Activity tracking platform and community Strava is shutting down Fatmap, the Europe-based 3D mapping platform it acquired last January. In an email sent to users this week, accompanied by an online support page, Fatmap said that its website and app will be retired from October 1, 2024, and users will get an option to transfer…
Formation Bio, a startup focused on applying AI to drug development with backing from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has raised over a quarter-billion dollars to support its ambitious product roadmap. Formation announced Wednesday that it raised $372 million in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from drug maker Sanofi, Sequoia,…
Can chatbots replace human therapists? Some startups — and patients — claim that they can. But it’s not exactly settled science. One study found that 80% of people who’ve used OpenAI’s ChatGPT for mental health advice consider it a good alternative to regular therapy, while a separate report found that chatbots can be effective in…
Instagram’s Twitter/X rival Threads is furthering its expansion into the fediverse — the interconnected social network that includes apps like Mastodon, PeerTube and others running the ActivityPub protocol. On Tuesday, Meta announced that it’s now opening up its beta for sharing to the fediverse to Threads users who are 18 and up and who are…
You can barely go an hour these days without reading about generative AI. While we are still in the embryonic phase of what some have dubbed the “steam engine” of the fourth industrial revolution, there’s little doubt that “GenAI” is shaping up to transform just about every industry — from finance and healthcare to law…
The European Union has announced the winners of a “Large AI Grand Challenge” it kicked off earlier this year in a bid to accelerate the pace of homegrown innovation by large-scale AI model makers. Four startups will share €1 million in prize money and, perhaps more importantly, 8 million GPU hours to train their models…
Video editing app Captions, which is backed by a16z, Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital, has launched a new feature that takes an existing unedited video and adds custom graphics, zooms, music, sound effects, transitions and motion backgrounds based on the content. There are a few restrictions for AI edit — it should be a vertical…
The airline industry is headed for record revenue this year — $996 billion — as the demand for travel soars. But the margins remain razor-thin. According to the trade association IATA, total expenses for airlines are projected to reach $936 billion, with earnings coming out to around $6.14 per passenger. That’s about the price of…
Joseph Phillips and William Corbera, both of whom come from entrepreneurial backgrounds, have been friends for over a decade. Corbera co-founded RevoPay, a payments processing platform that was acquired by payments solutions firm OSG in 2022. Phillips, for his part, led the national sales team at Seamless before heading up sales at ServiceTitan, a web-based…
The Department of Justice has charged a Russian civilian with conspiracy to destroy Ukrainian government computer systems as part of a widespread hacking effort by Russia ahead of its illegal invasion of Ukraine. U.S. prosecutors in Maryland said Wednesday that Amin Stigal, 22, is wanted for helping to set up servers used by Russian government…
