TikTok is building its own AR development platform, TikTok Effect Studio

Both Facebook and Snap offer tools that allow developers to build out augmented reality (AR) experiences and features for their own respective family of apps. Now, TikTok is looking to do the same. The company recently launched a new creative toolset called TikTok Effect Studio, currently in privat

A mathematician walks into a bar (of disinformation)

Disinformation, misinformation, infotainment, algowars — if the debates over the future of media the past few decades have meant anything, they've at least left a pungent imprint on the English language. There's been a lot of invective and fear over what social media is doing to us, from

Communication software startup Channels takes on event management with text workflow

Three University of Michigan students are building Channels Inc., a communication software tailored for physical workers, and already racking up some big customers in the event management industry. Siddharth Kaul, 18, Elan Rosen, 20, and Ibrahim Mohammed, 20, started the company after finding some

Companies betting on data must value people as much as AI

The Pareto principle, also known as the 80-20 rule, asserts that 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes, rendering the remainder way less impactful. Those working with data may have heard a different rendition of the 80-20 rule: A data scientist spends 80% of their time at work cleaning up mes

Rapid Robotics raises another $36.7M

Rapid Robotics announced a $12 million Series A all the way back in April 2021. Four months later, the Bay Area-based robotic manufacturing firm is back with a $36.7 million Series B, led by Kleiner Perkins and Tiger Global. The round, which also features existing investors NEA, Greycroft, Bee Part

Atlas slugged

I watched a lot of skate videos growing up. At some point, failures became as important a fixture as perfectly executed tricks. The spills and the injuries could be downright gnarly (there's a reason, after all, that skateboarding culture gave the world “Jackass”), but as an aggress

Picnic launches its first robotic pizza system

Robotic pizza has proven a surprisingly popular goal for startups. Over the past several years, some of those dreams have been more successful than others. Zume is probably the most notable story of a company that fell short, ultimately abandoning its robotic pizza trucks in early 2020 to pivot to

How the law got it wrong with Apple Card

Advocates of algorithmic justice have begun to see their proverbial “days in court” with legal investigations of enterprises like UHG and Apple Card. The Apple Card case is a strong example of how current anti-discrimination laws fall short of the fast pace of scientific research in the emergin

Amazon’s $1.5 billion US air cargo hub is open for business

Amazon’s $1.5 billion air cargo hub in Northern Kentucky opened Wednesday, the latest effort by the e-commerce giant to connect a network of 40 sites and control all aspects of delivery as demand for speed and convenience accelerates. The Amazon Air Hub operations, located at the Cincinnati/N

OpenAI upgrades its natural language AI coder Codex and kicks off private beta

OpenAI has already made some big changes to Codex, the AI-powered coding assistant the company announced last month. The system now accepts commands in plain English and outputs live, working code, letting someone build a game or web app without so much as naming a variable. A few lucky coders (and

Jerry raises $75M at a $450M valuation to build a car ownership ‘super app’

Just months after raising $28 million, Jerry announced today that it has raised $75 million in a Series C round that values the company at $450 million. Existing backer Goodwater Capital doubled down on its investment in Jerry, leading the “oversubscribed” round. Bow Capital, Kamerra, Highland

Oh hey, Xiaomi has its own creepy robot dog now

Xiaomi has today announced the CyberDog, an open-source quadruped robot intended for developers to “build upon” and create applications for. The machine, which resembles a beefier version of Boston Dynamics' Spot, is a showcase for Xiaomi's engineering know-how, including its proprietar

Salesforce’s Kathy Baxter is coming to TC Sessions: SaaS to talk AI

As the use of AI has grown and developed over the last several years, companies like Salesforce have tried to tap into it to improve their software and help customers operate faster and more efficiently. Kathy Baxter, principal architect for the ethical AI practice at Salesforce, will be joining us

Upscribe, raising $4M, wants to drive subscription-first DTC brand growth

Upscribe founder and CEO Dileepan Siva watched the retail industry make a massive shift to subscription e-commerce for physical products over the past decade, and decided to get in it himself in 2019. The Los Angeles-based company, developing subscription software for direct-to-consumer e-commerce