Burning questions (and some answers) about Bluesky’s new verification system

Bluesky’s launch of a verification system has raised a slew of questions among its user base, from who will be picked — and why — to what outside organizations might be involved and whether the self-verification process will end. technewss has some answers. After a leak last week, Blues

Meta releases its CapCut rival Edits globally

Meta announced on Tuesday that it’s officially launching Edits, its CapCut-like video-creation app. Releasing globally, Edits will allow creators to do things like keep track of video ideas, get inspiration for new content, and create videos with effects and AI tools. The app is available on

Ex-Meta engineer raises $14M to help home services unlock call center revenue with AI

As an AI engineer at Meta, Boris Valkov helped build PyTorch, one of the world's largest machine learning libraries. During his time there, Valkov realized that artificial intelligence “was about to unlock capabilities…in the application layer in the software stack.” He

India’s EV startup Ather cuts IPO size to $308M, seeking $1.4B post-money valuation

Ather Energy, the Indian startup manufacturing electric two-wheelers, has cut the size of its initial public offer by 18% to 26.26 billion Indian rupees ($308.3 million), according to a new draft prospectus filed Tuesday. The Bengaluru-based startup confirmed to technewss that it’s targetin

Two undergrads built an AI speech model to rival NotebookLM

A pair of undergrads, neither with extensive AI expertise, say that they’ve created an openly available AI model that can generate podcast-style clips similar to Google’s NotebookLM. The market for synthetic speech tools is vast and growing. ElevenLabs is one of the largest players, bu

Adaptive Computer wants to reinvent the PC with 'vibe' coding for non-programmers

Dennis Xu is a repeat tech startup founder, but he's the first to admit he's not a programmer.  After co-founding AI note-taking app Mem — one of OpenAI's earliest venture investments — he has now launched a new startup called Adaptive Computer.  Its grandios

Uber customers can now earn Delta SkyMiles from rides or deliveries

Delta SkyMiles members in the United States can now start earning points when they ride with Uber or order delivery through Uber Eats as part of a recently announced exclusive partnership between the two companies.  The tie-up with Delta is designed to further align the ride-hail giant with a

Superpower wants to help people detect and address health issues before symptoms appear

A startup called Superpower is publicly launching what it calls the world's first super app that is designed to help people better understand and take care of their health. For $499, the startup offers biannual lab testing that analyzes over 100 blood biomarkers across 21 categories, giving pe

Crowdsourced AI benchmarks have serious flaws, some experts say

AI labs are increasingly relying on crowdsourced benchmarking platforms such as Chatbot Arena to probe the strengths and weaknesses of their latest models. But some experts say that there are serious problems with this approach from an ethical and academic perspective. Over the past few years, lab

Social media is not wholly terrible for teen mental health, study says

We know that social media can be harmful to teens. Meta has found in its own research that Instagram makes body image worse for one in three teen girls, and Snapchat has been sued several times for not doing enough to mitigate cyberbullying. Even the former U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory o

Manychat taps $140M to boost its business messaging platform with AI

Chatbots and other kinds of AI agents may feel like a dime a dozen these days. But the truth is that, for both businesses and consumers, some may be infinitely more useful (and perhaps less dystopian) than others. Today, a startup that's built a successful business around that concept is annou

Rivian elects Cohere’s CEO to its board in latest signal the EV maker is bullish on AI

Aidan Gomez, the co-founder and CEO of generative AI startup Cohere, has joined the board of EV maker Rivian, according to a regulatory filing. The appointment is the latest sign that Rivian sees promises in applying AI to its own venture while positioning itself as a software leader — and even p

Tomorrow: Join Ali Ghodsi and Dario Amodei for a fireside chat

Join this free virtual event, featuring Ali Ghodsi, the trailblazing co-founder and CEO of Databricks, alongside Dario Amodei, the pioneering co-founder and CEO of Anthropic. Uncover how their revolutionary collaboration is poised to fast-track the advancement of domain-specific AI agents. Not o

Columbia student suspended over interview cheating tool raises $5.3M to ‘cheat on everything’

On Sunday, 21-year-old Chungin “Roy” Lee announced he's raised $5.3 million in seed funding from Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures for his startup, Cluely, that offers an AI tool to “cheat on everything.” The startup was born after Lee posted in a viral X thread that he was s