April 18, 2025
AI AI startups Anysphere Google Google Cloud Next Hebbia Startups

The most interesting startups showcased at Google Cloud Next 

Google held its Google Cloud Next conference in Las Vegas this week, where it announced dozens of new features, like its next generation AI processing chip, called Ironwood, and its latest AI model, Gemini 2.5 Flash. It also announced a long list of AI startups that have signed to use its cloud. Among them are

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AI copyright Government & Policy Llama Meta

Law professors side with authors battling Meta in AI copyright case

A group of professors specializing in copyright law has filed an amicus brief in support of authors suing Meta for allegedly training its Llama AI models on e-books without permission. The brief, filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, calls Meta’s fair use defense “a

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AI iclr research

Academic accuse AI startups of co-opting peer review for publicity

There’s a controversy brewing over “AI-generated” studies submitted to this year’s ICLR, a long-running academic conference focused on AI. At least three AI labs — Sakana, Intology, and Autoscience — claim to have used AI to generate studies that were accepted to ICLR workshops. At conferences like ICLR, workshop organizers typically review studies for publication

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AI daniel lurie Government & Policy San Francisco Startups TC

SF Mayor Lurie to tech CEOs: ‘How can we get you back?’

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie wants to bring his city back to its glory days. And he’s convinced tech leaders — who often pitch utopian ideals of their own — can help him deliver. “I’m a mayor that is picking up the phone and calling CEOs,” said Lurie during TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC event on Thursday night.

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AI Apps ChatGPT OpenAI

ChatGPT adoption skyrockets in India, but monetization trailing

For years, U.S.-based tech companies have tapped into India’s vast and increasing internet user base for growth. OpenAI is no exception. But while the AI lab claims that India is one of its fastest-growing ChatGPT markets, third-party data suggests that OpenAI may be struggling to turn that momentum into revenue. According to analytics firm SensorTower,

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AI copyright OpenAI study

OpenAI’s models ‘memorized’ copyrighted content, study suggests

A new study appears to lend credence to allegations that OpenAI trained at least some of its AI models on copyrighted content. OpenAI is embroiled in suits brought by authors, programmers, and other rights-holders who accuse the company of using their works — books, codebases, and so on — to develop its models without permission.

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AI Copilot GitHub

GitHub Copilot new limits, charges for ‘premium’ AI models

GitHub Copilot, Microsoft-owned GitHub’s AI coding assistant, could soon become costlier for some users. On Friday, GitHub announced “premium requests” for GitHub Copilot, a new system that imposes rate limits when users switch to AI models other than the base model for tasks such as “agentic” coding and multi-file edits. While GitHub Copilot subscribers can

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AI hayao miyazaki OpenAI Social Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli hasn’t commented on OpenAI’s onslaught of AI copies

When OpenAI debuted its image-generation feature in ChatGPT last week, social media exploded when users realized that they could make AI-generated images that looked like something out of an animated film from Studio Ghibli. Fans hoped that Studio Ghibli mastermind Hayao Miyazaki would take a stand, but the 84-year-old animator has remained silent. In the

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AI ai safety gemini Google

Google is shipping Gemini models faster than its AI safety reports

More than two years after Google was caught flat-footed by the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the company has dramatically picked up the pace. In late March, Google launched an AI reasoning model, Gemini 2.5 Pro, that leads the industry on several benchmarks measuring coding and math capabilities. That launch came just three months after the

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AI autonomous vehicles california robotaxi TC Tesla Transportation

What Tesla can and can’t do in California

Tesla received a permit Tuesday from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to operate a transportation service in the state, the beginning of a long regulatory road that could eventually lead to the company getting the OK to operate a robotaxi service there. The permit, which Tesla applied for in November 2024, doesn’t cover autonomous

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