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Another work by Tim Cook

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In May, while unveiling the newest iPad at an Apple event, CEO Tim Cook wore a custom-made, one-of-a-kind pair of Nike sneakers whose decorative stitching included the words “Made on iPad.”

It wasn’t just an Apple and Nike collaboration. As Bloomberg reminds readersCook has served on Nike’s board since 2005, when Cook was still second banana at Apple under Steve Jobs and the iPhone didn’t exist yet.

It’s an even bigger commitment than some people can imagine. According to Bloomberg, Cook isn’t only Nike’s lead independent director and chairman of its compensation committee, but in a needed change at Nike now, he helped herald former Nike CEO Elliott Hill as the corporate’s newest CEO.

Hill, who began as an intern at Nike and retired in 2020, returned last week to exchange former eBay CEO John Donahoe, whom Cook had previously beneficial for the highest job. Facing slowing growth in China and other challenges, Donahoe stayed within the job for just 4 years.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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India’s Neysa raises $30 million to compete with global AI hyperscalers

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While India shouldn’t be on the forefront of the global AI innovation battle, demand for AI within the country is growing as enterprises seek efficiencies and tech corporations promote the event of AI as a cure-all. This South Asian country is anticipated to have a synthetic intelligence market to USD 17 billion by 2027– according to a joint report by the IT industry organization Nasscom and the consulting company BCG.

Neysaan Indian start-up led by experienced technology entrepreneur Sharad Sanghi intends to capitalize on this growth opportunity by offering its artificial intelligence solutions to local and international corporations within the country.

The Mumbai-based startup provides AI and machine learning infrastructure and platform as a service to enterprise clients based on their requirements. It also includes dedicated machine learning operations and infrastructure consulting teams that help customers find the precise size for his or her infrastructure and tune or adapt the models they select.

Before founding Neysa with his former colleague Anindya Das in 2023, Sanghi spent greater than 27 years at his previous enterprise and data center provider, Netmagic, which was acquired by Japanese company NTT Data in 2016. He told TechCrunch that he intended to give attention to cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence in 2022, but this was impossible. He resigned as managing director and CEO of Netmagic in June 2023 to start a brand new job at Neysa.

“I started at Neys with the idea of ​​providing infrastructure as a service, platform as a service, inference as a service, a service layer around ML, as well as the platforms we need for developers,” he said in an interview.

Neysa Co-Founder and CEO Sharad Sanghi

Neysa initially began as an infrastructure services provider and in July launched its flagship Velocis platform to provide on-demand access to computing infrastructure. However, it plans to expand its product range by launching a development platform and inference-as-a-service before the tip of the yr. The startup can also be working on developing “observability to better manage” its infrastructure and secure its AI workloads, Sanghi said.

Neysa goals to compete with global hyperscale corporations, including typical cloud service providers corresponding to AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure, in addition to new-age competitors corresponding to CoreWeave and Lambda Labs, in its full suite of offerings. Sanghi assured that the startup stands out from existing players by offering “flexibility” in its models.

“We can offer both public and private cloud clusters. This is also the open nature of our offer. All our platforms are built on open source platforms… so customers are not dependent,” he said.

The startup’s consulting service also goals to attract local businesses, which frequently find it difficult to obtain adequate infrastructure without spending hundreds of dollars.

“Very often customers come to us and say they want this high number of GPUs… and when we really look at the requirements, it turns out they don’t need half the amount they asked for,” Sanghi said.

Neysa raised $30 million in an all-equity Series A round led by its existing investors NTTVC, Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners India) and Nexus Venture Partners. This follows the startup’s $20 million seed round earlier this yr.

The latest funds, Sanghi said, will strengthen Neysa’s infrastructure, enhance its research and development and expand its market entry. The funds can even create the idea for the startup to launch an integrated Gen AI cloud acceleration service.

The startup currently employs 55 people and can expand by adding more engineers and staff to expand direct and indirect sales.

Neysa currently has about 12 paying customers and is running about six large proofs of concept. Sanghi said that as much as 70 percent of the whole customer base has opted for a personal cluster, with the remaining 30 percent using the general public cloud.

While Sanghi didn’t reveal the names of Neysa’s clients, he said the startup broadly serves three categories: research institutes, AI-based startups and company clients, initially within the banking, manufacturing and media sectors.

Neysa’s current customer base is in India, although Sanghi said the startup plans to enter global markets with one other round of financing – talks have already begun and are expected to be accomplished in the subsequent six to nine months.

He didn’t reveal the precise amount Neysa wants to raise in the subsequent round, although he said it will be “an order of magnitude more than what we have currently raised.” The startup also plans to tackle debt to meet growing demands for GPU and other infrastructure.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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What is Bluesky? Everything you need to know about competitor X.

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Blue sky with clouds illustration, representing Bluesky social

Is the grass greener on the opposite side? We’re unsure, however the sky is definitely bluer. It’s been almost two years since Elon Musk bought Twitter, now X, prompting people to arrange shop on alternative platforms. Mastodon, Post, Pebble (which has since gone out of business) and Spill have been floated as potential successors, but few of them apart from Meta’s Threads have achieved the expansion rates that Bluesky has achieved.

After almost a 12 months of existence as an invitation-only service, Bluesky opened to everyone in February 2024 and gained almost 800,000 latest users in in the future. As of October 2024, Bluesky has over 10 million users thanks to an influx of users following the X ban in Brazil and one other influx of users following the updated X rules, which helped the app rise to the highest 5 hottest apps within the US App Store. While the numbers are promising, the network has a number of catching up to do to compete Threads’ 175 million users a 12 months after its launch.

What is Bluesky?

Bluesky is a decentralized social networking application developed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and developed in parallel with Twitter. The social network has a Twitter-like user interface with a collection of algorithms, federated design, and community-specific moderation.

Bluesky uses a built-in open source framework, AT protocolmeaning those outside the corporate have transparency into the way it is built and what is being developed.

Dorsey introduced Project Bluesky in 2019, when he was still CEO of Twitter. He said on the time that Twitter would fund “a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers and designers” to construct a decentralized standard for social media, with the initial goal of Twitter adopting it itself. standard. . But that was before Elon Musk bought the platform, so Bluesky is completely separate from Twitter.

As of May 2024, Dorsey not serves on Bluesky’s board of directors. Bluesky is now an independent public profit corporation led by CEO Jay Graber.

How to use Bluesky?

Once registered, users can create a handle, which is able to then be represented as @username.bsky.social, in addition to a display name, which can be more visible in daring text. If you’re so inclined, you can replace the domain name you have already got along with your username – for instance, on Bluesky I’m often called @amanda.omg.lol.

The app itself works similarly to regular Twitter, where you can click the plus button to create a 256-character post that also can include photos. The posts themselves might be replied to, retweeted, liked, and might be reported via the three-dot menu, shared via the iOS share sheet with other apps, or copied as text.

You can search and follow other people, then view their updates in your “Home” timeline. Previously, Bluesky shared popular posts within the “What’s Hot” feed. This feed has since been replaced by an algorithmic and personalized ‘Discover’ feed, with greater than just popular content.

For latest users, Bluesky has introduced a “Starter Pack” feature that creates a curated list of individuals and custom channels that you can follow to immediately find interesting content.

User profiles include the identical features you’d expect: profile photo, background, bio, details, and the number of individuals they follow. Profile feeds are divided into two sections like Twitter: posts and posts and replies.

There’s also a “Discover” tab at the underside of the app’s navigation, which offers more suggestions for “who to follow” and a live feed of recently released Bluesky updates.

Image credits: Natalie Christman

Who’s on Bluesky?

In early July 2023, when Instagram Threads launched, Bluesky downloads on iOS and Android exceeded a million. Prominent figures corresponding to Neil Gaiman, Drill AND Chelsea Manning they emigrated to Bluesky. It is also home to news organizations corresponding to Bloomberg, Washington Post. AND Engadget. As of August 2024, Bluesky now also allows heads of state to register and join the platform for the primary time.

Does Bluesky work the identical as X?

In some ways, yes. Until recently, Bluesky did not have DMs like X, but this has since been implemented. However, chats on Bluesky are currently limited to individual messages relatively than group messages. Bluesky also said it is inquisitive about implementing something similar to X’s Community Notes feature. Additionally, X doesn’t use a decentralized protocol like ActivityPub or ON.

In October 2024, Elon Musk announced that the X blocking feature will work in a different way than before. The latest blocking feature allows blocked users to view your posts and profile, but doesn’t allow them to interact along with your posts. Some users consider this update poses a security risk, leading to a rise in Bluesky sign-ups because the blocking feature is more traditional.

While Bluesky initially began as a project convened by Jack Dorsey in 2019 when he was Twitter’s CEO, the social media app has been an independent company since its inception in 2021.

Is Bluesky free?

Yes, and it is now open to the general public.

How does Bluesky generate profits?

Bluesky’s goal is to find one other way to maintain its network beyond promoting and paid services in order that it may possibly remain free for end users. On July 5, 2023, Bluesky announced additional seed round funding and a paid service that gives custom domains to end-users who wish to have a singular domain as a handle on the service. Bluesky also stressed that it doesn’t want to “require the sale of user data for advertising purposes” to monetize your platform.

Is Bluesky decentralized?

Yes. The Bluesky team develops the decentralized AT protocol on which Bluesky is built. In the beta phase, users can only join the bsky.social network, but Bluesky plans to create a federation, which suggests infinite, individually managed communities could exist on the open source network. So, if a non-Bluesky developer creates their very own latest social app using the AT protocol, Bluesky users will find a way to switch to the brand new app and transfer it to their existing followers, support, and data.

“You will always have the freedom to choose (and exit), rather than being swayed by the whims of private companies or black box algorithms. Wherever you go, your friends and relationships will be there too.” explained within the Bluesky blog post.

Is Bluesky secure?

In October 2023, Bluesky email verification added as part of a bigger effort to improve account security and online authentication. The addition of this service is a very important step forward in making Bluesky more competitive with larger networks like X which have more robust security controls. In December 2023, Bluesky gave users the chance to opt out of this alteration share your posts on a public network after users’ response.

Can Bluesky be customized?

Yes. In May 2023, Bluesky released custom algorithms that it calls “custom feeds.” Custom feeds allow users to subscribe to many various algorithms that present various kinds of posts that the user might want to see. You can pin custom channels, which is able to appear at the highest of your timeline as different tabs to pick from. Channels that you pin or save are positioned within the “My Channels” menu within the sidebar of the app.

In March 2024, the corporate announced “AT Protocol Subsidies”, a brand new program that can award small grants to developers to support development and customization. One recipient, SkyFeed, is a custom tool that enables anyone to construct their very own feeds using a graphical user interface.

Is Bluesky available on iOS and Android?

Yes. Bluesky rolled forward Android users on April 20 and was initially made available to iOS users in late February. Users can access Bluesky on the Internet Here.

How does Bluesky take care of disinformation?

Following the October 2023 update, the app will now warn users about misleading links by flagging them. If the links shared in users’ posts don’t match their text, the app will display a “possibly misleading” warning to the user that the link could also be taking them to a site they don’t desire to go to.

Image credits: Bluesky on GitHubImage credits:Bluesky on Github

Has Bluesky had any controversy?

Since its initial launch, Bluesky has struggled with moderation issues. The app is accused of failing to protect marginalized users and moderating racist content. Next controversy over an app that allowed racial slurs in account names, frustrated users initiated a “posting warning” that resulted in them refusing to engage with the platform until it introduced barriers to flagging slurs and other offensive terms in usernames.

What moderation features does Bluesky have?

In a December 2023 post from the Bluesky Safety account, a big batch was announced moderation updates.

Bluesky is rolling out “more advanced, automated tools” designed to flag content that violates its Community Guidelines, which is able to then be reviewed by the app’s moderation team.

Bluesky has launched moderation features similar to those in X, including user lists and moderation lists, the latter of which might be used to mute or block multiple users without delay. The app is also working on a feature that enables users to limit who can reply to posts.

Some Bluesky users proceed to favor the flexibility to make their accounts private – a feature they needed more of after Bluesky announced it could launch the service public network interface.

In March 2024 the corporate introduced Ozon to the marketa tool that enables users to create and run their very own, independent moderation services that they make available to users “unprecedented control” on their experiences on social media.

What is the difference between Bluesky and Mastodon?

Although Bluesky’s architecture is similar to Mastodon, many users have found Bluesky to be more intuitive, whereas Mastodon can seem inaccessible: selecting which instance to join looks as if an unimaginable task on Mastodon, and long-time users are very defensive about adhering to established publishing norms. which may make joining the conversation intimidating. To stay competitive, Mastodon recently simplified the registration process by making mastodon.social the default server for brand new users.

However, launch federation will make it work more like Mastodon, as users will find a way to select which servers they need to join and transfer their accounts as they need.

Who owns Bluesky?

Although Jack Dorsey was the founding father of Bluesky, he is not involved in the corporate’s ongoing development and not serves on the corporate’s board of directors. Bluesky’s CEO is Jay Graber, who previously worked as a software engineer for the cryptocurrency Zcash after which founded an event planning site called Happening.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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A closer look at the new features of AirPods Pro hearing aids

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In November 2022, the FDA passed a resolution allowing Americans to buy hearing aids with no prescription. The move launched a mini-industry during which firms rushed to make technology available that had previously been mired by health care constraints.

Consumer electronics firms also saw the opportunity. In September, Apple announced that it could be bringing hearing aid features to AirPods Pro 2 in an upcoming iOS update.

I had the opportunity to check out a demo of this feature at the iPhone 16 event. The offer was designed to supply insight into how users can test their hearing at home, although these results were incomplete. However, Apple recently shared the upcoming feature in its final form with TechCrunch.

I admit I’m just a little concerned. I’ve suffered from tinnitus my whole life, and while I’m pretty good at packing earplugs, I used to be pretty convinced that many years of rock shows had taken a toll on my overall hearing health.

However, as these processes go, Apple’s new hearing test feature is painless. It had been far too long since I had participated in any formal testing, but this feature immediately took me back to elementary school testing. Wait for the beep and lift the appropriate hand. You catch the drift.

This feature is straight away available in the Settings menu when you’ve gotten a pair of AirPods Pro 2 connected and in your ears. At this time, this feature is simply available on this specific model. This is because they’re the only members of the AirPods family to have each the new chip and a silicone tip for passive noise cancellation. After all, the key’s absolute silence. The sounds are faint and will be easily masked by the slightest background noise.

After some basic questions – Are you over 18? Have you attended a loud concert in the last 24 hours? – The system will play a generic music track to be sure that the AirPods are properly fitted. If the seal is just not in place, the system will prompt you to repair it before testing again.

The test then monitors the room for absolute silence. The first time I attempted it, I used to be told my environment was too noisy. We found that the air filter in the corner of the room was loud enough to trigger it. When the room becomes quiet, the test will begin. But luckily for me, the guy was fertilizing the lawn outside. He passed by my window every 45 seconds and every time he stopped the test and waited for all the pieces to calm down.

The hearing test is performed one ear at a time, starting with the left. The system then cycles through a series of tones, twice apiece. When you hear the beep, touch the screen. It’s quite easy. The test doesn’t measure how briskly you touch the screen, only whether you touch it each time.

Sounds run over a certain frequency range to find out which parts of the range could also be affected by hearing loss. The whole process takes about five minutes.

Results appear quickly. I used to be surprised when my results showed “little to no” hearing loss. The app rated my left hearing level at 18 dBHL (decibel hearing loss) and my right hearing level at 19. Mild hearing loss starts at around 25 dBHL. The hearing aid feature will only be available to individuals who test for mild to moderate hearing loss.

If your hearing loss is more severe, Apple recommends having it professionally tested. However, for those who perform the test inside the normal range, the system will offer the choice to activate Media Assist. The new feature enhances certain elements, akin to speech, distinguishing them from background noise. It is comparable to a new hearing aid feature in that it is meant to enhance on a regular basis life, although the amplification is just not as pronounced.

Still, this feature takes some getting used to. I discovered that some things, akin to the sound of fabric rubbing against fabric when walking, were way more noticeable than usual. In a more chaotic environment, it is a really useful feature – whenever you break the social norm of putting on headphones to check with someone.

This could also be the biggest challenge for this feature. We are used to hearing aids. If you see someone wearing this, you assume they’ve some extent of hearing loss. If the same person was using AirPods and didn’t hassle to take out at least one of them before striking up a conversation with you, you’d probably consider them rude.

However, as barriers come down, these little bits of social niceties will be resolved. This is a small price to pay for technology that may fundamentally improve the quality of life.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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