OpenAI wants its ‘open’ AI model to call models in the cloud for help

For the first time in roughly five years, OpenAI is gearing up to release an AI system that’s truly “open,” meaning it’ll be available for download at no cost and not gated behind an API. technewss reported on Wednesday that OpenAI is aiming for an early summer launch, and

You’re invited to a fireside chat with Baiju Bhatt on Sand Hill Road on June 18 at StrictlyVC

We're thrilled to announce that Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood and founder and CEO of Aetherflux, will be joining us for a rare, intimate fireside chat as part of technewss’s StrictlyVC evening series on June 18 on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park. As with all of our StrictlyVC evenin

Meta conducts layoffs in Oculus Studios, impacting VR exercise app Supernatural

Meta laid off employees on Thursday in its Reality Labs division, which encompasses various virtual and augmented reality projects. The cuts impact employees within Oculus Studios, which develops apps and games for Meta’s Quest headsets. Meta did not specify how many people were impacted by

Threads officially moves to Threads.com and updates its web app

Instagram Threads, Meta’s newest social network and X competitor, is officially relocating from the website Threads.net to Threads.com. The transition will coincide with a handful of quality-of-life improvements for the Threads web app, including features to more easily access custom feeds, s

Flex acquires a16z-backed Maza for $40M as fintech M&A heats up

Flex, a startup that offers personal finance software for business owners, has acquired Maza, a finance app aimed at Spanish speakers in the U.S., for $40 million, the companies told technewss exclusively. At first glance, the pairing may seem a bit curious. Flex's software and payments infra

Within six years, building the leading AI data center may cost $200B

Data centers to train and run AI may soon contain millions of chips, cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and require power equivalent to a large city’s electricity grid, if the current trends hold. That’s according to a new study from researchers at Georgetown, Epoch AI, and Rand, wh

Netflix now offers dialogue-only subtitles

Netflix just introduced a new way to experience subtitles that eliminates the need to read audio cues like “door slams” or “phone rings.”  Announced on Thursday, Netflix's new dialogue-only subtitles can be enabled by going to “Navigate to Audio” and then “Subtitles.” Users wi

Chess.com reaches 200 million members

Chess.com reaches a new membership milestone as it nears its 20th birthday. Chess.com, the online chess platform that was founded in 2005 and launched in 2007, has surpassed 200 million members. Of those 200 million members, 1.5 million are paying users. More than 20 million games of chess are pla

Facebook cracks down on spammy content by cutting reach and monetization

Facebook will begin lowering the reach of accounts sharing spammy content and making them ineligible for monetization, Meta announced on Thursday. The company is also increasing efforts to remove Facebook accounts that coordinate fake engagement and impersonate others, it says. The move comes as

Anthropic is launching a new program to study AI ‘model welfare’

Could future AIs be “conscious,” and experience the world similarly to the way humans do? There’s no strong evidence that they will, but Anthropic isn’t ruling out the possibility. On Thursday, the AI lab announced that it has started a research program to investigate —

Spotify's AI playlist rolls out to Asia and more markets

Spotify announced on Thursday that it expanded the availability of its AI Playlist feature to more than 40 additional markets, including countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean.  The AI-powered tool, currently in beta on Android and iOS devices, lets listeners create personalized pla

RepAir Carbon is making carbon removal machines inspired by batteries

In the span of a decade, direct air capture technology that draws CO2 out of the atmosphere has gone from wildly expensive to somewhat expensive. Companies like Microsoft, which set a target to eliminate its emissions by 2030, are happy to pay more to get the ball rolling. But smaller companies wou

Revolut, the $45B neobank, posts $1B profit in 2024

Revolut, the $45 billion neobanking startup founded in the U.K., may have put its IPO plans on ice, but its balance sheet is looking pretty hot. The company reported net profit of $1 billion (£790 million) in 2024, while its customer base grew by 38% to 52.5 million, according to its annual repor

Dropbox adds new features to Dash, its AI-powered search tool

Companies like Google and Microsoft have equipped their productivity suites with AI features and assistants, while startups such as ClickUp and ReadAI have focused heavily on building AI integrations and search capabilities. In alignment with this growing trend of infusing digital work suites with