March 13, 2025

Y Combinator’s police surveillance darling Flock Safety raises $275M at $7.5B valuation

Flock Safety and one of its long-time VCs, Bedrock Capital, announced Thursday that the startup raised a fresh $275 million at a $7.5 billion valuation. Flock makes computer vision-enabled video surveillance technology used by law enforcement as well as businesses, property management companies, and so on. It’s best known for its automatic license plate recognition […]

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OpenAI’s ‘creative writing’ AI evokes that annoying kid from high school fiction club

March 13, 2025

When I was sixteen, I attended a writing workshop with a group of precocious young poets, where we all tried very hard to prove who among us was the most tortured upper-middle-class teenager. One boy refused to tell anyone where he was from, declaring, “I’m from everywhere and nowhere.” Two weeks later, he admitted he […]

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5 ways TechCrunch Sessions: AI will fuel your AI growth

March 13, 2025

Less than three months until TechCrunch’s biggest AI event yet! If you’re shaping the future of AI, investing in the next game-changing innovation, or simply eager to dive deep into what’s next, TechCrunch Sessions: AI is the place to be. On June 5, Zellerbach Hall in UC Berkeley, will be buzzing with 1,200 AI experts, […]

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Xbox debuts a new AI-powered gaming companion for mobile users

March 13, 2025

Ahead of the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC), Xbox revealed on Thursday that it’s experimenting with an AI-powered gaming sidekick. “Copilot for Gaming,” powered by Microsoft’s AI technology, is a voice-activated assistant designed to enhance the gaming experience and is designed to answer questions, complete tasks, and even criticize if you’re playing poorly.  “It can trash […]

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Apple’s appeal against UK’s secret iCloud backdoor order must be held in public, rights groups urge

March 13, 2025

Privacy rights groups have called on Apple’s legal challenge to a secret U.K. government order asking it to backdoor an end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) version of its iCloud storage service to be heard in public, rather than behind closed doors. The existence of the order emerged via press reports last month. Apple went on to confirm […]

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Spotify launches a program to publish audiobooks from independent authors

March 13, 2025

In an expansion of its existing audiobooks efforts, Spotify on Thursday announced the launch of a new publishing program for authors that allows them to submit short-form stories they’d like to see turned into audiobooks. When Spotify selects a story for audiobook publishing, it will handle the production and distribution of the work to other […]

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OpenAI calls for U.S. government to codify ‘fair use’ for AI training

March 13, 2025

In a proposal for the U.S. government’s “AI Action Plan,” the Trump Administration’s initiative to reshape American AI policy, OpenAI called for a U.S. copyright strategy that “[preserves] American AI models’ ability to learn from copyrighted material.” “America has so many AI startups, attracts so much investment, and has made so many research breakthroughs largely […]

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