Tech

OpenAI’s new — and first! — video-generating model, Sora, can pull off some genuinely impressive cinematographic feats. But the model’s even more capable than OpenAI initially made it out to be, at least judging by a technical paper published this evening. The paper, titled “Video generation models as world simulators,” co-authored by a host of […]
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Spurred by the growing threat of deepfakes, the FTC is seeking to modify an existing rule that bans the impersonation of businesses or government agencies to cover all consumers. The revised rule — depending on the final language, and the public comments that the FTC receives — might also make it unlawful for a GenAI […]
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After disclosing better-than-expected financial results in its fourth-quarter earnings report, U.S.-based Coinbase has big plans. The second-largest crypto exchange told its investors that it intends to lean heavily on its work with the popular USDC stablecoin this year, lever its recently launched layer-2 blockchain Base as a way to experiment with and improve blockchain utility […]
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Few joys in this cold world can match cracking open a new comic on a lazy Sunday morning. Nothing to do, nowhere to be — just you, a mug of coffee and some sequential art. Not much has fundamentally changed about the American comic book since publishers began collecting newspaper strips as bound volumes in […]
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There have been many attempts at open source AI-powered voice assistants (see Rhasspy, Mycroft and Jasper, to name a few) — all established with the goal of creating privacy-preserving, offline experiences that don’t compromise on functionality. But development’s proven to be extraordinarily slow. That’s because, in addition to all the usual challenges attendant with open […]
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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has denied OpenAI’s attempt to trademark “GPT,” ruling that the term is “merely descriptive” and therefore unable to be registered. It’s a blow to OpenAI’s branding, but don’t expect its competitors to start releasing their own version of the ubiquitous chatbot. ChatGPT is certainly the most recognizable brand in […]
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The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) is getting closer to becoming a law, which would make social platforms significantly more responsible for protecting children who use their products. With 62 senators backing the bill, KOSA seems poised to clear the Senate and progress to the House. KOSA creates a duty of care for social media […]
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In July 2021, someone sent Google a batch of malicious code that could be used to hack Chrome, Firefox, and PCs running Microsoft Defender. That code was part of an exploitation framework called Heliconia. And at the time, the exploits used to target those applications were zero-days, meaning the software makers were unaware of the […]
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Welcome to TechCrunch Crypto, formerly known as Chain Reaction. This is our fifth edition with of course, regularly scheduled news bits, but also some recurring segments and features.
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OpenAI, following in the footsteps of startups like Runway and tech giants like Google and Meta, is getting into video generation. OpenAI today unveiled Sora, a generative AI model that creates video from text. Given a brief — or detailed — description or a still image, Sora can generate 1080p movie-like scenes with multiple characters, […]
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