Sora for Android saw nearly half a million installs on its first day
This makes the Android launch more than 4x the size of the iOS launch, with 327% more installs (360,000) — but the firm notes that’s not an apples-to-apples comparison.
AI
Subtle Computing’s voice isolation models help computers understand you in noisy environments
Subtle Computing has raised $6M in seed funding to build voice isolation models. The startup plans to announce a hardware device next year.
Google Finance offers Gemini AI tools to stock traders
Google’s well-honed strategy of adding AI to absolutely everything continues: the company announced on Thursday that Google Finance is getting a Deep Search feature to turbocharge its AI chatbot, as well as other upgrades to support traders like prediction market support. The new Deep Search feature will let you get more detailed responses and ask […]
Microsoft AI says it’ll make superintelligent AI that won’t be terrible for humanity
Microsoft AI wants you to know that its work toward superintelligence involves keeping humans “at the top of the food chain.” In a lengthy blog post on Thursday, Microsoft AI head Mustafa Suleyman highlighted the formation of a new team dedicated to developing a “humanist superintelligence” that’s “designed only to serve humanity.” This kind of […]
How AI is fueling an existential crisis in education
Here on Decoder, we’ve talked a lot about generative AI, which is a very big idea that is causing quite a few problems. One thing we keep hearing about over and over again is that generative AI is causing a lot of problems in schools. A lot of people out there, including many of the […]
Chaos and lies: Why Sam Altman was booted from OpenAI, according to new testimony
“What did Ilya see?” Two years ago, it was the meme seen ’round the world (or at least ’round the tech industry). OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had been briefly ousted in November 2023 by members of the company’s board of directors, including his longtime collaborator and fellow cofounder Ilya Sutskever. The board claimed Altman “was […]
Foursquare’s founder launches a new app that talks to you about your neighborhood
After teasing its development last year, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley has now launched BeeBot: an AI-powered social app for iPhones that talks to you about what’s happening nearby. In his blog announcement, Crowley says BeeBot behaves like a “personalized radio DJ” that provides location-based audio updates through your headphones, telling you about what friends are […]
Inception raises $50 million to build diffusion models for code and text
Diffusion models already power AI image generators, but Inception thinks they can be even more powerful applied in software development.
Google Maps upgrades navigation in India with Gemini, safety alerts
India becomes the second market after the U.S. to get Gemini-powered navigation on Google Maps.