California governor vetoes controversial AI bill SB 1047

Also: Fidelity cuts value of its stake in X again

View this email online in your browser By Rebecca Bellan Monday, September 30, 2024 Welcome to TechCrunch AM! We've got tons of insights from founders and investors today about everything from why to go open-source and when to sell your company, to how to set up your podcast studio. We've also got notes on the fate of California's contentious AI bill, X's drastic valuation drop, a new AI camera, more funding for food delivery, Epic's latest lawsuit, and why being a for-profit company won't be so easy for OpenAI. Let's dive in! — Rebecca TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images 1. Gavin Newsom pulls a Gandalf: Over the weekend, the California governor vetoed AI bill SB 1047, which would have regulated the development of AI, saying it focused too narrowly on large AI systems that could "give the public a false sense of security." It's a win for opponents of the bill like OpenAI and Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun. Read More  2. Bouncing back to your roots: Elastic threw a curveball last month when it said it would go from proprietary licensing back to open source. "And to be honest, it's for a very selfish reason — I love open source," Shay Banon, co-founder and CTO, told TechCrunch. Read More 3. M&A or IPO? How do you know when it's time to take an acquisition offer or hold on and try to go public? Kevin Ryan, a tech investor and entrepreneur who helped build DoubleClick, the adtech platform that Google bought, lays down some key insights. Read More   Sponsored by Bank of America What's next for tech companies Read the latest insights on how tech companies can manage the challenge of raising capital and what they can do to keep growing. Read Now   Morning Must-Reads Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch 🎙️ How Hyperfixed's Alex Goldman podcasts: Everybody seems to be starting a podcast these days. Goldman, who co-founded the Reply All podcast, walked us through his 8'x8' "torture closet" in the basement of his apartment. Read More 📉 X's value down 79% since Musk's $44B purchase: Fidelity is now valuing its stake in X at about $4.19 million, down from its initial investment of about $19.66 million. The mark-down implies Fidelity values the social media company at about $9.4 billion overall. Read More 📷 CameraPi: Raspberry Pi, the maker of tiny, cheap, single-board computers, is releasing an AI camera add-on for $70 that comes with on-board AI processing. In other words, the startup just opened itself up to a world of new AI clients. Read More 🐼 Hungry for cash: HungryPanda, the food-delivery app that serves the Asian diaspora, has snagged $55 million to double down on its core product and expand into groceries. Read More 👯 Acquiring a safe space: Lex, the social and dating app for LGBTQ+ people, has been acquired by app conglomerate 9count. The conglomerate is led by Alex Hoffman, former CEO of Musical.ly (TikTok before ByteDance bought it), who wants to create "vertical social networks that empower communities." Read More   Sponsored by Radar The #1 Geolocation Platform | Geofencing & Maps Geofencing, maps, and geolocation compliance, all in a modern, cost-effective platform. Thousands of companies trust Radar's APIs and SDKs to power location-based experiences across hundreds of millions of devices globally. Learn why Radar is the preferred location solution for forward-thinking product, digital and engineering teams.  Learn More   Around the Web 🎮 Epic is not done filing lawsuits: This time, the video game publisher is accusing Google and Samsung of conspiring to protect Google's Play Store from competition, reports Reuters. This comes after an earlier face-off with Google and Apple over their 30% app store commission charges. Read More 🔮 Out of the clink and ready for action: Crypto billionaire and Binance founder Changpeng Chao has been released from U.S. custody, and he says he will continue investing in the blockchain sector, as well as AI and biotech, according to Bloomberg. Read More 💰 Changing sides isn't always easy: OpenAI wants to turn into a for-profit company, but how that sausage gets made will be enormously complex, according to a Wall Street Journal report. OpenAI only has two years to do it. Read More Before You Go Image Credits: Brian Heater 📱 Going back to the Fold: Foldable smartphones are making a comeback, if TC's Brian Heater is to be believed. Google's new Pixel 9 Pro Fold is bigger and better than ever if you find yourself in need of more screen real estate frequently: "When unfolded, this thing is ultimately a tablet." Read More Featured jobs from Crunchboard Senior Data Scientist, IEEE (Piscataway, NJ) IT Director, the Quaker School at Horsham (Horsham, PA) General Manager, airSlate (Brookline, MA) Data Manager, Murmuration (Remote) Director of Marketing and Communications, AidKit (Remote) 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? tips@techcrunch.com 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

Robot hands, but creepier

A Sudanese startup incubator returns amid civil war

View this email online in your browser By Anthony Ha Sunday, September 29, 2024 Image Credits: EPFL (screenshot) Sure, you've seen videos of robots. Maybe even videos of robot hands. But what about a robot hand that can detach from its arm, crawl forward, and grab objects? Well now you can, thanks to a research paper that debuted at IEEE's International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Rotterdam this week. Brian Heater notes that the stated goal was less about being creepy and more about demonstrating how robot designs could look beyond nature for inspiration. The team behind the paper and demo boasted about a deep learning model with "significantly advanced dexterous manipulation techniques for multi-fingered hand grasping" — but they also admitted you've probably seen similar nightmare fuel in horror movies. Keep reading to see what else TechCrunch is covering this weekend. Weekend news and opinion Image Credits: Savannah A displaced startup incubator returns to Sudan: Annie Njanja tells the story of how Savannah Innovation Labs founder Yousif Yahya was forced to flee to Egypt after the outbreak of civil war — but now he's rebuilt operations in Cairo and eastern Sudan. Read more Index Ventures is growing its team in NYC: Good news for New York startups? Index partner Shardul Shah tells Rebecca Szkutak that the firm plans to hire three or four new team members in the next year: "For a venture fund, that's hypergrowth." Read more The best iPad apps for productivity: While I mostly just use my iPad to read the news and play games, Aisha Malik explains that I could be doing so much more by using apps like Goodnotes, TickTick, and Forest (which, in my defense, I already use on my iPhone). Read more What else we're reading 📕 The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine is an invaluable resource, allowing anyone to excavate web pages as they existed two or five or 15 years ago. But Wired writes that recent legal battles pose an existential threat to the nonprofit. Read more 📕 Also, Casey Newton, author of Platformer, celebrates four years of one of the tech world's best newsletters by looking back at what he's learned since leaving Substack. Read more Before you go 🎬 I'm excited about the upcoming "John Wick" spinoff, but I can't believe its actual, real, official title is "From the World of John Wick: Ballerina." Featured jobs from Crunchboard Senior Data Scientist, IEEE (Piscataway, NJ) IT Director, the Quaker School at Horsham (Horsham, PA) General Manager, airSlate (Brookline, MA) Data Manager, Murmuration (Remote) Director of Marketing and Communications, AidKit (Remote) 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 Events TechCrunch AI TechCrunch Mobility Got a tip? tips@techcrunch.com 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