Over the weekend, Neel Somani, who is a software engineer, former quant researcher, and a startup founder, was testing the math skills of OpenAI’s new model when he made an unexpected discovery. After pasting the problem into ChatGPT and letting it think for 15 minutes, he came back to a full solution. He evaluated the proof and formalized it with a tool called Harmonic — but it all checked out.  “I was curious to establish a baseline for when LLMs are effectively able to solve open math problems compared to where they struggle,” Somani said. The surprise was that, using…

Google announced Wednesday the launch of a revamped Trends Explore page, now featuring Gemini-powered capabilities that automatically identify and compare trends related to your searches. The update is rolling out on desktop starting today. The Trends Explore page has long served as a valuable tool for content creators, journalists, and researchers, making it easy to analyze search interest for any topic over time, across regions, and by category. The new Gemini experience streamlines much of the manual work involved in exploring trending topics, reducing research time, and surfacing connections that users might otherwise overlook. The redesigned Explore page now features…

The music distribution platform Bandcamp announced in a Reddit post on Tuesday that it’s banning AI-generated music and audio. “We want musicians to keep making music, and for fans to have confidence that the music they find on Bandcamp was created by humans,” the company said. Bandcamp’s new guidelines state that music and audio generated “wholly or in substantial part by AI” is not permitted, and that it will not allow the use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles. So, if Drake had released “Taylor Made Freestyle” on Bandcamp, he would’ve had a problem (and maybe it…

Google announced on Wednesday that it’s launching a new beta feature in the Gemini app that allows the AI assistant to tailor its responses by connecting across your Google ecosystem, starting with Gmail, Photos, Search, and YouTube history. Although Gemini could already retrieve information from these apps, it can now reason across your data to provide proactive results, such as connecting a thread in your emails to a video you watched. Google says this means Gemini understands context without being told where to look. The tech giant notes that this beta experience, called Personal Intelligence, is off by default, as…

Tesla is removing the option to pay a one-time fee for its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) driver assistance software, CEO Elon Musk announced Wednesday. Going forward, the only way to access the feature will be through a monthly subscription The change represents a major break from how Tesla has sold access to the advanced driver assistance suite over the years. It’s also a decision that could have an impact on Tesla’s bottom line, Musk’s ability to unlock the full value of his $1 trillion pay package, and the company’s ever-swirling legal troubles. And it comes as many other global automakers are…

Nicholas Leonard and Derek Caneja wanted to build AI voice agents, but when they went to build the product, they felt many of these voice agents had design flaws.  Some of these agents were being built with no-code tools, meaning shipping to production was fast, but the quality of the product was often low. Other agents were being made by companies that had the time and resources to spend months building specialized tools. “Developers and enterprises needed an alternative,” Leonard told TechCrunch, adding that he and Caneja also realized that the future of software would be “coded, validated, and optimized…

Meta is laying off 10% of staff in its Reality Labs division, which is core to developing the company’s VR and metaverse products, the New York Times reported. The publication noted that Reality Labs had roughly 15,000 employees, and the job cuts could impact over 1,000 people. Separately, CNBC reported that the company plans to shut down studios such as Armature Studio, Twisted Pixel, and Sanzaru, along with a technical unit called Oculus Studios Central Technology, which was working on VR titles. Business Insider reported that the company’s CTO and head of Reality Labs, Andrew Bosworth, called for the “most…

There are thousands of satellites orbiting the Earth, and an increasing number of them are able to capture all types of images in near real time. It used to be a somewhat cumbersome process to access those images. But Austin-based startup SkyFi has built a platform that acts as a sort of “Getty Images” for more than 50 geospatial imagery partners that has proven popular in the worlds of finance, defense, infrastructure, and insurance — to name a few. That popularity escalated as SkyFi began offering more analytics and insights to its customers through its website and mobile app, along…

Brazil’s competition watchdog has ordered WhatsApp to put on hold its policy that bars third-party AI companies from using its business API to offer chatbots on the app. The agency has also started an investigation against the company to determine if the policy is anti-competitive. “According to the investigations, there is possible anti-competitive conduct of an exclusive nature that arises from the application of the New WhatsApp Terms (“WhatsApp Business Solution Terms”) imposed by Meta to regulate the access and offer, by providers of artificial intelligence tools, of its technologies to WhatsApp users,” the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE) said. CADE said it would investigate if Meta’s terms are exclusionary to…

Superorganism launched in 2023 as what it claims is the first venture capital firm focused on biodiversity, aiming to serve as the conservationist on the cap table for nature-friendly startups. Now, the firm has closed its first fund, securing $25.9 million in capital commitments from Cisco Foundation, AMB Holdings, and Builders Vision, among others, along with individuals like Jeff Jordan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Superorganism backs companies across three categories: tech that slows or reverses extinction, startups that operate at the intersection of climate and biodiversity, and tools that enable conservationists to do their work more effectively. The firm…