today

“First Look: Boston Dynamics’ Newly Unveiled Atlas Robot Amazes Experts”

Atlas Site Thumb
This week Boston Dynamics retired its well-known Atlas robot that was powered by hydraulics. Then today it unveiled its new Atlas robot, which is powered by electricity. Its new Atlas robot is leaner, and appears to have improved range-of-motion. Size and ability to contort and maneuver are not cosmetic elements to a humanoid robot — they can unlock new use cases and possible work environments. Happily for those of us who want a domestic robot to handle household chores and hold our hands whilst we cry, there are other startups working on the humanoid robot project.

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

Pvml Team Photo
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.

Proton Enhances its Privacy Portfolio with Acquisition of Standard Notes

Switzerland Technology Computers Email Encryption
Switzerland-based Proton, the privacy-focused firm behind end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) webmail ProtonMail and other apps, has acquired Standard Notes, a note-taking app founded back in 2017. By adding Standard Notes to its portfolio of apps, Proton will deepen its reach with an engaged community of pro-privacy users, layering on additional cross-selling opportunities as well as boosting the utility of its app ecosystem. And while there is some usage overlap, a Proton spokesperson said that less than a quarter of Standard Notes users are already Proton users. Proton said the Standard Notes app, which is available for both mobile and desktop, will remain “open source, freely available and fully supported”. Commenting in a statement, Mo Bitar, founder and CEO of Standard Notes, talked up the sense of shared mission.

Microsoft and Quantinuum: Pioneering the Next Era of Quantum Computing

Quantum
The tech world is incredibly focused on AI and its applications today, but artificial intelligence is hardly the only place where progress is being made. If you want to get really into the weeds, pay attention to the progress that quantum computing is making, as made evident recently by an announcement from Microsoft and Quantinuum. The pair of companies made what TechCrunch described as a “major breakthrough in quantum error correction,” which could make quantum computing systems far more usable than before. The gist is that they encoded several physical qubits into a single logical qubit, which made it easier to detect and correct errors. The error rate in quantum computing is a material issue to the technology’s performance, making the news that the two companies managed “run more than 14,000 experiments without a single error” pretty big news.

Last Chance for Savings: Act Fast Before 2024 Early Stage Tickets Run Out!

Lastday Earlystage24 1200x628
Today, March 29, marks the final opportunity to grab your early-bird savings for TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 — a one-day event set to ignite your entrepreneurial journey on April 25 in Boston. From engaging roundtable sessions to expert-led discussions and exclusive 1:1 meetings with investors, TechCrunch Early Stage 2024 has everything you need to supercharge your startup journey. This is your last chance to secure your early-bird ticket at a discounted rate. Don’t wait until it’s too late — buy your early-bird ticket today by 11:59 p.m. PT and ensure your spot at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024. Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024?

“Snowflake Investment Boosts Observe’s Data Observability Platform with $115M in Funding”

Gettyimages 1828490321
Observe — not to be confused with Observe.AI — builds observability tools for machine-generated data that aims to break down data silos, useful for developers to understand how apps are working, being used, and potentially failing. The main use case for Observe today is to analyze data to troubleshoot when an application is not working as it should be. It’s very permissive.” The company today works with third-parties to enhance that work but he doesn’t rule out native applications in these and other areas down the line. “We see it as a lever to unlock new customers,” he said of the investment thesis of Snowflake Ventures. [In data,] there is nothing that competes with Observe right now,” Williams added.

“Truth Social SPAC: Covering Trump’s Exorbitant Legal Expenses Pending Board Approval”

Gettyimages 1479805952 1
Donald Trump’s beleaguered SPAC deal is finally going through, and just in time to pay nearly half a billion dollars owed over several legal actions — if the board agrees to let him sell. And that’s without reckoning with the questionable success of Truth Social, the partisan social network hurriedly stood up after the former President was booted from Twitter. TMTG reportedly had a net loss of around $49 million in 2023, on revenues of under $4 million — not exactly hot numbers. There’s no doubt that many, many shareholders in the newly public TMTG will sell their shares as soon as possible. But if Trump wanted to finance his current liabilities, he’d have to sell some 12 million shares at the current price — around 15% of his total stake.

“Demystifying the DOJ’s Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple iPhone”

Apple Social Thumb Techcrunch Minute
The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Apple over allegedly monopolistic smartphone practices. The federal agency is not alone in the matter, bringing 15 states and the District of Columbia into the mix as well. Regulators and tech companies, name a more iconic duo. But as we’re about to see with Apple, big tech companies are not going to go down without a fight. For more on Apple’s antitrust lawsuit, check here:

“Transforming the Digital Landscape: An Upcoming web3 Network Strives to Break Free from Big Tech’s Data Domination”

Gettyimages 1312904817
A new web3 network is being built right now that wants to end Big Tech’s control of your dataMany of the people building Web3 feel like the traditional web ecosystem has taken advantage of users and their data. It’s the initial team supporting The Graph, a decentralized network that indexes, queries and organizes data. It has been called the “Google of web3” and aims to organize open blockchain data and make open data a public good. “Web3 is still being built, we’re still working on building this decentralized internet that is censorship resistant. “The one thing that’s really important about AI is that it’s all about data,” Kline said.

Virtual Spotlight: Discover the Excitement of the AI World at Nvidia’s GTC 2024 Conference

Site Nvidia Version
Chip giant Nvidia is hosting a massive AI conference as part of its GTC event this week, which kicks off Monday. With a keynote planned from Jensen Huang, CEO and co-founder, of the company best known in year’s past for its gaming hardware and today for its massive market share in the burgeoning AI hardware market, expect Nvidia to make some news. Given how many AI startups and giants alike use Nvidia gear, TechCrunch is expecting quite a lot to shake loose over the next few days. To presage the confab, and detail just why we’re paying such close attention to a single company’s industry event, hit play below. Stick close to TechCrunch for coverage throughout the week.