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Bluesky raises $15 million in Series A and plans to launch subscriptions

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Decentralized social media app Bluesky announced on Thursday that it has raised $15 million in a Series A round after last yr’s $8 million seed round. The funding comes as Bluesky has seen a surge in growth, driven in part by X users who’re concerned about recent changes to the blocking feature, in addition to the power to allow third parties to train artificial intelligence on users’ public posts. In the last month alone, Bluesky added roughly 3 million recent users, bringing its total user base to roughly 13 million.

Bluesky was initially incubated at Twitter as former CEO Jack Dorsey’s vision of what the long run of social media should appear to be. However, the social networking site and creator of the open source AT Protocol isn’t any longer affiliated with Dorsey, who left the startup’s board earlier this yr. Still, a lot of Bluesky’s initial goals remain unchanged: like Mastodon, Bluesky’s AT protocol is decentralized, which implies that individuals will give you the chance to arrange their very own servers and social applications, and those outside the corporate could have visibility into what’s being developed and the way it is being developed .

“With this fundraising, we will continue to support and grow the Bluesky community, investing in trust and security, and supporting the ATmphere developer ecosystem” – Bluesky blog announcement reads. “Additionally, we will begin developing a subscription model that will include features such as higher quality video uploads or profile customization such as avatar colors and frames.”

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The Bluesky team was quick to tell users that this paid tier wouldn’t be like X, where subscribers would receive exclusive blue checkmarks and algorithmic rating boosts, making their posts more visible.

“The way Twitter did subscriptions was basically a blueprint for how Bluesky shouldn’t do it” – Paul Frazee, Bluesky developer sent. “Pay to win features like gaining visibility or checking if you are a subscriber are simply wrong and are ruining the web for everyone.”

The Series A round is led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Darkmode’s Amir Shevat and Kubernetes co-founder Joe Beda. The presence of a cryptocurrency company may alarm skeptics, especially since CEO Jay Graber was once a software engineer at crypto firm Zcash, but Bluesky has actively assured users that the corporate shouldn’t be moving to web3.

“Our leader, Blockchain Capital, shares our philosophy that technology should serve the user, not the other way around – the technology used should never come at the expense of the user experience,” Bluesky said in its announcement. “This does not change the fact that the Bluesky app and the AT protocol do not use blockchains or cryptocurrencies, and we will not hyper-finance social experiences (via tokens, cryptocurrency trading, NFTs, etc.)”

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Graber also announced that Kinjal Shah, general partner at Blockchain Capital, will join Bluesky’s board of directors.

“(Shah) shares our vision of a social media ecosystem that empowers users and supports developer freedom, and working together with her has been a terrific experience. Thanks to her support, we’re well prepared for development,” Graber he wrote.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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PO clarous Director General Zoom also uses AI avatar during a quarterly connection

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Zoom CEO Eric Yuan

General directors at the moment are so immersed in artificial intelligence that they send their avatars to cope with quarterly connections from earnings as a substitute, a minimum of partly.

After AI Avatar CEO CEO appeared on the investor’s conversation firstly of this week, the final director of Zoom Eric Yuan also followed them, also Using his avatar for preliminary comments. Yuan implemented his non -standard avatar via Zoom Clips, an asynchronous company video tool.

“I am proud that I am one of the first general directors who used the avatar in a call for earnings,” he said – or fairly his avatar. “This is just one example of how Zoom shifts the limits of communication and cooperation. At the same time, we know that trust and security are necessary. We take seriously the content generated AI and build strong security to prevent improper use, protect the user’s identity and ensure that avatars are used responsibly.”

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Yuan has long been in favor of using avatars at meetings and previously said that the corporate goals to create Digital user twins. He just isn’t alone on this vision; The CEO of transcript -powered AI, apparently, trains its own avatar Share the load.

Meanwhile, Zoom said he was doing it Avatar non -standard function available To all users this week.

(Tagstranslat) meetings AI

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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The next large Openai plant will not be worn: Report

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Sam Altman speaks onstage during The New York Times Dealbook Summit 2024.

Opeli pushed generative artificial intelligence into public consciousness. Now it might probably develop a very different variety of AI device.

According to WSJ reportThe general director of Opeli, Altman himself, told employees on Wednesday that one other large product of the corporate would not be worn. Instead, it will be compact, without the screen of the device, fully aware of the user’s environment. Small enough to sit down on the desk or slot in your pocket, Altman described it each as a “third device” next to MacBook Pro and iPhone, in addition to “Comrade AI” integrated with on a regular basis life.

The preview took place after the OpenAI announced that he was purchased by IO, a startup founded last 12 months by the previous Apple Joni Ive designer, in a capital agreement value $ 6.5 billion. I will take a key creative and design role at Openai.

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Altman reportedly told employees that the acquisition can ultimately add 1 trillion USD to the corporate conveyorsWearing devices or glasses that got other outfits.

Altman reportedly also emphasized to the staff that the key would be crucial to stop the copying of competitors before starting. As it seems, the recording of his comments leaked to the journal, asking questions on how much he can trust his team and the way rather more he will be able to reveal.

(Tagstotransate) devices

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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The latest model AI Google Gemma can work on phones

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It grows “open” AI Google, Gemma, grows.

While Google I/O 2025 On Tuesday, Google removed Gemma 3N compresses, a model designed for “liquid” on phones, laptops and tablets. According to Google, available in a preview starting on Tuesday, Gemma 3N can support sound, text, paintings and flicks.

Models efficient enough to operate in offline mode and without the necessity to calculate within the cloud have gained popularity within the AI ​​community lately. They will not be only cheaper to make use of than large models, but they keep privacy, eliminating the necessity to send data to a distant data center.

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During the speech to I/O product manager, Gemma Gus Martins said that GEMMA 3N can work on devices with lower than 2 GB of RAM. “Gemma 3N shares the same architecture as Gemini Nano, and is also designed for incredible performance,” he added.

In addition to Gemma 3N, Google releases Medgemma through the AI ​​developer foundation program. According to Medgemma, it’s essentially the most talented model to research text and health -related images.

“Medgemma (IS) OUR (…) A collection of open models to understand the text and multimodal image (health),” said Martins. “Medgemma works great in various imaging and text applications, thanks to which developers (…) could adapt the models to their own health applications.”

Also on the horizon there may be SignGEMMA, an open model for signaling sign language right into a spoken language. Google claims that Signgemma will allow programmers to create recent applications and integration for users of deaf and hard.

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“SIGNGEMMA is a new family of models trained to translate sign language into a spoken text, but preferably in the American sign and English,” said Martins. “This is the most talented model of understanding sign language in history and we are looking forward to you-programmers, deaf and hard communities-to take this base and build with it.”

It is value noting that Gemma has been criticized for non -standard, non -standard license conditions, which in accordance with some developers adopted models with a dangerous proposal. However, this didn’t discourage programmers from downloading Gemma models tens of tens of millions of times.

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(Tagstransate) gemma

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This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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