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Lighthouse, an analytics provider for the hospitality sector, lights up with $370M at a $1B valuation

2024-11-21 16:11:10

Here is yet one more sign of the travel industry’s noticeable boom: a major growth round for one of the B2B startups servicing it. Lighthouse, a data analytics platform for hotels and others in the hospitality industry, has closed a Series C of $370 million. The KKR-led round catapults Lighthouse to a valuation of over […]

DOJ: Google must sell Chrome to end monopoly

2024-11-21 12:05:19

The United States Department of Justice argued Wednesday that Google should divest its Chrome browser as part of a remedy to break up the company’s illegal monopoly in online search, according to a filing with the U.S District Court of the District of Columbia. Google would not be allowed to re-enter the search market for […]

WhatsApp will finally let you unsubscribe from business marketing spam

2024-11-21 12:03:40

WhatsApp Business has grown to over 200 million monthly users over the past few years. That means there are tons of businesses sending messages to users — and some of these messages could be considered as spam. For customers, the only option was to either let them send messages and offers, or block the business account […]

OneCell Diagnostics bags $16M to help limit cancer reoccurrence using AI

2024-11-21 12:00:00

OneCell Diagnostics has secured $16 million in a Series A round as it aims to limit cancer recurrence using AI advancements along with scientific ways.

India’s Arzooo, once valued at $310M, sells in distressed deal

2024-11-21 11:01:05

Arzooo, an Indian startup that sought to bring “the best of e-commerce” to physical stores, has sold its assets in a distressed sale to Moksha Group. The deal comes after Arzooo engaged with several startups, including Bengaluru-headquartered Udaan, exploring potential merger opportunities, according to people familiar with the matter. Arzooo provided a digital bridge to […]

OpenAI accidentally deleted potential evidence in NY Times copyright lawsuit

2024-11-21 10:46:03

Lawyers for The New York Times and Daily News, which are suing OpenAI for allegedly scraping their works to train its AI models without permission, say OpenAI engineers accidentally deleted data potentially relevant to the case. Earlier this fall, OpenAI agreed to provide two virtual machines so that counsel for The Times and Daily News […]

Hyundai reveals the Ioniq 9, its biggest EV to date

2024-11-21 10:00:00

Hyundai revealed Wednesday the new Ioniq 9, an all-electric three-row SUV — and its largest EV to date — based on the Seven concept that we saw in 2021. (Look, nobody said car-naming protocol had to make sense.) The SUV, which made its debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show and will come to the […]

Nvidia’s CEO defends his moat as AI labs change how they improve their AI models

2024-11-21 09:26:21

Nvidia raked in more than $19 billion in net income during the last quarter, the company reported on Wednesday, but that did little to assure investors that its rapid growth would continue. On its earnings call, analysts prodded CEO Jensen Huang about how Nvidia would fare if tech companies start using new methods to improve […]

Reddit appears to be back after a 4-hour-long outage

2024-11-21 08:58:55

Social media platform Reddit experienced an outage this afternoon at around 12:20 p.m. PT (or possibly even earlier), resulting in thousands of users being unable to access its website and app. After four hours, it appears to be working again. Reddit confirmed it fixed the issue and is monitoring the results, according to its status […]

Snowflake snaps up data management company Datavolo

2024-11-21 06:44:43

Cloud giant Snowflake has agreed to acquire Datavolo, a data pipeline management company, for an undisclosed sum. Snowflake unveiled the deal at the close of the market bell on Wednesday, when it also announced its Q3 2025 earnings. The purchase hasn’t yet closed, and it’s subject to customary closing conditions, Snowflake noted in a release. […]

Solar power magnate Gautam Adani and others indicted over alleged $250M bribery scheme

2024-11-21 06:14:35

Billionaire Gautam Adani and several executives at his company, the Indian conglomerate Adani Group, have been indicted over an alleged scheme to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian officials in exchange for contracts to a 12 gigawatt solar power project. The indictment, unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Brooklyn, charges Adani, his […]

‘PDF to Brainrot’ study tools are a strange iteration on a TikTok trend

2024-11-21 06:00:08

Several AI-based study tools are capitalizing on a “PDF to Brainrot” trend, which will read the text of a document you upload over “oddly satisfying” videos, like ASMR clips of mixing paint and cutting soap, or gameplay footage from Minecraft and Subway Surfers. Then students can listen to an automated voice read their textbooks to […]

Fusion startup Tokamak Energy attracts $125M for its egg-like reactor design

2024-11-21 05:31:29

Startups pursuing fusion power have benefitted from AI's insatiable thirst for electricity.

Another VC-backed fintech, Earnin, faces crackdown over allegedly ‘predatory’ loans

2024-11-21 05:04:49

The attorney general for the District of Columbia is suing instant payday loan fintech Earnin for “deceptively marketing and providing illegal high-interest loans,” the AG alleges. Earnin allows its users to get loans against paychecks. It advertises that users can get $150 a day, up to $750 per pay period, with “no interest, credit check […]

FTX CTO Gary Wang avoids prison time

2024-11-21 04:07:18

Not every former top FTX executive is heading to prison. Gary Wang, former FTX chief technical officer, was spared prison time by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan today. Judge Kaplan praised Wang’s cooperation with federal authorities. Wang testified against former FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried at his trial last fall. Wang pleaded guilty to […]

US charges five accused of multi-year hacking spree targeting tech and crypto giants

2024-11-21 03:32:19

The five alleged hackers are accused of stealing millions of dollars in crypto, and corporate data from several victims all over the world.

May Mobility to test driverless shuttles in Ann Arbor

2024-11-21 02:59:29

May Mobility is slowly advancing its driverless capabilities. The startup this week launched a small-scale deployment of autonomous shuttles, which will drive themselves along a fixed route without a human safety driver present. May will initially deploy one to two autonomous Toyota Sienna minivans to ferry employees and “invited guests” across a 2-square-mile area of […]

Benchmark invests $19M in New Lantern, a smarter way for radiologists to use AI

2024-11-21 02:58:16

Shiva Suri gained a unique perspective into how radiologists work when he quarantined and shared a home office with his mom, a well-regarded radiologist. “I watched her work day in and day out, and she was wasting about seven to eight hours on boring workflow tasks,” Suri said. “Only 5% of her time, she had […]

Led by Anduril, defense tech funding sets a new record this year

2024-11-21 02:38:29

Defense tech startups have raised almost $3 billion so far in 2024, surpassing the previous record from 2022 of $2.6 billion.

Messenger gets HD video calls, AI backgrounds, and more

2024-11-21 02:06:21

Meta is introducing new features for Messenger, its messaging app, including AI-powered noise suppression. Messenger is getting HD video calls and voice isolation, both of which can be enabled via the call settings menu. HD calls are now the default for calls placed over Wi-Fi, Meta says, and an option for calls over cellular. Messenger […]

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