Oh everyone. Welcome back to the latest edition of Week in Review, the newsletter where we bring you some of the most read TechCrunch stories from the last seven days. Do you want it in your inbox every Saturday morning (which, not for nothing, used to be cartoon time for this Gen Xer)? Here is the link.
And now, let’s move on to this week in AI, I mean this week in tech news.
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Microsoft and AI: This week at a press event, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said “it’s a new day for search.” He was referring to the company’s integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 into Bing, its search engine of 13 years. The hope, the Redmond folks say, is that the integration will help Bing better compete with Google. App downloads jumped 10-fold after the AI news broke, as Microsoft promises priority access to the new Bing to those who have it installed. Do you want to go deeper? Take a look at Frederic’s practice with the search engine.
Google and AI: Trying not to be outdone, Google this week announced Bard, its OpenAI ChatGPT counterpart. It is now in a testing phase and will use Google’s dialog app language model to power conversational AI that will draw on information from the web. But Devin also says that the company is losing control.
MOM is the word (sorry, that was too easy): Google also announced this week that its “multiple search” feature, which allows users to search using images and text, is now available globally on mobile devices. And guess what powers multisearch? AI technology called Unified Multitasking Model. BREAST!
GitHub layoffs: This week, Microsoft’s GitHub announced that it will lay off 10% of its staff of 3,000. As part of the effort to “protect the short-term health” of the company, GitHub will also close all of its offices and go fully remote.
Apple executives on the M2: In a wide-ranging interview with Apple’s vice presidents, my boss and TechCrunch editor-in-chief Matthew Panzarino explored the company’s latest in its line of M chips and delved into the M2 MacBook Pro and Mac mini models. Spoiler alert: they are faster.
India blocks gambling and lending apps: India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has called for the blocking of 232 gambling and loan apps to keep user data safe, among other reasons.
Soccer!: It’s Super Bowl LVII time and there are ways to stream it. Get all the details here.
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In Equity this week, Natasha spoke with Cleo’s chief business officer and former CEO SJ Sacchetti about ego, setting boundaries, quitting and becoming a “statistician” and why a company needs to succeed without you. And at Found, Darrell and Becca spoke with Keta Burke-Williams, founder and CEO of direct-to-consumer fragrance company Ourside, about what got her interested in changing the giant, outdated fragrance industry.
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TC+ subscribers get access to detailed feedback, analysis and surveys, which you know about if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are some highlights from this week:
The AI bias: Dom reports that bias shows up in most aspects of AI, from investing and hiring to data collection and production. So the question remains: Who is the next AI frontier really for?
The African Startup Ecosystem: Last year saw record investments in African start-ups. Tage spoke to eight investors and found that the key to this was pre-seed and early-stage investors. But there is still a long way to go.
Spinach.io Pitch Deck Teardown: Haje turns his attention to the seed platform of Spinach.io, a company that is developing its meeting tool for engineers.
For cybersecurity professionals: Contributor David J. Bianco writes of the defender’s dilemma: “The idea that attackers have all the advantages and that defenders should be passive and wait for something to respond is practically a cybersecurity axiom. It’s also a lie.”
