Hello, good friends, and welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch's regular roundup of notable tech developments of the past few days. Our team on the ground at CES 2024 had a lot to report on the program, and more is on the way. (Complete summaries of all announcements are here.) But the world didn't stop turning for CES.
In this edition of WiR, we cover the allegedly unethical tactics of Carta, Samsung's Ballie home robot, Volkswagen adding ChatGPT to its cars, and Amazon embracing more generative ai. Also on the agenda is the launch of OpenAI's GPT store, Logan Paul's CryptoZoo debacle, Harvard's robotic exoskeleton, and a major hack at Fidelity Financial.
There is a lot to overcome, so we will not delay. But first, a reminder to sign up here to receive WiR in your inbox every Saturday if you haven't already.
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Carta's ethics in question: Carta, the cap table management team, is being accused of unethical tactics by Karri Saarinen, CEO of the startup Linear. Saarinen alleged in a LinkedIn post that Carta misused confidential information that startups entrust to the company to achieve their own goals. Carta decided to exit secondary trading after the impact on credibility.
Samsung's Ballie returns: Do you remember Ballie, Samsung's spherical home robot from CES 2020? Samsung brought it back at this year's keynote with some trendy ai updates. The new and improved Ballie is about the size of a bowling ball and features a 1080p projector and a spatial lidar sensor to help you navigate rooms and obstacles.
Volkswagen cars get ChatGPT: Volkswagen is getting into the ChatGPT game. On Monday, the German automaker announced plans to add an ai-powered chatbot to all Volkswagen models equipped with its IDA voice assistant. Because? For drivers who want an ai-based chatbot to read researched content aloud to them, of course.
Amazon, GenAI and clothing: After recently turning to generative ai to improve its product reviews, Amazon shared this week how it is now using ai to help customers shop for clothes online. The company employs personalized size recommendations, a “fit insights” tool for sellers, ai-powered highlights of fit reviews left by other customers, and reimagined size charts to let customers find clothes that fit them. looks better on the Amazon market.
OpenAI GPT Store: OpenAI has launched a store for GPT, custom chatbot applications powered by its text and image generating ai models (e.g. GPT-4 and DALL-E 3). The GPT Store, as it is called, is located in a new tab in the ChatGPT client on the web and features a variety of GPTs developed by both OpenAI partners and the broader developer community.
CryptoZoo Refunds. . . maybe: Logan Paul is offering refunds for CryptoZoo, the failed and allegedly fraudulent Pokémon-inspired nft game he released in 2021. The problem? You can't sue it if you get a refund. Morgan has the full story.
New day, new exoskeleton: A joint team from Harvard and Boston University has developed a soft robotic exoskeleton that detects motion and uses algorithms to estimate a walker's gait. Cable-operated actuators activate and assist with mid-step walking. If promising early results are any indication, this new technology could one day be commercialized, Brian writes.
Fidelity hacked: Real estate services giant Fidelity National Financial has confirmed that hackers stole data from 1.3 million of its customers during a cyberattack in November that left the company offline for a week. In a filing with federal regulators, Fidelity did not say what specific customer data was stolen, but, as Zack writes, all signs point to it being personal or sensitive data.
KYC and GenAI: KYC, or “know your customer,” is a process intended to help financial institutions, fintech startups, and banks verify the identity of their customers. It is not uncommon for KYC authentication to involve “identification images” or verified selfies that are used to confirm that a person is who they say they are. But GenAI could cast doubt on these controls.
Twitch Layoffs: Another round of layoffs is hitting Twitch. The Amazon-owned streaming platform will cut 35% of its staff, or about 500 employees, the latest blow to the already beleaguered company, which cut hundreds of jobs last year amid leadership changes, increased operating costs and community discontent.
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In EquityOn Wednesday's newly renewed episode, the team delved into the news that PhotoRoom is raising more money, Treasury Financial is cutting staff, and two micromobility companies are getting married to try to use scale to their advantage. They also discussed what's happening in the world of ai hardware, why Keith Rabois is returning to Khosla Ventures, and why Seedstars Africa Ventures is adding $30 million to its next fund.
Meanwhile, the people of Found spoke with Markus Witte, co-founder of Babbel, a language learning app that has been operating since 2007. Markus talked about why he decided to step down as CEO and take on the role of president and how the four co-founders have worked together. maintain Babbel's original mission even after almost 20 years.
And in Chain reaction, Jacquelyn interviewed Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of Grayscale Investments. Grayscale is a digital asset investment company that aims to provide products and services to institutional and individual investors; is well known for its Grayscale bitcoin Trust and now its new bitcoin spot ETF product.
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TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys, which you'll find out if you're already a subscriber. If not, consider registering. Here are some highlights from this week:
Siri's Dilemma: Haje writes that Apple's Siri needs to get much smarter, and quickly, so that its competitors don't leave it in the dust (assuming it hasn't already).
Companies skeptical about GenAI: Generative ai gets a lot of press, from imaging tools like Midjourney to OpenAI's Runway and ChatGPT. But companies are not convinced of the potential of technology to positively affect their bottom lines; At least that's what the polls suggest.
The $1 trillion liquidity gap: How supported are the venture capital markets today? The value of the most mature US startups that need to find an exit approached the trillion-dollar mark through the third quarter of 2023, Alex reports: a huge (and growing) problem.
