Latest from Maxwell Zeff
OpenAI is reportedly in talks with investors to raise $6.5 billion at a $150 billion pre-money valuation, according to Bloomberg. The new valuation is significantly higher than OpenAI’s previously reported…
The home of the Golden State Warriors was packed on Tuesday evening this week, but it wasn’t to watch Steph Curry. Thousands of fans gathered at the Chase Center in…
Users will get their first chance to try Adobe’s AI model for video generation in just a couple months. The company says features powered by Adobe’s Firefly Video model will…
The updated version of Apple’s AirPods Max are still $549, and can be preordered Monday. With a USB-C port, the updated AirPods Max will now match the rest of Apple’s…
A federal judge says he will deliver a punishment in Google’s antitrust case by August 2025, according to The New York Times, after ruling earlier this month that Google had…
The advancement of generative AI tools has created a new problem for the internet: the proliferation of synthetic nude images resembling real people. On Thursday, Microsoft took a major step…
Anthropic is launching a new subscription plan for its AI chatbot, Claude, catered toward enterprise customers that want more administrative controls and increased security. Claude Enterprise will compete with OpenAI’s…
Snap is testing a “simplified version of Snapchat,” CEO Evan Spiegel wrote in a verbose letter to employees published on Snap’s website Tuesday. The CEO says the simplified version aims…
The tech industry has responded with a resounding outcry against SB 1047.
A top court in Brazil ordered an immediate, country-wide suspension of the X platform on Friday after a months-long legal battle with Elon Musk’s social media company over content moderation,…
Government & Policy
California’s legislature just passed AI bill SB 1047; here’s why some hope the governor won’t sign it
SB 1047 has drawn the ire of Silicon Valley players large and small, including venture capitalists, big tech trade groups, researchers and startup founders.
Gmail users on Android devices can now chat directly with Google’s AI assistant, Gemini, about their emails in the Gmail app. Google rolled out the new feature, Gmail Q&A, on…
Reddit’s mobile and web applications went down on Wednesday afternoon, with more than 150,000 users reporting outages on Downdetector as of 1:30 p.m. in San Francisco. When trying to access…
OpenSea, which calls itself the “world’s largest” nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace, received a Wells notice from the SEC, the company said in a blog post Wednesday, indicating the regulator may…
After a long week of coding, you might assume San Francisco’s builders would retreat into the Bay Area’s mountains, beaches or vibrant clubbing scene. But in reality, when the week…
OpenAI, Adobe and Microsoft have thrown their support behind a California bill requiring tech companies to label AI-generated content, according to letters from the companies viewed by TechCrunch. The bill…
Inflection will cap free access to its AI chatbot Pi in the coming months, the startup tells TechCrunch. Users can also now export their conversations off the AI chatbot, as…
You might not know Viggle AI, but you’ve likely seen the viral memes it created. The Canadian AI startup is responsible for dozens of videos remixing the rapper Lil Yachty…
Two former OpenAI researchers who resigned this year over safety concerns say they are disappointed but not surprised by OpenAI’s decision to oppose California’s bill to prevent AI disasters, SB…
OpenAI broke its silence on California’s most controversial AI bill on Tuesday, officially expressing opposition in a letter to California state Senator Scott Wiener and Governor Gavin Newsom. The AI…
There’s a lot of hype about the promise of AI agents today, but payments are a huge limiting factor. Today, an AI agent might be able to plan a vacation…
OpenAI and Anthropic spend billions of dollars a year training models like GPT-4 and Claude, but competitive price dumping is making the business around these platforms rather precarious. Aidan Gomez,…
I’ve been playing around with OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode for the last week, and it’s the most convincing taste I’ve had of an AI-powered future yet. This week, my phone…
OpenAI has banned a cluster of ChatGPT accounts linked to an Iranian influence operation that was generating content about the U.S. presidential election, according to a blog post on Friday.…
Government & Policy
California weakens bill to prevent AI disasters before final vote, taking advice from Anthropic
California’s bill to prevent AI disasters, SB 1047, has faced significant opposition from many parties in Silicon Valley. Today, California lawmakers bent slightly to that pressure, adding in several amendments…
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who has since moved on to greener and perhaps more dangerous pastures, told an audience of Stanford students recently that “Google decided that work-life balance…
Elon Musk’s Grok released a new AI image-generation feature on Tuesday night that, just like the AI chatbot, has very few safeguards. That means you can generate fake images of…
Analytics and AI giant Databricks reportedly paid nearly $2 billion when it acquired Tabular in June, a startup that was only doing $1 million in annual recurring revenue, according to…
Google launched Gemini Live during its Made by Google event Tuesday. The feature allows you to have a semi-natural spoken conversation, not typed out, with an AI chatbot powered by…
Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s joint X Spaces event appears to have crashed Monday afternoon. The conversation between the owner of X and the former president was scheduled for 5…
