All posts tagged: newsletter

The US IPO window hasn’t reopened yet, but startups take what they can

Published by skeptic

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here! Despite the short workweek in many locations, the last few days have been crammed with deal announcements and funding news, although it is too early to tell how much was just on hold before the U.S. election. Most interesting startup stories from the week Image Credits:Daniel Harvey Gonzalez (opens in a new window) / Getty Images There are early signs that the U.S. IPO window may reopen, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves; for now, we mostly have IPOs in India, M&As, and not-so-great news. IPO later: European scale-up Klarna confidentially filed IPO documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). After ups and downs, the buy now, pay later (BNPL) company reportedly saw its valuation rise back to $14.6 billion earlier this year. IPO envy: Naspers-owned Prosus aims to take Indian fintech PayU public in 2025. The Dutch investor looks to shift more focus to India, where quick-commerce company Swiggy just …

Google lays off workers, Tesla cans its Supercharger team and UnitedHealthcare reveals security lapses

Published by skeptic

Welcome, folks, to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that recaps the week that was in tech. This edition’s a tad bittersweet for me — it’ll be my last (for a while, anyway). Soon, I’ll be shifting my attention to a new AI-focused newsletter, which I’m super thrilled about. Stay tuned! Now, on with the news: This week Google laid off staff from its Flutter, Dart and Python teams weeks before its annual I/O developer conference. A total of 200 people were let go across Google’s “Core” teams, which included those working on app platforms and other engineering roles. Elsewhere, Tesla CEO Elon Musk gutted the company’s team responsible for overseeing its Supercharger network in a new round of layoffs — despite recently winning over major automakers like Ford and General Motors. The cuts are so complete that Musk suggested in an email that they’ll force Tesla to slow the Supercharger network’s expansion. And UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, Andrew Witty, told a House subcommittee that the ransomware gang that hacked U.S. health tech giant Change Healthcare …

This Week in AI: Generative AI and the problem of compensating creators

Published by skeptic

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world of machine learning, along with notable research and experiments we didn’t cover on their own. By the way — TechCrunch plans to launch an AI newsletter soon. Stay tuned. This week in AI, eight prominent U.S. newspapers owned by investment giant Alden Global Capital, including the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel, sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement relating to the companies’ use of generative AI tech. They, like The New York Times in its ongoing lawsuit against OpenAI, accuse OpenAI and Microsoft of scraping their IP without permission or compensation to build and commercialize generative models such as GPT-4. “We’ve spent billions of dollars gathering information and reporting news at our publications, and we can’t allow OpenAI and Microsoft to expand the big tech playbook of stealing our work to build their own businesses at our expense,” Frank Pine, …

Boston Dynamics unveils a new robot, controversy over MKBHD, and layoffs at Tesla

Published by skeptic

Welcome, folks, to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s weekly news recap. The weather’s getting hotter — but not quite as hot as the generative AI space, which saw a slew of new models released this week, including Meta’s Llama 3. In other AI news, Hyundai-owned robotics company Boston Dynamics unveiled an electric-powered humanoid follow-up to its long-running Atlas robot, which it recently retired. As Brian writes, the new robot — also called Atlas — has a kinder, gentler design than both the original Atlas and more contemporary robots like the Figure 01 and Tesla Optimus. Turning our attention to YouTube for a moment, Dom and Amanda wrote about how Marques Brownlee (MKBHD), the famed gadget reviewer, shouldn’t be blamed for the fate of AI startup Humane AI, whose product, the Ai Pin, Brownlee gave a scathing review of earlier this week. They point out that Humane is a well-funded company with plenty of funds in the bank to burn, and find that critics of Brownlee — who accuse him of being unfairly harsh — have …

This Week in AI: When ‘open source’ isn’t so open

Published by skeptic

Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world of machine learning, along with notable research and experiments we didn’t cover on their own. This week, Meta released the latest in its Llama series of generative AI models: Llama 3 8B and Llama 3 70B. Capable of analyzing and writing text, the models are “open sourced,” Meta said — intended to be a “foundational piece” of systems that developers design with their unique goals in mind. “We believe these are the best open source models of their class, period,” Meta wrote in a blog post. “We are embracing the open source ethos of releasing early and often.” There’s only one problem: the Llama 3 models aren’t really “open source,” at least not in the strictest definition. Open source implies that developers can use the models how they choose, unfettered. But in the case of Llama 3 — as with Llama 2 — Meta has …

Lessons in Lifestyle: Sign up for The Independent’s brand new weekly lifestyle newsletter

Published by Sam

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more In a world where Kim Kardashian is selling bras with built-in nipples, young people are getting pre-emptive botox and peeling an orange is seen as a litmus test to determine the healthiness of your relationship, the tips and tricks for living your life, and living it well, are hotly debated. This is why The Independent has rebranded its weekly newsletter: Lessons in Lifestyle. Every Wednesday at 6pm, I’ll be in your inbox, waxing lyrical on the latest beauty, fashion trends and lifestyle trends – and whether they’re worth any of our time. I’ll be rounding up the Lifestyle desk’s weekly coverage, which analyses relationships, sex, dating, wellness, gender, fashion, beauty, food and more. While I don’t claim to be any sort of Lifestyle God – I’ve been known to eat three pizzas a week – I hope we can bring you …

How to Create a Compelling Author Newsletter That Gets Read

Published by skeptic

Let’s be real—everyone and their book-loving grandma has an author newsletter these days. It’s the cool thing for writers to do to build that all-important mailing list. But here’s the harsh truth – the majority of author newsletters out there are pretty darn boring. They’re basically the email equivalent of watching plaid paint dry. I get tons of them in my inbox every week. Most go straight to the trash (or spam) folder unread. Only a handful manage to catch my attention and get opened, because they’re genuinely compelling and interesting reads. If you want people to actually look forward to your author newsletter instead of seeing it as annoying inbox clutter, you’ve got to put in the work to make it irresistible. I’m here to help you do exactly that. I’ll take you step-by-step through creating an author newsletter that grabs attention, keeps readers hooked, and maybe even goes a little viral thanks to all the forwards and social sharing. Ready to master the fine art of the email bulletin? Let’s dive in! Finding …

Tesla drops prices, Meta confirms Llama 3 release, and Apple allows emulators in the App Store

Published by skeptic

Heya, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter that recaps the past few days in tech. Google’s annual enterprise-focused dev conference, Google Cloud Next, dominated the headlines — and we had plenty of coverage from the event. But it wasn’t the only thing afoot (see: the spectacular eclipse). Lorenzo wrote about how hackers stole over ~340,000 Social Security numbers from government consulting firm Greylock McKinnon Associates (GMA). It took GMA nine months to determine the extent of the breach and notify victims; as of yet, it’s unclear why. Elsewhere, Sarah had the story on Spotify’s personalized AI playlists, which lets users create a playlist based on written prompts. And Connie reported on the death of entrepreneur Mahbod Moghadam, who rose to fame as the co-founder of Genius, the online music encyclopedia. Moghadam passed away at the age of 41 owing to complications from a recurring brain tumor. Lots else happened. We recap it all in this edition of WiR — but first, a reminder to sign up to receive the WiR newsletter in your …

Second wave of local newsletter launches from The Lead

Published by skeptic

The three new titles in The Lead’s Northern expansion Left-leaning online magazine The Lead is beginning its second wave of new local newsletters and newspapers as it seeks to build a “Northern newsroom”. It is launching email newsletters, with print editions to follow, in three areas of the North West: Hyndburn, Altrincham and Sale, and Warrington. The Lead, which first launched in autumn 2022, first began the newsletter project in December with the announcement of plans for ten local weekly newsletters in the North of England. The first four to launch were in Blackpool, Bolton, Teesside and Stoke-on-Trent and the aim is to reach 200,000 free newspapers distributed across the titles this year. Ex-Reach audience and content director Ed Walker, who is Lead editor (North), said: “We’ve seen a strong response to our in-depth features and news exploring issues in all the places we’ve launched in so far. Thanks for subscribing. Close “In Hyndburn, Warrington and Altrincham and Sale we have proud places, people and towns which have lots of stories waiting to be told. …