the talk of the town, ChatGPT’s ability to hold intelligent conversations is the new […]

How China is building a parallel generative AI universe by Rita Liao originally published on TechCrunch

Fidelity slashes the value of its Twitter stake by over half

December 31, 2022

Fidelity, which was among the group of outside investors that helped Elon Musk finance his $44 billion takeover of Twitter, has slashed the value of its stake in Twitter by 56%. The recalculation comes as Twitter navigates a number of challenges, most the result of chaotic management decisions — including an exodus of advertisers from […]

Fidelity slashes the value of its Twitter stake by over half by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

QuickVid uses AI to generate short-form videos, complete with voiceovers

December 30, 2022

Generative AI is coming for videos. A new website, QuickVid, combines several generative AI systems into a single tool for automatically creating short-form YouTube, Instagram TikTok and Snapchat videos. Given as little as a single word, QuickVid chooses a background video from a library, writes a script and keywords, overlays images generated by DALL-E 2, and […]

QuickVid uses AI to generate short-form videos, complete with voiceovers by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

There’s now an open source alternative to ChatGPT, but good luck running it

December 30, 2022

The first open-source equivalent of OpenAI’s ChatGPT has arrived, but good luck running it on your laptop — or at all. This week, Philip Wang, the developer responsible for reverse-engineering closed-sourced AI systems including Meta’s Make-A-Video, released PaLM + RLHF, a text-generating model that behaves similarly to ChatGPT. The system combines PaLM, a large language […]

There’s now an open source alternative to ChatGPT, but good luck running it by Kyle Wiggers originally published on TechCrunch

Meta acquires Luxexcel, a smart eyewear company

December 30, 2022

As Meta faces antitrust scrutiny over its acquisition of VR fitness developers Within, the tech giant is making another acquisition. Meta confirmed to TechCrunch that it is purchasing Luxexcel, a smart eyewear company headquartered in the Netherlands. The terms of the deal, which was first reported in the Belgian paper De Tijd, have not been […]

Meta acquires Luxexcel, a smart eyewear company by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch