It may not seem like it takes a lot of smarts to play a game like Pictionary, but in fact it involves a lot of subtle and abstract visual and linguistic skills. This AI built to play a game like it is similarly complex, and its interpretations and creations when you play it (as you can now) may seem eerily human — but it’s refreshing to have such an agent working in collaboration rather than trying to beat you.
View More Play Iconary, a simple drawing game that hides a deceptively deep AICategory: machine learning
Databricks raises $250M at a $2.75B valuation for its analytics platform
Databricks, the company behind the Apache Spark big data analytics engine, today announced that it has raised a $250 million Series E round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Coatue Management, Microsoft and NEA, also participated in this round, which brings the company’s total funding to $498.5 million. Microsoft’s involvement here is probably a bit of a […]
View More Databricks raises $250M at a $2.75B valuation for its analytics platformHealthcare wearables level up with new moves from Apple and Alphabet
Announcements that Apple has partnered with Aetna health insurance on a new app leveraging data from its Apple Watch and reports that Verily — one of the health-focused subsidiaries of Google‘s parent company — Alphabet, is developing a shoe that can detect weight and movement, indicate increasing momentum around using data from wearables for clinical health applications and […]
View More Healthcare wearables level up with new moves from Apple and AlphabetRana el Kaliouby and Alexei Efros will be speaking at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI April 18 at UC Berkeley
TechCrunch’s third robotics event is just over two and a half months away, and it’s already shaping up to be a doozy. We’ve already announced Anca Dragan, Melonee Wise, Hany Farid and Peter Barrett for our event and have an exciting pair of new names to share with you. UC Berkeley’s Alexei Efros and Affectiva CEO […]
View More Rana el Kaliouby and Alexei Efros will be speaking at TC Sessions: Robotics + AI April 18 at UC BerkeleyTencent moves into automotive with $150M joint venture
China’s internet firms are getting pally with giant state-owned automakers as they look to deploy their artificial intelligence and cloud computing services across traditional industries. Ride-hailing startup Didi Chuxing, which owns Uber China, announced earlier this week a new joint venture with state-owned BAIC. Hot on the heels came another entity set up between Tencent and the […]
View More Tencent moves into automotive with $150M joint ventureRigetti launches the public beta of its Quantum Cloud Services
Rigetti Computing, one of the leading startups in the quantum computing space, today announced the public beta of its Quantum Cloud Services (QCS) platform. With this, developers can get access to Rigetti’s quantum processors, as well as all the classical computing resources necessary to build and test quantum algorithms on this hybrid platform. Beta users will […]
View More Rigetti launches the public beta of its Quantum Cloud ServicesVerbit raises $23M for its transcription service
Verbit, a transcription startup with offices in Tel Aviv and New York, today announced that it has raised a $23 million Series A round led by Viola Ventures. Vertex Ventures, HV Ventures, Oryzn Capital, Vintage Venture Partners and ClalTech also participated in this round. The company, which currently focuses on the legal and academic sector, uses […]
View More Verbit raises $23M for its transcription serviceKite raises $17M for its AI-driven code completion tool
Kite, a San Francisco-based startup that uses machine learning to build what is essentially a very smart code-completion tool, today announced that it has raised a $17 million funding round. The round was led by Trinity Ventures, with personal participation from now-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. In addition to the funding, Kite also today announced that […]
View More Kite raises $17M for its AI-driven code completion toolAWS launches Neo-AI, an open-source tool for tuning ML models
AWS isn’t exactly known as an open-source powerhouse, but maybe change is in the air. Amazon’s cloud computing unit today announced the launch of Neo-AI, a new open-source project under the Apache Software License. The new tool takes some of the technologies that the company developed and used for its SageMaker Neo machine learning service and brings […]
View More AWS launches Neo-AI, an open-source tool for tuning ML modelsApple cuts 200 staff from its Project Titan autonomous car division
Apple’s secretive efforts to develop a self-driving car — its so-called ‘Project Titan’ — have taken a hard turn in 2019 after it emerged that the iPhone-maker has reassigned 200 employees previously involved in its development. That’s according to CNBC which, citing sources, reported that a portion of the 200 staff were moved to other […]
View More Apple cuts 200 staff from its Project Titan autonomous car divisionKaia Health gets $10M support for AI-powered management of chronic pain
Kaia Health, a self-styled digital therapeutics” startup, has pulled in $10 million in Series A funding for an app-based approach to chronic pain management. The idea is to offer an alternative to painkillers, using mobile technology to deliver what the founder describes as multimodal, “mind body therapy” for musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders — comprised of guided […]
View More Kaia Health gets $10M support for AI-powered management of chronic painFormer Facebook engineer picks up $15M for AI platform Spell
In 2016, Serkan Piantino packed up his desk at Facebook with hopes to move on to something new. The former Director of Engineering for Faceboook AI Research had every intention to keep working on AI, but quickly realized a huge issue. Unless you’re under the umbrella of one of these big tech companies like Facebook, […]
View More Former Facebook engineer picks up $15M for AI platform Spell