AI Startup Perplexity Targets $1B Valuation with New Funding

Perplexity is a year-old AI startup whose conversational “answer engine” has gained attention as a potential challenger to conventional search. Two months ago the venture raised $73.6 million in Series B funding from investors including Nvidia and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos via his Bezos Expeditions, resulting in a valuation of about $520 million. Now the company is said to be finalizing another cash infusion that is predicted to double its valuation to roughly $1 billion. The current financing round is reportedly being led by former Y Combinator partner Daniel Gross through his own investment fund. Continue reading AI Startup Perplexity Targets $1B Valuation with New Funding

Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla Team on Speedometer 3.0

The Apple WebKit team introduced the initial version of the Speedometer benchmark in 2014. Since then, it has become an industry-wide tool for gauging browser optimization and performance, even as some stakeholders complained that having been developed in the Apple ecosystem, it could not help but exhibit systemic biases that favored Safari. So, Microsoft, Google and Mozilla joined Apple to create Speedometer 3.0, “a new governance benchmark” that aims for neutrality across the architectures used by Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla’s Firefox. Continue reading Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla Team on Speedometer 3.0

Reddit Hopes to Raise $748M in IPO Aimed at $6.4B Valuation

Reddit is moving ahead with its IPO and plans to raise between $682 million and $748 million on a fully diluted valuation of between $5.8 billion and $6.4 billion. Although no date has been announced, the IPO is expected to take place sometime this month. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday, Reddit says it will offer 22 million 15.3 million Class A common shares and 6.7 million insider shares from investors including CEO Steve Huffman and COO Jen Wong. Pricing will be between $31 and $34 per share. The proposed market cap is $4.9 billion to $5.4 billion. Continue reading Reddit Hopes to Raise $748M in IPO Aimed at $6.4B Valuation

Researchers Call for Safe Harbor for the Evaluation of AI Tools

Artificial intelligence stakeholders are calling for safe harbor legal and technical protections that will allow them access to conduct “good-faith” evaluations of various AI products and services without fear of reprisal. More than 300 researchers, academics, creatives, journalists and legal professionals had as of last week signed an open letter calling on companies including Meta Platforms, OpenAI and Google to allow access for safety testing and red teaming of systems they say are shrouded in opaque rules and secrecy despite the fact that millions of consumers are already using them. Continue reading Researchers Call for Safe Harbor for the Evaluation of AI Tools

Google Introduces Open-Source Marketing Measurement Tool

Google has rolled out an open-source marketing mix model (MMM) called Meridian that aims to help in formulating cross-channel media strategies in the current environment of fragmented media consumption and privacy changes. As marketers contend with Google’s plan to sunset the use of third-party cookies by the end of this year, MMMs — classic tools of yesteryear — “are experiencing a renaissance,” says the search giant. MMMs are statistical analyses companies use to help measure the impact of cross-channel marketing sales. Google says it has “observed more customers turning to MMMs, especially performance and full-funnel marketers.” Continue reading Google Introduces Open-Source Marketing Measurement Tool

YouTube, Comscore Integrate Campaign Ratings with Shorts

Comscore and YouTube have expanded their partnership by integrating Comscore Campaign Ratings (CCR) with YouTube Shorts and In-Feed inventory, making available a range of additional ad data specific to those outlets, across connected TV, mobile and desktop. In the months ahead, the toolkit will also add measurement of Masthead inventory. YouTube has been connected to CCR for standard video inventory and YouTube TV since Q4 2021. YouTube Shorts is a fast-growing part of the Google-owned video ecosystem, averaging over 70 billion daily views, according to YouTube and Comscore. Continue reading YouTube, Comscore Integrate Campaign Ratings with Shorts

Anthropic’s Claude 3 AI Is Said to Have ‘Near-Human’ Abilities

Anthropic has released Claude 3, claiming new industry benchmarks that see the family of three new large language models approaching “near-human” cognitive capability in some instances. Accessible via Anthropic’s website, the three new models — Claude 3 Haiku, Claude 3 Sonnet and Claude 3 Opus — represent successively increased complexity and parameter count. Sonnet is powering the current Claude.ai chatbot and is free, for now, requiring only an email sign-in. Opus comes with the the $20 monthly subscription for Claude Pro. Both are generally available from the Anthropic website and via API in 159 countries, with Haiku coming soon. Continue reading Anthropic’s Claude 3 AI Is Said to Have ‘Near-Human’ Abilities

Apple Fined $1.95 Billion by EU for Music Streaming Antitrust

Apple has been fined $1.95 billion by the European Union after the bloc’s executive body, the European Commission, found the iPhone maker in violation of antitrust law by using its App Store market dominance to stifle music streaming competition. The EC found that Apple suppressed the ability of app developers to communicate with iOS users about alternative music subscription services available outside the App Store. The fine stems from a 2019 complaint from Spotify that triggered an investigation into Apple. Spotify hailed the result as a win for consumers and “an important moment in the fight for a more open Internet,” while Apple has vowed to appeal. Continue reading Apple Fined $1.95 Billion by EU for Music Streaming Antitrust

Lightricks LTX Studio Is a Text-to-Video Filmmaking Platform

Lightricks, the company behind apps including Facetune, Photoleap and Videoleap, has come up with a text-to-video tool called LTX Studio that it is being positioned as a turnkey AI tool for filmmakers and other creators. “From concept to creation,” the new app aims to enable “the transformation of a single idea into a cohesive, AI-generated video.” Currently waitlisted, Lightricks says it will make the web-based tool available to the public for free, at least initially, beginning in April, allowing users to “direct each scene down to specific camera angles with specialized AI.” Continue reading Lightricks LTX Studio Is a Text-to-Video Filmmaking Platform

Adobe’s Prototype AI Tool Is a ‘Photoshop for Music-Making’

Project Music GenAI Control, an experimental work from Adobe Research, is setting out to change how people create and edit custom audio and music. The prototype tool lets creators generate music from text prompts, “and then have fine-grained control to edit that audio for their precise needs,” according to Adobe. Designed to help create music for broadcasts, podcasts or other “audio that’s just the right mood, tone, and length,” it can generate music from text prompts like “powerful rock,” “happy dance” or “sad jazz,” says Adobe Research Senior Research Scientist Nicholas Bryan, a creator of the technology. Continue reading Adobe’s Prototype AI Tool Is a ‘Photoshop for Music-Making’

Reddit Announces IPO on Heels of Expanded Deal with Google

Community message board and social news aggregator Reddit, founded in 2005, has filed to go public on the New York Stock Exchange in an IPO observers say may be complete in a matter of weeks. It is the first social media company to go public in many years, with Snap Inc.’s 2017 offering cited as the most recent stock market splash. Reddit’s bankers are reportedly seeking a $5 billion valuation, about half the $10 billion it was valued at for a 2021 private funding round. Reddit filed with the SEC the same day it announced an “expanded partnership” with Google to use Vertex AI. Continue reading Reddit Announces IPO on Heels of Expanded Deal with Google

Nvidia Revenue and Profits Soar on Strength of AI Chip Sales

Demand for artificial intelligence computer chips drove Nvidia income up 769 percent to nearly $12.3 billion for Q4, year-over-year, and 286 percent — to just over $29.7 billion — for the full-year fiscal 2024 frame that ended January 28. Revenue was $22.1 billion (+265 percent) and $60.9 billion (+126 percent) for the respective periods. Data center sales hit record highs of $18.4 billion for the quarter, up 409 percent from the previous year, $47.5 billion for the fiscal year, an increase of 217 percent. Gaming revenue was flat for Q4, at $2.9 billion, and up 115 percent for the year. Continue reading Nvidia Revenue and Profits Soar on Strength of AI Chip Sales

Apple Sports App Provides Stats, Real-Time Scores and More

Apple Sports is a new free app for iPhones that delivers real-time scores, stats and more via a GUI designed by Apple. Available to download from the App Store in the U.S., Canada and UK, the app currently tracks Major League Soccer, Premier League soccer, the National Basketball Association, men’s and women’s NCAA basketball, and the National Hockey League, among others. More sports will be added over time, Apple said, mentioning Major League Baseball and the National Football League. The concept is designed to keep fans continuously connected to their favorite teams while driving Apple TV tune-in. Continue reading Apple Sports App Provides Stats, Real-Time Scores and More

Nielsen: TV Viewership Hits Four-Year High Led by YouTube

The NFL playoffs coupled with heavy streaming and the return of scripted broadcast programming sent January television viewership to a four-year high, according to Nielsen’s The Gauge, which charted a 1.4 percent viewership increase year-over-year — described as noteworthy in a month in which the NFL playoffs typically drive viewership higher. January 2024 included three of the top 10 highest-viewership TV days since The Gauge debuted in May 2021. YouTube continued its streaming dominance for the twelfth consecutive month, with 8.6 percent of January TV streaming viewership, according to The Gauge. Netflix was number two at 7.9 percent. Continue reading Nielsen: TV Viewership Hits Four-Year High Led by YouTube

ElevenLabs Promotes Its Latest Advances in AI Audio Effects

“What if you could describe a sound and generate it with AI?,” asks startup ElevenLabs, which set out to do just that, and says it has succeeded. The two-year-old company explains it “used text prompts like ‘waves crashing,’ ‘metal clanging,’ ‘birds chirping,’ and ‘racing car engine’ to generate audio.” Best known for using machine learning to clone voices, the AI firm founded by Google and Palantir alums has yet to make publicly available its new text-to-sound model but began teasing it by releasing online demos this week. Some see the technology as a natural complement to the latest wave of image generators. Continue reading ElevenLabs Promotes Its Latest Advances in AI Audio Effects