Tech

Google announced its November software update for Pixel phones, called Pixel Drop — a quarterly feature release that brings new capabilities to existing devices — with features including notification summaries, a power-saving mode for the Maps app, prompt-based edits for Photos, and Gemini Nano-powered photo edits in Messages. Apple introduced notification summaries with its Apple Intelligence suite of features last …

While the Beats Pill used to be a common sight around parties and campfires, it slowly fell out of favor as Bluetooth speakers with better battery life and more advanced features hit the scene. In 2024, Apple decided to update the Pill, and it was a big jump in terms of catching up, or even passing the competition. That updated …

Threads, Meta’s competitor to X, will now begin targeting a specific type of creator: podcasters. The company said on Tuesday that Threads will focus on bringing more discussions around podcasts to its app and helping creators promote their shows. Initially, Threads will roll out a couple of new features to help on this front. For one, it will give podcast …

In 2023, after nearly three decades as CEO of the company he founded, Robert LoCascio stepped down as CEO of LivePerson, the public firm credited with pioneering web chat in 1997. Generative AI advances inspired his next project, which he calls “the highest bar” for the technology: replicating human beings with their life stories and personality. In 2024, he founded …

For all their pitches promising something new, AI startups share many of the same questions as startups in years past: How do they know when they’ve achieved the holy grail of product-market fit? Product-market fit has been studied extensively over the years; entire books have been written about how to master the art. But as with so many things, AI …

Google Photos has rolled out a series of new AI-powered features, including a way to edit objects and people in images, a new Ask button for AI-powered answers about the photo or edit requests, AI templates to create new photos, and the expansion of natural language search. The company first introduced prompt-based editing for Pixel 10 series phones in August. …

Israeli AI agent startup Wonderful has raised $100 million in a Series A round led by Index Ventures, with participation from Insight Partners, IVP, Bessemer, and Vine Ventures. The large round, in a market already crowded with AI agent startups, suggests Wonderful has convinced top tier investors it’s not just another GPT wrapper, but a company building the infrastructure and orchestration that could scale if multi-agent systems take off.   The …

Raising a $250 million Series D round may seem like a distant and unnecessary distraction to startup founders pitching investors for that first $1 million in seed money. But it shouldn’t be, according to several founders and venture capitalists. In their view, founders should be charting out a strategy for those later stage fundraises from the beginning. Aven co-founder and …

The European Commission is stepping up efforts to bolster the security of Europe’s telecommunications networks by urging member states to phase out equipment from vendors such as Chinese tech giants Huawei and ZTE from its 5G and next-gen networks, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources. The EC had in 2020 recommended that member nations stop using tech from “high-risk” vendors like …

Meta may be about to lose one of its most renowned AI heads: Yann LeCun, a chief AI scientist at the company, is planning to leave the company to build his own startup, the Financial Times reported, citing anonymous sources. LeCun, a professor at New York University, senior researcher at Meta, and winner of the prestigious A.M. Turing Award, plans …