Stablecoin issuer Circle takes another stab at a public listing
Circle, the issuer of USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, filed to go public on Tuesday.
The company, which makes money from interest earned on its reserve assets, reported that its 2024 revenue and reserve income was $1.68 billion, up from $1.45 billion the year prior. Circle’s 20
OpenAI’s o3 model might be costlier to run than originally estimated
When OpenAI unveiled its o3 “reasoning” AI model in December, the company partnered with the creators of ARC-AGI, a benchmark designed to test highly capable AI, to showcase o3’s capabilities. Months later, the results have been revised, and they now look slightly less impressive
Epic Games CEO calls Apple and Google ‘gangster-style’ businesses in need of competition
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose company makes Fortnite and tools for other developers, including Unreal Engine, called out Apple and Google as “gangster-style businesses” engaged in illegal practices while speaking at a Y Combinator event on Wednesday. The executive also emphasized ho
You might be following Second Lady Usha Vance on Instagram now
Starting Wednesday, Meta says it will begin combining the Instagram accounts of the Second Lady of the United States, Usha Vance, and the former Second Gentleman of the United States, Doug Emhoff.
As a result, the 1.2 million people who were previously following the Instagram account of Kamala Har
OpenAI seeks to convene group to advise its nonprofit goals
As it prepares to transition from a nonprofit corporation to a for-profit, OpenAI says it’s convening a group of experts to “help OpenAI's philanthropy understand the most urgent and intractable problems nonprofits face today.”
This group, which OpenAI says will incorporate f
WordPress maker Automattic lays off 16% of staff
Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Tumblr, WooCommerce, and a range of other online services, is reducing its workforce. The layoffs will impact 16% of staff across divisions, an Automattic blog post published Wednesday reveals.
Ahead of the layoffs, Automattic’s website listed 1
Epic Games acquires Loci to introduce automated 3D tagging
Epic Games announced on Wednesday the acquisition of Loci, an AI platform for automated tagging 3D assets. The deal will help creators with the labor-intensive process of tagging as well as to help detect potential intellectual property (IP) violations.
Loci, which uses computer vision models to u
Redwood Materials preps for expansion spree with new R&D center in San Francisco
Redwood Materials has been on an expansion tear in recent years — growth that has extended the lithium-ion battery recycling and materials startup’s footprint well beyond its Carson City, Nevada headquarters as it locked up deals with Toyota, Panasonic, and GM, started construction on a Sou
DeepMind’s 145-page paper on AGI safety may not convince skeptics
Google DeepMind on Wednesday published an exhaustive paper on its safety approach to AGI, roughly defined as AI that can accomplish any task a human can.
AGI is a bit of a controversial subject in the AI field, with naysayers suggesting that it’s little more than a pipe dream. Others, includ
A new security fund opens up to help protect the fediverse
The fediverse, also known as the open social web that includes Mastodon, Meta’s Threads, Pixelfed, and other apps, is ramping up its security. On Wednesday, a nonprofit focused on bringing governance to open source projects, the Nivenly Foundation, announced the launch of a new security fund
Khosla's Keith Rabois leads $11.5M Series A for startup Roam, calls it 'the future of the housing market'
During the COVID-19 pandemic, mortgage interest rates dropped to historic lows — as low as 2.5%.
Fast-forward a few years and rates soared — to highs nearing 8% in 2023, with the national average 30-year fixed mortgage APR as of April 1 still at 6.84%.
The whiplash h
Anthropic launches an AI chatbot plan for colleges and universities
Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it’s launching a new Claude for Education tier, an answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu plan. The new tier is aimed at higher education, and gives students, faculty, and other staff access to Anthropic’s AI chatbot, Claude, with a few additional cap
Actively AI raises $22.5M to offer sales 'superintelligence,' says AI SDRs failed
AI sales rep startups are a very crowded market these days. If you're driving into San Francisco from the airport, you'll probably spot billboards promising that you can “Stop Hiring Humans” (Artisan) or urging you to “Hire Piper, the AI SDR” (Qualified). While some of these startup
Parasail says its fleet of on-demand GPUs is larger than Oracle’s entire cloud
Cloud infrastructure is dominated by several large industry players: AWS, Microsoft’s Azure, and Google Cloud. While to some it may look like AI is headed in a similar direction, the founders of Parasail think AI infrastructure will look very different — and are betting their company