“The predominant traveler today was born in an age where they are very comfortable with technology,” Harman Singh Narula, Canary Technologies co-founder and CEO, said.
Narula started Canary Technologies with longtime friend SJ Sawhney to provide that technology so hotels can offer better guest experiences, augmented by technology.
Today, the hotel guest management technology company’s platform digitizes the hotel guest journey from post-booking through checkout with tools that manage mobile check-in/checkout, registrations, upsells, guest messaging and digital tipping.
Canary now works with over 20,000 hoteliers globally at brands like Marriott International, Four Seasons, Choice Hotels, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Rosewood and Intercontinental Hotel Group.
Though he didn’t give a specific valuation, Narula did say the valuation has now more than doubled since the company’s $30 million Series B round in 2022.
At the upcoming TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 event taking place in Boston on April 25, one session will stand out for early-stage companies seeking to navigate the turbulent waters of tech and staffing strategies.
Titled “How to Evolve Your Tech and Staff Strategies for Future Rounds,” the session will be led by Brad Stanton, the managing director of business development at Sand Technologies.
His session at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 will offer invaluable guidance for startups aiming to chart a course toward sustainable growth and success in an ever-changing landscape.
Then book your ticket to TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 right now before prices increase at the door.
Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024?
“Through the AI Act and through the [AI safety- and security-focused] Executive Order — which is to mitigate the risks of AI technologies while supporting their uptake in our economies.”Earlier this week the US and the UK signed a partnership agreement on AI safety.
Wider information-sharing is envisaged under the US-UK agreement — about “capabilities and risks” associated with AI models and systems, and on “fundamental technical research on AI safety and security”.
It also announced a plan to spend £100M on an AI safety taskforce which it said would be focused on so-called foundational AI models.
At the UK AI Summit last November, Raimondo announced the creation of a US AI safety institute on the heels of the US Executive Order on AI.
Neither the US nor the UK have proposed comprehensive legislation on AI safety, as yet — with the EU remaining ahead of the pack when it comes to legislating on AI safety.
Nonnecke also co-directors the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, where she leads projects on AI, platforms and society, and the UC Berkeley AI Policy Hub, an initiative to train researchers to develop effective AI governance and policy frameworks.
I’ve been working in responsible AI governance for nearly a decade.
First, The University of California was the first university to establish responsible AI principles and a governance structure to better ensure responsible procurement and use of AI.
For women entering the AI field, my advice is threefold: Seek knowledge relentlessly, as AI is a rapidly evolving field.
Investors have the power to shape the industry’s direction by making responsible AI practices a critical factor in their investment decisions.
Not a day goes by without some confirmation that deep tech is on the rise in Europe — and that public and private capital investors are here for it.
Latest case in point, OTB Ventures, which closed a $185 million fund to invest in deep tech in Europe that it will mostly deploy at the Series A stage.
OTB’s take on deep tech focuses on four verticals that do sound fairly NATO-compatible: space tech, enterprise automation and AI, cybersecurity and fintech infrastructure.
This means we can’t confirm either whether the funding that went to OTB could also have gone to, say, a French or Austrian deep tech fund.
Like NIF, OTB is headquartered in Amsterdam, and its other office is in Warsaw, where NIF is also planning to have a regional office.
Roblox is introducing two new AI technologies to reduce the time it takes to create avatars and 3D models, the company announced on Monday.
Once a creator select the new feature, Roblox will run a number of tests over an asset and automatically rig, cage, segment and skin 3D models.
The second feature is called “Texture Generator,” and enables creators to quickly change the look of 3D objects using plain language text prompts.
For example, you can enter a text prompt to create texture for a 3D wooden treasure chest.
With Texture Generator, Roblox is enabling creators to do the same thing within 15 to 30 seconds.
Sarah Kreps is a political scientist, U.S. Air Force veteran and analyst who focuses on U.S. foreign and defense policy.
She’s a professor of government at Cornell University, adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School and an adjunct scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute.
Kreps’ recent research explores both the potential and risks of AI tech such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, specifically in the political sphere.
In an opinion column for The Guardian last year, she wrote that, as more money pours into AI, the AI arms race not just across companies but countries will intensify — while the AI policy challenge will become harder.
Developing AI in these publicly interested way seemed like a valuable contribution and interesting interdisciplinary work for political scientists and computer scientists.
A year after securing $24.5 million in Series A capital, ingredient company Elo Life Systems is back with a $20.5 million Series A extension from existing investors.
This new cash infusion gives Elo Life $45 million in venture-backed capital to date.
North Carolina-based Elo Life was founded in 2021 and is focused on a number of technologies from developing plant-based sweeteners to crop protection.
Its first product, launching in 2026, will be a natural, monk fruit-derived sweetener that Elo Life touts is 300 times sweeter than sugar without the calories.
Simply put, it uses plants as “biofactories” to produce the monk fruit sweetener in other easier-to grow-crops, like watermelons and sugar beets.
AI aides nation-state hackers but also helps US spies to find them, says NSA cyber directorNation state-backed hackers and criminals are using generative AI in their cyberattacks, but U.S. intelligence is also using artificial intelligence technologies to find malicious activity, according to a senior U.S. National Security Agency official.
“We already see criminal and nation state elements utilizing AI.
“We’re seeing intelligence operators [and] criminals on those platforms,” said Joyce.
“On the flip side, though, AI, machine learning [and] deep learning is absolutely making us better at finding malicious activity,” he said.
“Machine learning, AI, and big data helps us surface those activities [and] brings them to the fore because those accounts don’t behave like the normal business operators on their critical infrastructure, so that gives us an advantage,” Joyce said.
Product design makes innovation less daunting and increases chances for success because it is a multidisciplinary process with structures and frameworks to catalyze innovation.
Before discussing the nontraditional ways technologists participate in product innovation, let’s conceptually examine innovation and product design.
A progressive role for technologistsTechnologists play a strategic role in product innovation and should bring a metaphysical perspective in addition to being punctilious.
Product innovation is experimental and should not always be expected to yield productive results.
Technologists add value to the product design process by sharing their expertise on a technology’s characteristics.
