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Zara Khan

Zara Khan is a seasoned investigative journalist with a focus on social justice issues. She has won numerous awards for her groundbreaking reporting and has a reputation for fearlessly exposing wrongdoing.

Can India Tackle Election Misinformation? Analyzing Labels and the AI Safety Coalition within its Borders

Content Authenticity Initiative
India, grappling with election misinfo, weighs up labels and its own AI safety coalition An Adobe-backed association wants to help organizations in the country with an AI standardIndia, long in the tooth when it comes to co-opting tech to persuade the public, has become a global hotspot when it comes to how AI is being used, and abused, in political discourse, and specifically the democratic process. Tech companies, who built the tools in the first place, are making trips to the country to push solutions. Using its open standard, the C2PA has developed a digital nutrition label for content called Content Credentials. It also automatically attaches to AI content generated by Adobe’s AI model Firefly. “That’s a little ‘CR’… it’s two western letters like most Adobe tools, but this indicates there’s more context to be shown,” he said.

“SiMa.ai Raises $70M for Unveiling a Next-Generation, Multimodal GenAI Processor”

Krishna Rangasayee Sima Ai Founder
SiMa.ai, named after Seema, the Hindi word for “boundary,” strives to leverage this shift by offering its edge AI SoC to organizations across industrial manufacturing, retail, aerospace, defense, agriculture and healthcare sectors. As the demand for GenAI is growing, SiMa.ai is set to introduce its second-generation ML SoC in the first quarter of 2025 with an emphasis on providing its customers with multimodal GenAI capability. The new SoC will be an “evolutionary change” over its predecessor with “a few architectural tunings” over the existing ML chipset, Rangasayee said. It would work as a single-edge platform for all AI across computer vision, transformers and multimodal GenAI, the startup said. The second-generation chipset will be based on TSMC’s 6nm process technology and include Synopsys EV74 embedded vision processors for pre- and post-processing in computer vision applications.

Customized Keyboard Shortcuts Now Available on ChromeOS

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Google is rolling out the April update to ChromeOS users with features like the ability to customize keyboard shortcuts and mouse button actions. The update also brings improved offline text-to-speech voice support. The ChromeOS M123 update is rolling out to users over the next few days. The main new feature is a way to assign custom keyboard shortcuts to actions. The company said that the keyboard customization shortcut will be enabled by default with the next ChromeOS update M124.

“NASA Selects Three Teams to Develop Revolutionary Moon Buggies”

Intuitive Machines
NASA has given three space companies the chance to design the next generation moon buggy — but only one design will go to space. Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab are developing rugged vehicles intended for astronauts to drive around on the lunar surface, from which NASA may choose as early as next year. The three teams will now enter into a 12-month “feasibility phase” that will culminate in a preliminary design review. NASA declined to specify the dollar value of the awards, though Intuitive Machines said in a statement that it was awarded a $30 million contract. “With NASA’s Artemis campaign, we are building up the capabilities needed to establish a longer-term exploration and presence of the moon,” he said.

“Meta’s Repeat Outage: WhatsApp Experiences Major Service Interruption”

Facebook Glitch6
For the second time in just over a month, Meta’s apps including WhatsApp, and possibly Messenger and Instagram, are facing outages and intermittent issues. WhatsApp also confirmed the outage in an update to its X account. (In our own tests, Meta’s apps were loading and we could send messages via WhatsApp which indicates either the outages were not global in nature or they’ve already been fixed.) This is not the first time Meta’s apps have seen a sizable outage this year. At the time, Meta’s status page had signaled problems with products like Ads Manager as well.

New AI Assistant from Brave Coming to iPhone and iPad

Brave Browser
Brave announced on Wednesday that it’s bringing its AI assistant, called Leo, to iPhone and iPad users. The iOS launch of Leo brings voice-to-text capability, which isn’t available in the Android version of the AI assistant. By giving access to a built-in AI assistant, Brave is hoping users won’t turn to ChatGPT or other similar services. Brave isn’t the only browser company to launch an AI assistant; Opera launched an AI assistant called Aria last year. To access Leo, open the browser, start typing in the address bar and then select “Ask Leo.” Leo is an opt-in feature and can be disabled via the app’s settings.

“TechCrunch Early Stage 2024: Amplifying Hard Tech Entrepreneurs”

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Discover the forefront of hard tech innovation in an exclusive session sponsored by HAX at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024. Duncan and Susan will share insights into HAX’s investment philosophy and the exciting opportunities they see in hard tech sectors. TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 is your opportunity to engage with the leaders shaping the future of hard tech. Join HAX at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 and be part of the movement driving meaningful change in hard tech innovation — buy your tickets now before prices go up at the door. Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024?

A Case for Net Neutrality: How Restoring It Can Promote Online Freedom of Speech, According to the FCC under President Biden

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FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel on Wednesday announced plans to vote on rules restoring net neutrality. The vote, set for April 25, would reinstate 2015 internet rules adopted under President Obama that were subsequently repealed by President Trump’s FCC two years later. The official added that ongoing national security threats have further highlighted the need for strong oversight. Net neutrality has the rare chance to receive widespread bipartisan support. Should Trump be reelected in November, how can current officials ensure we don’t live through this all over again?

“Boosting Sales Efficiency: Raisinghani’s SaaS Entrepreneurship Secures $5.5M for Innovative AI Venture”

Manisha Raisinghani Sifthub Founder
SiftHub’s AI assistant is built on open-source large language models (LLMs), and is supported by retrieval augmented generation (RAG) technology, which uses additional data sources to fine-tune the quality of content generated by AI. All that eventually brought her focus to sales and presales teams. “Sales teams have a shadow team — a presales team or solutions engineers — and they are usually the unsung heroes of the organization. Sales and presales teams lack the necessary tooling to handle this new selling environment. We are excited to back the SiftHub team and be a part of their ambitious journey,” said Sanjay Nath, a partner at Blume Ventures.

Photoncycle’s ingenious hydrogen solution addresses the need for affordable energy storage

Product Straight Green
For years, the solar energy sector has grappled with interseasonal energy storage. The claim is this tech does the storage more cost-effectively than any battery or liquid hydrogen solution on the market. It enables hydrogen storage at densities approximately 50% greater than liquid hydrogen, presenting a significant advancement in hydrogen storage solutions. A robust, reusable energy storage solution could bridge these timings, ensuring a stable energy supply when these renewable sources encounter unavoidable intermittent periods. The firm certainly has investors’ attention: Photoncycle just raised $5.3 million (€5 million) to build its first few power storage devices in Denmark, which Photoncycle has chosen as its test market.