Hugging Face researchers aim to build an ‘open’ version of OpenAI’s deep research tool

A group of developers at AI dev platform Hugging Face, including Thomas Wolf, the company’s co-founder and chief scientist, say they’ve built an “open” version of OpenAI’s deep research tool. Deep research, which OpenAI unveiled during an event Sunday, crawls the web

Amazon continues renewable energy spree with 476 MW purchase

Renewables notched another win as Amazon signed contracts to buy 476 megawatts of wind and solar on the Iberian Peninsula.  The power purchase agreements with multinational utility Iberdrola should help Amazon feed new data centers it has planned in the region. Last May, the company said it w

A review of Tapestry, an app powered by the growing open web

A new app called Tapestry, which launched Tuesday, aggregates and organizes information from across the web and social networks in a single place. It is, in some ways, like this generation’s FriendFeed, for those old enough to remember the earlier attempt from the Web 2.0 era to aggregate fee

E-fuels startup will make diamonds before powering jet planes

September 11 left a lasting impression on Stephen Beaton, and like many others of his generation, he joined the military. But at the U.S. Air Force Academy, his journey took a bit of a turn. There, his chemistry studies deepened his interest in liquid fuels. “As a product of September 11, seeing

Challenging Bluesky, Threads now allows for public custom feeds

Meta’s Threads is doubling down on support for custom feeds as it faces challenges from the growing social network Bluesky, now with over 30 million users, which also offers custom feeds as one of its key features. On Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that users can now set their cu

This Week in AI: Billionaires talk automating jobs away

Hiya, folks, welcome to technewss's regular AI newsletter. If you want this in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. You might’ve noticed we skipped the newsletter last week. The reason? A chaotic AI news cycle made even more pandemonious by Chinese AI company DeepSeek’s

An angel investor was so intrigued by this startup, he joined as a co-founder

Welcome to technewss Fintech!  This week we're looking at a startup that’s out to help people navigate long-term care using AI, a flurry of activity in Africa, another fintech company shutdown, and more. To get a roundup of technewss's biggest and most impor

Okta lays off 180 employees — nearly one year after last workforce reduction

U.S. access and identity management giant Okta laid off 180 employees on Tuesday, the company confirmed to technewss — just over one year after it let go of 400 workers. The company separately conducted a workforce reduction in February of 2023 that affected 300 employees.

EU puts out guidance on uses of AI that are banned under its AI Act

The first compliance deadline kicked in a couple of days ago for the European Union’s AI Act, a risk-based framework for regulating uses of artificial intelligence — banning a narrow selection of so-called “unacceptable risk” use cases of AI, such as social scoring that coul

Cruise to slash workforce by nearly 50% after GM cuts funding to robotaxi operations

Autonomous vehicle company Cruise is laying off “nearly” 50% of its workforce — cuts that extend to the CEO and several other top executives — as it prepares to shut down operations. What remains of Cruise will move under parent company General Motors as the automaker directs its re

How Max Altschuler accidentally founded a VC firm that just raised another $54M  

Four years after accidentally launching a VC firm, GTMfund founder and general partner Max Altschuler has raised a second $54 million fund. He was aiming for $50 million.  GTMfund is one of a rising crop of “operator led” funds, meaning the limited partner investors are people who have wo

DSTLRY, the comic books marketplace, launches new customization features for artists

DSTLRY, a venture-backed digital comic books marketplace, on Tuesday added a pair of features designed to bring customization to the platform. The first feature, dubbed Commissioned Digital Remarques, allows creators to add personalized sketches and signatures to digital comics. The second, Unlimit

Apple launches Invites, a new app for creating custom invitations

Apple on Tuesday launched a new app called “Invites” that allows users to create custom invitations for any occasion. With Invites, users can create and share invitations on their iPhone, RSVP, contribute to Shared Albums, and curate event soundtracks. To create an invitation, you need

Deepfake videos are getting shockingly good

Researchers from TikTok owner ByteDance have demoed a new AI system, OmniHuman-1, that can generate perhaps the most realistic deepfake videos to date. Deepfaking AI is a commodity. There’s no shortage of apps that can insert someone into a photo, or make a person appear to say something the