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Kira Kim

Kira Kim is a science journalist with a background in biology and a passion for environmental issues. She is known for her clear and concise writing, as well as her ability to bring complex scientific concepts to life for a general audience.

$24.7M Raised by Finmid to Facilitate Loan Access for SMBs via Platforms like Wolt

Finmid Co Founders Former N26 Employees Max Schertel And Alexander Talkanitsa
The round values the company at €100 million ($107 million), post money. But finmid believes it has the potential to lock in more business specifically in its home region. Unlike a bank, Wolt has access to the restaurants’ sales history, and finmid helps it leverage that data to decide who will see a pre-approved financing offer. The working capital doesn’t come from Wolt, but from finmid’s financing partners. For a platform like Wolt, embedding finmid is a way to make life easier for restaurants while generating additional revenue without much additional effort.

“Integrating AI-Focused Data Management and Differential Privacy: The Power of PVML”

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PVML is offering an interesting solution by combining a ChatGPT-like tool for analyzing data with the safety guarantees of differential privacy. It’s much easier, faster and more efficient — and our secret sauce, differential privacy, enables this integration very easily.”Differential privacy is far from a new concept. The team argues that today’s data access solutions are ineffective and create a lot of overhead. The promise of using differential privacy means that PVML’s users don’t have to make changes to the original data. “That’s a taste of things to come, and organizations who adopt AI today will be a step ahead tomorrow.

Apple Removes Game Boy Emulator from App Store for Violating Rules, But Stands by Decision to Permit Game Emulators

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Apple has removed iGBA, a Game Boy emulator app for the iPhone, after approving its launch over the weekend. First launched on Sunday, iGBA was an ad-supported copy of the open-source project GBA4iOS that offered a Game Boy game emulator for iOS. The new app worked as described, allowing users to download both Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color ROMs from the web and then open them in the app to play. The Cupertino-based tech giant has been pushed to make the App Store more open thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). Following an update to its App Store rules to comply with the new regulation, Apple had announced it would also allow streaming game stores globally.

OpenAI to Establish New Tokyo Office, Tesla’s Workforce Reduction Impacts Thousands of Employees

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Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast and airs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads at @EquityPod. For the full interview transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, read on, or check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.

EU Privacy Protection: Groups Urge Meta to Abandon ‘Consent or Payment’ Strategy

Meta Brands Glitch
Additionally, in a notable step last month, the European Union opened a formal investigation into whether Meta’s tactic breaches obligations that apply to Facebook and Instagram under the competition-focused Digital Markets Act (DMA). The Board’s opinion on “consent or pay” is expected to provide guidance on how the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) should be applied in this area. It’s worth noting the Board’s opinion will look at “consent or pay” generally, rather than specifically investigating Meta’s deployment. Nor is Meta the only service provider pushing “consent or pay” on users. “However, the current ‘Consent or Pay’ model sets in stone a coercive dynamic, leaving users without an actual choice.

Maximize Your Network: How Draftboard Connects Companies and Referral Bonuses for All Users

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Companies that offer role referral bonuses do so with the assumption that their employees know their work culture — and a role’s requirements — best. But what if companies were to open up those referral bonuses to people outside the organization? Draftboard lets employers post referral bonuses and have referrers compete to earn them by scouring their networks for talent. Free for companies, Draftboard notifies its roughly 1,000 referrers — in Draftboard’s parlance, “scouts” — as referrals move through the different stages of companies’ recruiting processes. Referrers are graded on the quality of their referrals, and Draftboard takes a 20% cut of each referral bonus.

Tesla Cuts Global Workforce by Over 10%

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Tesla is laying off thousands of employees as it tries to simultaneously cut costs and boost productivity, according to an internal email sent to staff by CEO Elon Musk, Electrek and Bloomberg News reported. The electric automaker is cutting “more than 10%” of its global headcount, Musk said in the email. Tesla finished 2023 with over 140,000 employees, meaning the cuts could impact more than 14,000 people. The company has warned investors that sales growth could be “notably lower” in 2024 than its stated goal of 50% growth each year. This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle,” Musk wrote.

“Tokyo Hub Welcomes OpenAI: Introducing GPT-4 Model Specifically Designed for Japanese Language”

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OpenAI is expanding to Japan, with the opening of a new Tokyo office and plans for a GPT-4 model optimized specifically for the Japanese language. Japan is the current G7 chair and President of the G7’s Hiroshima AI Process, an initiative to promote AI safety, including stronger AI governance. EnterprisingAs president of OpenAI Japan, Nagasaki will be tasked with building a local team on the ground to double down on OpenAI’s business in the country. OpenAI says ChatGPT is also being used by local governments to “improve the efficiency of public services in Japan.”ChatGPT has long been conversant in multiple languages, including Japanese. For now, OpenAI is giving early access to the GPT-4 custom model to some local businesses, with access gradually opened up via the OpenAI API “in the coming months.”

Valuation of ShareChat falls below $2B in latest round of funding

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Social media startup ShareChat’s valuation has cratered below $2 billion from nearly $5 billion in a new funding round, a source familiar with the situation told TechCrunch, marking a steep decline for the nine-year-old Indian startup that boasts over 400 million users in the South Asian market. It did not disclose the valuation at which the funds were raised but strongly denied that its new valuation was below $2 billion, asserting there was “no valuation” attached to the round. Existing investors including Lightspeed, Temasek, Alkeon Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures and HarbourVest have invested in the new round, the startup said. Their debt will convert to equity at a valuation below $2 billion in the next round, according to a source with direct knowledge of the terms. ShareChat was valued at $4.9 billion in a funding round it raised in mid-2022.

“Revolutionizing Socialization: The Innovative Airchat by Naval Ravikant”

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Currently invite-only, Airchat is already ranked #27 in social networking on Apple’s App Store. The difference is that the posts and replies are audio recordings, which the app then transcribes. When you open Airchat, messages automatically start playing, and you quickly cycle through them by swiping up and down. After joining Airchat this morning, most of the posts I saw were about the app itself, with Ravikant and Norgard answering questions and soliciting feedback. “Humans are all meant to get along with other humans, it just requires the natural voice,” Ravikant said.