Social media company Snap said Tuesday that it plans to add watermarks to AI-generated images on its platform.
Other tech giants such as Microsoft, Meta, and Google have also taken steps to label or identify images created with AI-powered tools.
Currently, Snap allows users to create or edit AI-generated images with Snap AI for paid users and a selfie-focused feature called Dreams.
The company also added context cards with AI-generated images from tools like Dream selfies to better inform the user.
In February, Snap partnered with HackerOne to stress its AI image-generation tools by adapting a bug bounty program.
Truth Social, the social media platform owned by Donald Trump’s media company, has announced plans to launch a live TV streaming platform.
The streaming service will launch in three phases.
The company first plans to introduce Truth Social’s CDN (content delivery network) for streaming to the Truth Social app for Android, iOS and the web.
Next, Truth Social plans to release over-the-top (“OTT”) streaming apps for phones, tablets and other devices.
Truth Social went public last month after shareholders approved a merger of TMTG and Digital World Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
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The Space Force has contracted out its next “responsive space” mission, and this one is a doozy.
The two awardees, Rocket Lab and startup True Anomaly, will each build and launch spacecraft that will conduct rendezvous and proximity operations on orbit.
Elon Musk is planning to charge new X users a small fee to enable posting on the social network and to curb the bot problem.
Earlier this month, X said that the platform was starting a major purge of spam accounts, warning users that their follower count might be affected.
However, with a plan to charge new users, the social media company seemingly aims to tackle the bot problem better.
Earlier this month, xAI made its Grok chatbot available to Premium users of X, who pay $8 per month.
Last week, Fortune reported that X plans to make Grok available to users to compose posts.
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Vana plans to let users rent out their Reddit data to train AI A startup, Vana, says it wants users to get paid for training dataIn the generative AI boom, data is the new oil.
“It does this by allowing users to aggregate their personal data in a non-custodial way … Vana allows users to own AI models and use their data across AI applications.”Here’s how Vana pitches its platform and API to developers:The Vana API connects a user’s cross-platform personal data … to allow you to personalize your application.
This month, Vana launched what it’s calling the Reddit Data DAO (Digital Autonomous Organization), a program that pools multiple users’ Reddit data (including their karma and post history) and lets them to decide together how that combined data is used.
We have crunched the numbers and r/datadao is now largest data DAO in history: Phase 1 welcomed 141,000 reddit users with 21,000 full data uploads.
“Reddit does not share non-public, personal data with commercial enterprises, and when Redditors request an export of their data from us, they receive non-public personal data back from us in accordance with applicable laws.
Heya, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the noteworthy happenings in tech over the past several days (and change).
Famed startup accelerator Y Combinator had its Demo Days, and the venture desk took it all in with an appropriately skeptical eye.
Also this week, Microsoft and Quantinuum, a quantum computing startup, made a scientific breakthrough — or so they claim.
NewsCanoo paid for its CEO’s jet: Kirsten reports that EV startup Canoo paid the rent for the CEO’s private jet — $1.7 million— in 2023.
Bonus roundNSFW on X: The social media company has confirmed that authorized users on the platform can create NSFW communities, ahead of a change that’ll see all NSFW content on X filtered by default.
Was the fundraising process any more or less difficult this time given the market?
If you really rewind the clock, back in 2018 when we raised our sixteenth fund, it was a “normal” environment.
There’s obviously a valuation reset going on for every company seemingly that’s not a large language model company, which is a lot of companies.
I’d guess that gives you easier access to top companies, but also hurts some of your existing portfolio companies.
I don’t think anyone has ever reached a great venture outcome feeling like, ‘Man, I got a steal on that deal.’ You always feel slightly uncomfortable.
DCVC wanted to raise $500M for its first climate fund, but the market had other plansDCVC’s target for its first climate-focused fund, DCVC Climate Select, has been all over the place and highlights the roller coaster venture fundraising conditions of the last few years, and how LPs aren’t as quick to back new strategies from established managers.
The Silicon Valley VC firm launched the fund in December 2022 with a $500 million target, according to a SEC filing.
This climate fund is targeting climate startups at the mid-stages where the firm thinks the climate startup ecosystem is currently underfunded, according to materials from a recent New Mexico State Investment Council meeting where the GP presented.
Tiger Global’s latest fund raised $2.2 billion of its $6 billion target.
In the first half of 2023, firms including Founders Fund, Insight Partners and TCV all slashed their fund targets.
Rivian has a challenging year ahead — and the first quarter is off to a tepid start.
Both of those figures are down from the fourth quarter of 2023, where it built 17,541 and shipped 13,972.
Rivian did signal that it plans to make roughly the same number of EVs as it did in 2023.
Producing and selling vehicles, which includes the R1S SUV, R1T pickup and two versions of a commercial electric van, has never been the company’s only challenge.
Tesla reported its own very weak first quarter sales on Tuesday.
