Indonesia bans another popular smartphone

Plus: Apple acquires Pixelmator

View this email online in your browser By Rebecca Szkutak Friday, November 1, 2024 Welcome to TC PM! Today we're looking at why Indonesia banned another phone; we dive into Apple's acquisition of Pixelmator; and we get the lowdown on a new app that helps people gather information before heading to the polls. Have a great weekend! TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg / Getty Images 👀 Indonesia cracks down: Indonesia has banned the sale of Google Pixel smartphones in the country after the company failed to meet domestic content requirements. This might sound familiar: The country banned iPhones earlier this week. Read more 🍏 Apple picks up Pixelmator: Pixelmator announced today that it's getting acquired by Apple. The deal terms for the photo-editing app weren't disclosed. The company was founded in 2007 and has always been exclusively available on Apple products. Read more 🗳️ Get out the vote: A new app launched today that's meant to help people get out and vote by providing relevant information. For example, My Ballot Ai lets users fill out sample ballots and find credible information about the election. Read more Afternoon must-reads Image Credits: Tetra Images / Getty Images 🔨 Building for good: Can companies do good for the planet and still deliver strong returns? They can, but it's not easy, according to a panel at TechCrunch Disrupt. Read more 🫤 But I thought AI was for good? Chinese research scientists linked to the People's Liberation Army used Meta's Llama 2 model to create a military-focused chatbot. As Kyle Wiggers writes, "This is sure to fuel the debate over the merits and risks of open AI." Read more 🏡 Homebuying help: Buying a house is a complicated financial decision that's incredibly hard to figure out if you haven't done it before. Further wants to help, and it launched its first product, a mortgage and fee calculator, today. Read more 📋 Let's get organized: Instagram is rolling out a new feature that will allow users to sort and filter their inbound message requests. This is meant to help users who get a lot of inbound messages like creators and influencers. I'll admit I'm surprised this didn't already exist. Read more 🥤 Teen takeover: If you were to guess what one of the largest growing cybersecurity threats to companies is, would you have said bored, persistent teenagers? You should have! We've got notes from experts on how they are dealing with teens. Read more 🧵 All in one place: Openvibe is an app that launched this summer that lets you see your social posts from platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky in one combined feed. Now the company is adding Threads to the mix. Read more Around the web ✔️ Cautious vote counters: Former president Donald Trump's inaccurate claims of a rigged 2020 election put voting tech companies like Dominion and Smartmatic under scrutiny. Now they are prepping for next week's election in a way they never thought they'd have to. Read more 🔍 Speaking of the election: Fake videos have started circling on X that show undocumented individuals voting for Kamala Harris in Georgia. Today, multiple U.S. officials released a statement that this was targeted misinformation from pro-Russia groups. Read more Featured jobs from Crunchboard Senior Data Warehouse SQL Developer, Washington Dept. of Natural Resources (Olympia, WA) Pharmacy Epic Application Analyst, OFFSITE (Toppenish, WA) Chief Technology Officer, Mary McDowell Friends School (Brooklyn, NY) Senior Software Engineer, Dyna Robotics (San Francisco, CA) IT Technology Analyst, Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (Middletown, PA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.   Check out some of our other newsletters: Startups Weekly TechCrunch AI TechCrunch Mobility Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy

Amazon hints at a smarter, more capable Alexa

Plus: OpenAI slowed by lack of compute capacity

View this email online in your browser By Rebecca Bellan Friday, November 1, 2024 Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we have details of Amazon's plans for a smarter Alexa, smartphone maker Nothing possibly building an OS, and OpenAI getting slowed down by reality. We also have notes on Oura's latest acquisition, AI-generated video games, Meta's aim to increase AI slop on the internet, and the very real problems of the people building Saudi Arabia's NEOM urban area. — Rebecca TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images 1. OpenAI cannot compute: The AI company's CEO Sam Altman says it can't ship products as often as it would like to because it simply doesn't have enough compute capacity. Astounding, given how much the company has spent on AI infrastructure, but maybe it's a sign that going a tad slower with this revolutionary technology would be better, and more realistic, for everyone. Read More 2. Will Alexa get smarter? Amazon CEO Andy Jassy hinted that it's working on a smarter, better version of Alexa that could take actions on a user's behalf. It's interesting the company is doubling down on Alexa despite losing billions on both the assistant and related devices. Read More  3. Time to disrupt the mobile OS market: Carl Pei, founder and CEO of Nothing, confirmed that the company is exploring building its own mobile operating system. The OS, he says, could bring in a new revenue stream for the company while making an impact. Read More   A Message from Golub Capital How software companies can preserve valuation in a "down round" environment Golub Growth provides an array of flexible debt and equity solutions to fuel software companies' growth and M&A plans - without impairing their current valuation. Explore our growth capital solutions for SaaS companies. Learn More   Morning must-reads Anu Duggal, founding partner, Female Founders Fund. Image Credits: Noam Galai / Getty Images ✊ Return of the mack: The Female Founders Fund has returned its $5.85 million Fund I after ten years. It might not seem like a lot, but it's great news that will boost the optics of investing in women founders across Silicon Valley. That is, for those who aren't blinded by the backlash against all things DEI. Read More 💍 One ring maker to bind them: Oura has acquired Sparta Science, a health tracking startup, marking the smart ring maker's third acquisition in two years. Sparta's health platform Trinsic tracks health vitals for enterprise clients, and will be integrated into Oura Business. Read More ⛴️ Lift all the boats: BBG Ventures has raised a new $60 million fund to support founders from "diverse backgrounds" — and that covers gender, race, age, and class. The fund usually supports only women, but is opening it up as funding to underprivileged and underrepresented founders continues to decline. Read More 🎮 AI's coming for games, too: Decart has emerged from stealth with $21 million in funding and what it's claiming is the first playable "open-world" AI model that generates a Minecraft-like game on the fly. But TC's Kyle Wiggers says it's not really there yet. Read More 🇨🇳 Sanctions go both ways: Dronemaker Skydio is having a hard time securing its battery supply after it was sanctioned by China. The company supplies drones to Ukraine and Taiwan, but still relies on Chinese batteries. Skydio's CEO Adam Bry said the sanctions are an attempt to "eliminate the leading American drone company." Read More Around the web 🚗 Mud-slinging in EV Land: At TechCrunch Disrupt this week, Zoox's CTO Jesse Levinson fired shots at Tesla's non-full-self-driving software, saying it was nowhere near ready yet. Elon fired back, reports Benzinga, saying on X that Zoox would be dead if Amazon hadn't bought it. Read More 🤖 Bring on the AI slop: 404 Media has a deep dive into Meta's new goal to flood the web with AI slop after Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook and Instagram would get "a whole new category of content, which is AI generated or AI summarized…or existing content pulled together by AI in some way." Hats off to 404 for the headline, a nod to Ilya Sutskever's since-deleted post on X upon leaving OpenAI. Read More 👀 Vision 2030? A new documentary has revealed that 21,000 laborers have died trying to bring to life Saudi Vision 2030, which includes the NEOM urban area and the Line, per The Architect's Newspaper. Workers say they are "trapped slaves," and there are countless reports of human rights abuses. Read More Before you go Image Credits: da-kuk / Getty Images 🎰 Who are you betting for? In today's review of Late Stage Capitalism Hellscape, investors are literally throwing money at Kalshi, an exchange that lets people bet on cultural events. And they're betting hard on the U.S. presidential election. Read More Featured jobs from Crunchboard Senior Data Warehouse SQL Developer, Washington Dept. of Natural Resources (Olympia, WA) Pharmacy Epic Application Analyst, OFFSITE (Toppenish, WA) Chief Technology Officer, Mary McDowell Friends School (Brooklyn, NY) Senior Software Engineer, Dyna Robotics (San Francisco, CA) IT Technology Analyst, Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (Middletown, PA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.   Check out some of our other newsletters: Startups Weekly TechCrunch AI TechCrunch Mobility Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 110 5th St,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy