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Open-source BI platform Lightdash gains Accel’s support in bringing artificial intelligence to business analytics

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Lightdash founders Hamzah Chaudhary and Oliver Laslett

LightdashBusiness Intelligence (BI) platform, an open-source alternative to Google Looker, is revealing a brand new product that enables corporations to train “AI analysts” for individual teams’ applications, enabling anyone in the corporate to query aggregate business data.

To help, the four-year-old startup also announced Tuesday that it has raised $11 million in a Series A funding round led by Accel.

Lightdash is built for an open-source command-line data transformation tool called db (data authoring tool) that relies on SQL and helps corporations transform raw data into structured, analysis-ready datasets. At the time, the corporate was often known as Hubble has accomplished Y Combinator’s (YC) S20 series.with particular emphasis on testing corporations’ data warehouses to discover data quality issues. As it turned out, these metrics were essentially the most useful in BI tools, hence the co-founder and CEO Hamzah Chaudhary switched product and brand to Lightdash in 2021.

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In context, “business analytics” describes the technique of combining and integrating disparate sets of knowledge to derive insights, discover trends, and predict future outcomes. The Lightdash platform serves as each front-end and back-end, so people inexperienced in SQL, similar to marketing or finance teams, can access the visual component through the interface. More technical users can use the backend to create customized workflows and define all of the business logic needed for business reporting purposes.

This ties in with the newest launch of Lightdash, a feature that can enable any team member to ask natural language questions on company data and receive “curated insights” relevant to their department.

“For example, the finance team will have an AI analyst who will only have access to the data, metrics and content that is relevant to them,” Chaudhary explained to TechCrunch via email. “They can interact with their AI analyst in natural language, dramatically reducing the time it takes to get insights in the form of a chart, spreadsheet or dashboard.”

Lightdash AI Analyst. Image credits:Lightdash

One obstacle to enterprises fully implementing generative AI is the thorny issue of knowledge security; corporations are cautious about sharing confidential company data. However, Chaudhary claims that the corporate’s AI analyst is powered by the identical Lightdash API that’s used in its standard productmeaning corporations already comfortable with Lightdash credentials don’t expose themselves to any additional risk through the use of its AI.

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“Data permissions and management is one of the key obstacles preventing larger companies from implementing these tools, and with Lightdash’s AI analyst, these manufacturing capabilities are available right out of the box,” Chaudhary said. “It’s value recognizing; “It’s not a completely new query engine for customer data, it’s actually a completely new way of interacting with our existing query engine.”

Additionally, an AI analyst largely doesn’t need access to actual customer data, Chaudhary added, because he relies on metadata similar to the title and outline of the metric for many of his evaluation. “Clients have full control over what information they want to share with LLM,” he said.

Moreover, Chaudhary says customers can select their preferred LLM provider, including the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic, while still having the ability to use their very own model, which should allay any lingering concerns about opening up access to the corporate’s sensitive data.

In the cloud

Since announcing industrial launch and $8.4 million in seed funding two years ago, Lightdash has launched a hosted cloud service for its basic open source productwith additional features including security tools. Chaudhary says greater than 5,000 teams currently use the open source product on their very own, though it’s often a place to begin before upgrading to the complete feature set available in a industrial version.

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“Larger teams have successfully used the OSS product to perform proofs of concept without being bogged down by information and procurement reviews,” Chaudhary said. “This allows companies to decouple the purchasing process from Lightdash testing, dramatically lowering the barrier to trialing the tool and building internal Lightdash champions before moving to a cloud product. Lightdash OSS also provides hobbyists and smaller teams with an easy introduction to BI as it provides a complete set of features to help you get started. As teams grow, they prefer a cloud platform for managed deployment, additional features, and better performance and security.”

Chaudhary claims to have increased its revenue sevenfold in the last 12 months, and its clients include: $60 billion enterprise software company Workday, in addition to Beauty Pie, Hypebeast and Morning Brew.

Currently, Lightdash says its global team has 13 employees split between Europe and the United States, and with the infusion of fresh money, the corporate said it intends to expand its team and product by incorporating latest features along the lines of what it’s currently rolling out in its AI Analysts.

In addition to lead sponsor Accel, Lightdash’s Series A round included participation from Operator Partners, Shopify Ventures, Y Combinator and a handful of angel investors.

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This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com

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A single default slogan reveals access to dozens of residential buildings

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a door entry system on the front of a residential building, illustrated for the story

The safety researcher claims that the default password sent within the widely used door access control system allows everyone to easily and remotely access the door locks and inspection of elevators in dozens of buildings within the USA and Canada.

Hirsch, an organization that’s now the owner of the Enterphone Mesh door access system is not going to fix the gap, saying that the error is according to the design and that customers should follow the corporate’s configuration instructions and alter the default password.

This leaves dozens of unveiled residential and office buildings in North America, which haven’t yet modified the default password of the access control system or usually are not aware that they need to, According to Eric Daiglewho found dozens of exposed buildings.

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The default slogans usually are not unusual or not necessarily a secret in devices connected to the Internet; Passwords supplied with products are frequently designed to simplify access to login for the shopper and are sometimes within the user manual. But counting on the client by changing the default password to prevent future malicious access it still classifies as susceptibility to security within the product itself.

In the case of Hirsch door products, customers usually are not monitored or required to change the default password.

As such, Daigle received a security error, formally marked as CVE-2025-26793.

No planned amendment

The default passwords have long been an issue for devices connected via the Internet, enabling malicious hackers to use passwords to log in as in the event that they were a legitimate owner and steal data or take over devices to use the bandwidth to introduce cyber attacks. In recent years, governments have tried to stop technology producers from the use of uncertain default slogans, making an allowance for the chance of security.

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In the case of the Hirsch door entry system, the error is rated as 10 out of 10 on a severity of susceptibility, thanks to the benefit with which everyone can use it. Practically speaking, the use of an error is so simple as taking the default password from the system’s installation guide on the Hirsch website and connecting the password to the login page addressed to the Internet within the system of any constructing.

IN Blog postDaigle said that last yr he was susceptible after discovering one of the doorway panels to the Enterphone door in Hirsch in a constructing within the hometown of Vancouver. Daigle used the Zoomeye scanning website to seek for Enterphone network systems that were connected to the Internet, and located 71 systems that were still based on unconnected obligations.

Daigle said that the default password allows access to the net Mesh background system, whose constructing managers use to manage access to winds, common areas and office and housing locks. Each system displays the physical address of the constructing with the mesh system installed, enabling everyone to whose constructing they’ve access.

Daigle said that you would be able to effectively break into dozens of affected buildings inside just a few minutes without attracting attention.

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TechCrunch intervened because Hirsch has no funds reminiscent of the revelation of sensitivity, members of society reminiscent of Daigle reported a security defect to the corporate.

Mark Allen, general director of Hirsch, didn’t answer Techcrunch’s request for commentary, but as an alternative put down his senior Hirsch product manager, who told Techcrunch that the use of default passwords by the corporate is “outdated” (regardless of how). The product manager said that “is equally worrying”, that there are customers who “installed systems and do not comply with manufacturers’ recommendations”, referring to their very own instructions for the Hirsch installation.

Hirsch wouldn’t commit himself to publicly disclose the main points in regards to the error, but said that he had contacted his clients regarding tracking the product manual.

Because Hirsch doesn’t want to fix the error, some buildings – and their inhabitants – will probably remain exposed. The error shows that selections regarding product development from the past can come back to have implications in the true world summer later.

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(Tagstranslata) cyber security

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Did Xai lie about GROK 3 comparative tests?

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The xAI Grok AI logo

Debates on AI comparative tests – and their reporting by AI Labs – spill at the general public.

This week, Openai worker accused Elon Musk’s Ai Company, XAI, publishing comparative results for his or her latest AI model, Grok 3. One of the co -founders of XAI, Igor Babushkin, he insisted that the corporate had the suitable.

The truth lies somewhere in between.

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IN Publish on the XAI blogThe company has published a chart showing the outcomes of GROK 3 on Aime 2025, a set of adverse mathematical questions from the recent Invitational mathematical exam. Some experts have Aime validity as a AI reference point. Nevertheless, AIME 2025 and older versions of the test are widely used to look at the mathematical ability of the model.

The XAI chart showed two variants of GROK 3, Grok 3 Reasoning Beta and GroK 3 mini reasoning, beating the very best available OpenAI, O3-Mini-High, on Aime 2025. But OpenAI employees on X quickly noticed that the XAI chart XAI chart. He didn’t consider the AME 2025 O3-Mini-High lead to “Cons@64”.

What is Cons@64, are you able to ask? Well, that is the abbreviation for “Conszeus@64” and principally gives model 64 tries to reply every problem in relation and accepts answers most frequently generated as final answers. As you may imagine, Cons@64 tends to extend the outcomes of the models, and skipping it from the chart may cause one model to surpass one other when it shouldn’t be in point of fact.

GROK 3 Beta and grok 3 mini reasoning for AIME 2025 at “@1”-what implies that the primary result, which models have achieved at a distance-see below the results of the O3-Mini-High. Grok 3 Reasoning Beta also the trail also behind the O1 Openai model on “Medium” Computing. However, XAI is GROK 3 promoting As “the smartest artificial intelligence of the world.”

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Babushkin Ox was arguing that OpenAI previously published similarly misleading comparative charts – although charts comparing the performance of its own models. A more neutral event in the talk has developed a more “accurate” chart showing almost every model in Cons@64:

But as a researcher AI Nathan Lambert He identified within the postPerhaps crucial metric stays a secret: the calculation (and money) cost he needed for every model to realize his best result. It simply shows how little a lot of the test tests AI communicates about the restrictions of models – and their strengths.

(Toshma of All State) (Enter updates) in Triptaren !!!

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This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Tiktok has returned to Google and Apple App stores

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Trump TikTokk

Tiktok is obtainable for download.


Tiktok has been restored in each Apple and Google App. Return occurs after weeks of uncertainty for the long run of the appliance.

Users received messages while opening the platform on February 13.

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“Tiktok is now available on the App Store and Google Play. Download the most recent version of the appliance to discover and share more what you like at Tiktok – said the message.

According to Bloomberg, the commercial takes place after the newly appointed US prosecutor Pam Bondi sending a letter to corporations rejecting legal proceedings.

All App Store platforms received relief for the host of Byedane real estate by President Donald Trump on January 21, the day after his inauguration. The president gave Bytedance, a Chinese company, 75 days for the sale of half of his American company.

“I instruct the Prosecutor General not to take any action to enforce the Act for a period of 75 days to enable my administration to be able to determine the appropriate course,” we read within the order.

Initial ticket for the corporate Sell ​​your mental property He got here in the beginning of 2024. The Congress voted for Ban Tiktok from US users, claiming that the appliance is a threat to national security.

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According to the order, Tiktok closed the appliance, making it useless, on January 18. The application was restored on January 19, and with its return the message got here, thanking President Trump for his help.

In the times preceding the official ban on most of the 170 million users of the appliance emigrated to Xiahongsh or “Little Red Book”. Ignoring congress fears that Chinese corporations had access to American personal data, users downloaded the appliance in Defiance.

Return Tiktok to the App Store restores US users’ access to the Chinese application. There were no reports of a merger between Bytedance and any American company.

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This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
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