Thursday, July 18, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently said a presidential candidate being 'pro-crypto' isn't enough to vote for them, which got us wondering why VCs think otherwise. We also have notes on Italy's probe into Google's consent-seeking mechanisms; SpaceX's rocket that will take down the ISS; the next frontier of generative AI; and how one Canadian company wants to make more realistic NPCs. To work! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: David Paul Morris / Getty Images

1. Ethereum's co-founder warns against "pro-crypto" candidates: A16z founders are backing Trump partly because they want his 'blanket endorsement' of the crypto space. But Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, says voting for a candidate based on their stance with regard to crypto is not the right move. The key questions to ask, Buterin says, are: "Are they in it for the right reasons? Do they have a vision of how technology and politics and the economy should go in the 21st century that aligns with yours?" Read More

2. Dragons will take down the ISS: SpaceX's $843 million spacecraft that will bring down the International Space Station at the end of the decade will be a super-powered version of its Dragon capsule that is used today to transport astronauts and cargo to orbit. SpaceX won the award from NASA because its design for the de-orbit vehicle leverages so much flight-proven hardware. Read More

3. Italy investigates Google's consent mechanism: Italy's competition regulator is investigating how Google gets users' consent to link their activity across different services – like Search, YouTube, Chrome and Maps – for ad profiling. The AGCM said it suspects Google of "unfair commercial practices." Shocking, right? Read More

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Morning must-reads

Image Credits: Natee127 / Getty Images

🤖There's less to transformers than meets the eye: Transformers are at the heart of generative AI models, but they're running up against technical roadblocks because of processing inefficiencies. That's resulting in unsustainable increases in power demand. Thankfully, test-time training (TTT) promises to do more than transformers with less computer power. Could this be the next frontier of generative AI? Read More

💻Deel's latest deal: Payroll provider Deel just completed its third acquisition of the year, buying up Hofy, which manages office equipment for remote hires. A source tells TechCrunch the deal was worth over $100 million. For Deel, this buy sets the foundation for a forthcoming IT-focused product. Read More

🇮🇱 Israel's startup scene is on the rebound: After nine months of war with Hamas, Israel's startup and VC ecosystem is showing signs of resilience, especially in the cybersecurity and AI sectors. Since the start of the year, 11 companies, primarily in those sectors, have been acquired for over $2 billion. Still, the situation isn't all rosy, as VC investments are down 70% YoY in the country. Read More

🎮 Making NPCs more believable: Canada-based Artificial Agency, fresh out of stealth with $16 million, is the latest to try to use generative AI to make NPCs less boring in video games. The startup's behavior engine throws the traditional framework out – where NPCs are guided by decision trees and pre-written scripts. Instead, developers give NPCs a set of motivations, rules and goals to live by. Read More

✍️ One more point for privacy-focused AI: Privacy app maker Proton has launched a new AI-enabled writing assistant that helps users compose emails with simple prompts. The good part here is that you have the option to download the model and run it off your own device, which means none of your data will be sent to any servers. There's also the option of running it off Proton's servers, if you want it to be faster. Read More

🔐Indian crypto exchange gets hacked: Indian crypto platform WazirX said it suffered a breach after about $230 million in assets were "suspiciously transferred" out of its platform. The Mumbai-based firm said it has paused all withdrawals from the platform after the breach, which has been linked to a North Korean hacking group. Read More

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Around the web

⛔Meta is withholding multimodal AI models in Europe due to a lack of clarity from regulators, reports Axios. Apple also said last month that it won't release Apple Intelligence features in Europe because of regulatory concerns. These Meta models are able to reason across video, audio, images and text in a wide range of products, but at issue is the fact that the EU's GDPR laws get in the way of Meta using data from European customers to train its models. Read More

📳Good luck hacking into new iPhones: 404 Media got its hands on some leaked documents that show that Cellebrite, a mobile forensics company, was unable to unlock a sizable chunk of modern iPhones. The company was able to unlock iPhones running a version of iOS that was released nearly five years ago. This analysis comes after the FBI said it was able to gain access to the mobile phone of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the suspected shooter in Trump's assassination attempt. Read More

📉The chips are falling: Global chip stocks, especially those of ASML, Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor, have tanked amid reports of tighter export restrictions from the U.S., reports CNBC. ASML's stock dropped even as it reported Q2 results that beat market expectations. Comments from Trump that Taiwan should pay the U.S. for defense didn't help matters. Read More

Before you go

Image Credits: Dyson

🎧 Dyson's new headphones don't purify air: When you hear Dyson, it's likely you think about something to do with air. But Dyson's engineers are now saying that with 30 years' experience in aeroacoustics, they've "mastered sound physics" with the new OnTrac headphones. Still, it's a break from OnTrac's spiritual predecessor, the Zone, which did in fact purify air while doing an excellent job with audio quality. Read More