Hello dear friends, and welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular roundup of noteworthy events in tech over the past few days. Our team on the ground at CES 2024 had a lot to report on the show — and there’s more on the way. (Here are comprehensive summaries of all the announcements.) But the world hasn’t stopped turning to CES.
In this edition of WiR, we cover Karta’s allegedly unethical tactics, Samsung’s Ballie home robot, Volkswagen’s introduction of ChatGPT into its cars, and Amazon’s adoption of more productive AI. Also on the agenda are the launch of OpenAI’s GPT Store, Logan Paul’s CryptoZoo debacle, Harvard’s robot exoskeleton, and the major hack at Fidelity Financial.
There’s a lot to get through, so we won’t delay. But first, a reminder to sign up here to receive WiR in your inbox every Saturday if you haven’t already.
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Karta ethics in question: Carta, a cap table management company, has been accused of unethical tactics by startup Linear’s CEO, Kari Saarinen. Saarinen alleged in a LinkedIn post that Carta misused sensitive information entrusted to the company by startups in pursuit of its own goals. Carta decided to exit secondary trading after credibility was damaged.
Ballie’s return from Samsung: Remember Ballie, Samsung’s spherical home robot that showed up at CES 2020? Samsung brought it back to this year’s keynote with some hot AI upgrades. The new and improved Ballie is about the size of a bowling ball, has a 1080p display and a spatial lidar sensor to help it navigate rooms and obstacles.
Volkswagen cars get ChatGPT: Volkswagen is getting into the ChatGPT game. The German automaker on Monday announced plans to add an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot to all Volkswagen models equipped with its IDA voice assistant. Why? For drivers who want an AI chatbot to read their searched content out loud to them, of course.
Amazon, GenAI and clothing: Having recently turned to generative AI to improve its product reviews, Amazon this week shared how it is now using AI to help customers shop for clothes online. The company uses personalized size recommendations, a Fit Insights tool for sellers, AI-powered features from fit reviews left by other customers, and reimagined size charts to enable customers to find better-fitting clothing on Amazon’s marketplace.
OpenAI’s GPT store: OpenAI has launched a store for GPTs, custom chatbot applications powered by text- and image-generating AI models (e.g., GPT-4 and DALL-E 3). The GPT Store, as it’s called, resides in a new tab in the ChatGPT web client and features a collection of GPTs developed by OpenAI partners and the broader developer community.
CryptoZoo Recovery. . . maybe: Logan Paul is offering refunds for CryptoZoo, the failed and scammed-out Pokémon-inspired NFT game he launched in 2021. The catch? You can’t sue him if you get your money back. Morgan has the full story.
New day, new exoskeleton: A joint team from Harvard University and Boston University has developed a soft robotic exoskeleton that detects movement and uses algorithms to estimate a pedestrian’s gait. Cable-actuated motors assist in walking halfway. If promising early results are any indication, it’s possible that this new technology could one day be commercialized, Brian writes.
Fidelity breakthrough: Real estate services giant Fidelity National Financial confirmed that hackers stole data on 1.3 million of its clients during a cyberattack in November that knocked the company offline for a week. In a filing with federal regulators, Fidelity did not say what specific customer data was stolen — but, Zack wrote, all signs point to it being personal or sensitive in nature.
KYC and GenAI: KYC, or Know Your Customer, is a process aimed at helping financial institutions, fintech startups and banks verify the identity of their customers. It is not uncommon for KYC authentication to include “photo ID,” or verified photos of themselves to confirm who they say they are. But GenAI can sow doubt in these checks.
Twitch layoffs: Another round of layoffs hits Twitch. The Amazon-owned streaming platform will cut 35% of its staff, or nearly 500 employees — the latest blow to the already beleaguered company, which cut hundreds of jobs last year amid leadership changes, rising operating costs and community discontent.
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on justiceIn Wednesday’s newly revamped episode, the crew delved into the news that PhotoRoom is raising more money, Treasure Financial is cutting staff, and two micromobility companies are tying the knot to try to use scale to their advantage. They also looked at what’s happening in the world of AI hardware, why Keith Rabois is returning to Khosla Ventures, and Seedstars Africa Ventures is adding $30 million to its upcoming fund.
Meanwhile, people in is found He spoke with Marcus Witt, co-founder of Babbel, a language learning app that has been in operation since 2007. Marcus talked about why he decided to step down as CEO and take on the role of Chairman of the Board and how the four founders worked together to stick to Babbel’s original mission even after nearly 20 years .
and on Chain reaction, Jacqueline interviewed Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale Investments. Grayscale is a digital asset investment firm that aims to provide products and services to institutional and retail investors; It is best known for its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and now its new Bitcoin ETF product.
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TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and polls – which you know about if you’re already a subscriber. If not, consider subscribing. Here are some highlights from this week:
Siri’s dilemma: Hage writes that Apple’s Siri system needs to get smarter, and fast — lest competitors leave it in the dust (assuming it hasn’t already).
Companies skeptical of GenAI: Generative AI is getting a lot of press, from image generation tools like Midjourney to Runway to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. But companies are not convinced that technology can positively impact their bottom lines; At least, that’s what surveys indicate.
Trillion-dollar liquidity gap: How supportive are venture capital markets today? The value of more mature U.S. startups that need to find a way out is approaching the $1 trillion mark by the third quarter of 2023, according to Alex — a huge (and growing) problem.