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One of the most interesting stories on the site this week – both for me personally as a hardware and AI nerd and according to our “how many people are reading this story” tools – is Brian’s encounter with the Humane AI pin. The product is a matchbox-sized marvel packed with technology, including 32GB of storage, a 12-megapixel multi-function camera. Its piece de resistance, however, is a laser projection system capable of displaying information on any surface, even your palm. The device is a voice-first device, offering a seamless AI-driven experience with proprietary and OpenAI integrations, including GPT-4. It’s not just a gadget. is a glimpse into a future where artificial intelligence can be as wearable as a pin and as personal as your daily routine.
The other part of AI I thought about is why we’re collectively happy to let AI do some jobs but screw up others. A lot of it comes up for me when I think about pursuits that are fundamentally human: making art, worrying about things we shouldn’t worry about, and other such activities. What does it mean to be human, anyway?
Finally, Airbnb acquired artificial intelligence startup GamePlanner.AI, founded by Adam Cheyer and Siamak Hodjat, in a secret deal rumored to be around $200 million. The co-founders are responsible for Samsung’s Siri and Bixby assistants. GamePlanner is shrouded in mystery, but its acquisition suggests Airbnb may be working on a travel concierge service. GamePlanner is Airbnb’s first acquisition since 2019 and its first as a public company.
Let’s see what else is on the site this week. . .
Beep boop, I’m a robot
Image Credits: Civitai
We are getting closer and closer to being able to have artificial intelligence robots capable of learning to interact with the natural world, enhancing repetitive tasks in various fields. The challenge in robotics is to generate high-quality datasets for physical interactions, which requires a fleet of robots to collect diverse data. Deep reinforcement learning is critical to success, argues Peter Chen, co-founder of Covariant. He claims that enabling robots to adapt and refine their strategies has set the stage for this transformation, predicting an increase in viable robotics applications by 2024.
Meanwhile, in France, Romain observes that much of the startup ecosystem — including French AI startups like Dust, Finegrain, Gladia, Mistral AI and Scenario — shows that France is becoming a major AI hub. He says this is due to a strong talent pool — and, of course, notable venture capital activity, with companies like Index Ventures actively investing in AI startups.
Moar AI Nuggets:
The startup shrugged: Atlas, an artificial intelligence platform that creates 3D, has launched with $6 million in funding after two years of development in stealth mode. It aims to make world design easier for game development.
Like Flickr, but for Gen AI: Civitai, an AI-generated content marketplace, provides users with a platform to share and discover AI-generated image models based on Stable Diffusion. The startup has seen significant growth, leading to a $5.1 million funding round from a16z at a $20 million valuation.
ChatGPT, get the hang of it: Ghost Autonomy, a company that develops self-driving software, has partnered with OpenAI and made a $5 million investment to explore the use of multimodal large linguistic models (LLM) in self-driving cars. Talk about making the illusions high stakes, yes.
The bot will now see you: Forward Health has launched CarePod, a self-contained and autonomous AI-powered medical station designed to perform clinical tasks found in primary care offices, such as blood tests and blood pressure readings, without the need for a doctor or nurse to – web page.
Hello, startup land
Image Credits: BuildCasa
Amid a funding winter where investment activity is at a three-year low, founders, particularly those approaching Series A funding, are facing tough times. I really enjoyed Katie Konyn and Daniela Restrepo’s guest article on TC+ talking about how to leverage LinkedIn to raise funding. They recommend developing a network, working with investors without direct promotion, maintaining visibility through regular updates and achievements, and building mutual relationships. It’s a long game, they conclude.
Inversion Art aims to be the Y Combinator for artists, I wrote on TC+ this week. The company offers an accelerator program to help artists succeed. Co-founders Joey Flores and Jonathan Neil support artists through purchase commitments, share of sales and hands-on services for five years. This approach includes a six-month, three-month program in Los Angeles for selected artists, culminating in an exhibition. Their model combines direct financial investment with integrated back-office management services, aimed at fine artists and potentially extending to other creative professionals. It’s a cool idea — god knows if it’ll prove to be a business scale, but I like the approach of empowering artists to define and achieve success on their own terms.
More startup stories:
Well, this is one way to create a market: Samara, a spin-off from Airbnb, recently received new funding, positioning itself as a possible solution to the US housing crisis. I have mixed feelings about this, especially given that Airbnb itself may have some responsibility for causing the housing crisis in the first place.
Revolving doors: Zeus Living, an Airbnb-backed startup, is shutting down. Founded in 2015, the company initially focused on redecorating owner-occupied homes and renting them out to displaced workers for extended stays, later expanding to offer more flexible living options to a wider audience. This did not work as planned.
Here’s a browser for you, my AI friend: When OpenAI connected ChatGPT to the internet, it supercharged the AI chatbot capabilities. Now the You.com search engine wants to do the same for every major language model out there.
Let’s go on an adventure!
Image Credits: Amazon
It’s rocky waters at GM right now, as the parent company has stepped up its oversight of Cruise, its self-driving car subsidiary, following incidents that led to the suspension of Cruise’s commercial operating licenses in California. GM executive Craig Glidden, who is also a Cruise board member, has been named chief administrative officer to lead the company’s legal, policy, communications and finance teams. Cruise has halted all supervised and manual autonomous vehicle operations in the US, affecting about 70 vehicles. A survey found that half of Cruise employees surveyed have low confidence in the company’s safety culture.
Best known for pulling fossil fuels out of the ground, Exxon plans to tap the vast US lithium reserves to power electric vehicles. The US has large quantities of recoverable lithium, critical for EV batteries. The scale is quite large: The amount of lithium the company wants to mine would supply more than a million vehicles annually.
More transport news:
Okay, okay, you can drive: Uber is implementing new measures to address the issue of unfair driver deactivations, a major concern for drivers with plenty of hail and delivery. Measures include better reviews, recording features and voluntary drug testing.
Is it a bird? An airplane?: Joby Aviation and Volocopter conducted short demonstration flights of their electric aircraft over New York, showing a glimpse of the future of aviation.
Let’s see other people: Rivian electric trucks are no longer exclusive to Amazon, as the automaker has announced that it will now sell its commercial electric trucks to other companies. This decision ends the exclusive agreement made with Amazon in 2019.
Who needs music anyway?: A recent software update meant to fix bugs and improve the proximity lock in Rivian vehicles accidentally tripped some of its infotainment systems. It is unclear if this can be resolved with an OTA update. Fortunately, Rivian says only about 3% of vehicles were affected — but they may need to be serviced by a technician. Ouch.
Top reads on TechCrunch this week
Alpha and Omegle: Omegle, a popular online chat service known for connecting strangers to chat, has been shut down after more than 14 years due to growing abuse of the platform, which included engaging in “unspeakably heinous crimes” — including 600,000 alleged cases of child abuse .
Ah, finally some peace and Dimmu Borgir: The Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones offer excellent comfort, sound quality, and top-notch noise cancellation, according to Brian’s reviews. The headphones justify their $429 price tag as one of the best noise-canceling Bluetooth headphones out there.
We have a trust issue: Epic and Google clashed in court, with one trial focusing on Google’s alleged anti-competitive practices in its Play Store. The key challenge is Google’s procurement of in-app purchases and special deals with developers. Here are 5 things we learned this week
Price lists in the morning: Lyft’s aggressive pricing strategy to compete with Uber has led to incremental growth for the company, although competition in the ride-hail market remains fierce.
