[[{“value”:” Construction procurement is highly fragmented, manual, and opaque, forcing contractors to juggle multiple suppliers, endure lengthy negotiations, and deal with delayed payments. In Saudi Arabia, where trillion-dollar infrastructure and real estate projects are underway, these inefficiencies are even more pronounced. To address this, BRKZ, a Riyadh-based construction tech startup, offers a tech-enabled managed marketplace that […] © 2024 TechCrunch….
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admits that AI’s benefits may not be widely distributed
[[{“value”:” In a new essay on his personal blog, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company is open to a “compute budget,” among other “strange-sounding” ideas, to “enable everyone on Earth to use a lot of AI” and ensure the benefits of the technology are widely distributed. “The historical impact of technological progress suggests that most […] © 2024 TechCrunch….
DeepSeek’s R1 reportedly ‘more vulnerable’ to jailbreaking than other AI models
[[{“value”:” The latest model from DeepSeek, the Chinese AI company that’s shaken up Silicon Valley and Wall Street, can be manipulated to produce harmful content such as plans for a bioweapon attack and a campaign to promote self-harm among teens, according to The Wall Street Journal. Sam Rubin, senior vice president at Palo Alto Networks’ threat […] © 2024 TechCrunch….
Apple could launch a new iPhone SE and PowerBeats Pro 2 on February 11
[[{“value”:” Apple could launch a new iPhone SE and PowerBeats Pro headphones as early as February 11, according to reporting from Bloomberg. The announcement is likely to be on the smaller side, given that the company has not yet issued invites for either an in-person or virtual event. A new iPhone SE would mark the fourth […] © 2024 TechCrunch….
Sony says PlayStation Plus members will get five-day extension after outage
[[{“value”:” After the PlayStation Network experienced a global outage that lasted for nearly a day, Sony says it will compensate PlayStation Plus subscribers by giving them an extra five days of service. The outage seems to have lasted from Friday evening until Saturday evening in the United States, with many PlayStation owners reporting difficulty loading their […] © 2024 TechCrunch….
Here are five startups that are running Super Bowl ads this year
[[{“value”:” Super Bowl weekend is here with the Philadelphia Eagles set to take on the Kansas City Chiefs in New Orleans on Sunday evening. While many folks tune in to the Super Bowl for the actual football, others do so for the halftime performance, and some tune in just for the ads. The ad roster this […] © 2024 TechCrunch….
Investments in French AI ecosystem reach $85B as Brookfield commits $20B
[[{“value”:” Canadian investment firm Brookfield plans to invest €20 billion by 2030 in artificial intelligence projects in France (around $20.7 billion at current exchange rates), according to a report from La Tribune Dimanche confirmed by news agency AFP. The majority of the sum will be used to build AI-focused data centers. This announcement is the latest […] © 2024 TechCrunch….
These apps are building Instagram alternatives on open protocols
[[{“value”:” Consumer demand for alternatives to Big Tech’s social apps is heating up. Alternative social networks like Bluesky and Mastodon are gaining traction with people looking to leave X, while others are building ban-proof TikTok alternatives on open protocols. Similarly, many independent developers are also working on open, decentralized alternatives to Instagram, Meta’s flagship photo-sharing app […] © 2024 TechCrunch….
How to use Apple’s new event planning ‘Invites’ app
[[{“value”:” Apple has released a new app called Invites that is designed to make it easy to create custom invitations for events using an iPhone or on the web. Invites is Apple’s version of Partiful, a popular invitation app that was crowned Google Play’s Best App of 2024. Invites lets you create and share invitations, RSVP […] © 2024 TechCrunch….
Flipbooks in the Classroom: A Fun Way to Teach Animation
[[{“value”:” Almost everyone has experimented with a flipbook at some point—whether by doodling in the corner of a notebook or flipping through the pages of a textbook to make a simple animation come to life. Flipbooks offer a hands-on, engaging way to introduce students to the fundamentals of animation, bridging art, science, and storytelling in a format that’s easy to…