Hey, of us, and welcome to Week in Assessment (WiR), TechCrunch’s publication that highlights key developments within the tech trade over the previous few days. In the event you missed the information this week, no biggie. That’s what WiR is for. We’ll fill you in.
On this version, we cowl Reed Jobs, the son of Steve Jobs, who’s launching a brand new enterprise fund to again most cancers therapies; China’s cutthroat e-commerce techniques; and fan-fiction writers rallying towards a proposed U.S. regulation that would result in better surveillance on-line. Elsewhere, we pull again the curtains on Google Assistant reportedly pivoting to generative AI; NASA launching its personal streaming service, referred to as NASA+; and Walmart shopping for VC agency Tiger World’s remaining Flipkart stake.
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Jobs fights most cancers: Reed Jobs, the 31-year-old son of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, is getting into the highlight with a brand new enterprise capital agency to spend money on rising most cancers therapies. Known as Yosemite — after the nationwide park the place Reed’s dad and mom had been wed — the agency has already closed its debut fund with $200 million from outstanding people and establishments, together with MIT, Memorial Sloan Kettering Most cancers Heart and John Doerr.
Combat of the Chinese language e-commerce giants: The battle between two of China’s largest e-commerce corporations, Temu and Shein, is heating up. Temu just lately filed a court docket doc within the U.S. accusing fast-fashion big Shein of anticompetitive practices, which was a response to Shein’s accusations in March that Temu “willfully and flagrantly infringed Shein’s unique and worthwhile trademark and copyright rights.”
Fan-fiction writers protest on-line security regulation:This week, fan-fiction writers penned letters to their senators, expressing their issues that the U.S. Children On-line Security Act (KOSA) might change the web ceaselessly. KOSA has been met with a flood of opposition from a wide range of web communities; detractors fear that the invoice might limit queer youngsters’ entry to affirming on-line assets or make it simpler for native governments to surveil abortion seekers.
Google Assistant embraces generative AI: Google is reportedly planning a serious revamp of Google Assistant, its AI-powered assistant, because the generative AI race heats up. An inner e-mail means that the brand new and improved Google Assistant shall be “powered by the most recent LLM [large language model] expertise” — tech comparable, presumably, to that underpinning AI methods like OpenAI’s GPT-4.
NASA will get into streaming: NASA introduced this week that it’s going to launch a brand new streaming service later this yr referred to as NASA+. The ad-free, no-cost streaming portal will embrace dwell protection of future launches, documentaries and new unique sequence that shall be solely out there on the platform.
Walmart absolutely acquires Flipkart: Walmart has paid $1.4 billion to purchase out VC agency Tiger World’s remaining holding of Flipkart shares because the retail big additional expands its stake within the Indian e-commerce startup. Walmart, which spent $16 billion on a 77% stake in Flipkart in 2018, held 72% share within the agency as of final yr, based on an evaluation by market intelligence agency Tracxn.
Apple provides X a move: After weeks of modifications to its social handles, branding on its interface, a redirect on the net and plenty of chatter from its proprietor, Twitter the app has lastly modified its title on the App Retailer to X. The only-letter title could have an exception: Apple usually doesn’t permit builders to call their apps as a single character.
SpaceX exams a “pancake”: SpaceX performed a full-pressure check of a brand new water deluge system — which CEO Elon Musk described as “a mega-steel pancake” — for its Starship launch automobile, as the corporate seems to be to resolve one of many largest issues that cropped up through the orbital flight check in April.
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On Fairness, the crew hosted Sara Mauskopf, the CEO and co-founder of the childcare market Winnie, to debate the state of care as a venture-backable class, the place startups can discover essentially the most affect and enterprise outcomes and the pressures of fundraising-driven progress in care-oriented markets.
This week’s episode of Discovered, in the meantime, targeted on ReBokeh, a startup that created an app that applies filters to permit folks with low imaginative and prescient to see higher. The founder and CEO, Rebecca Rosenberg, talked about how her personal expertise with having low imaginative and prescient impressed the product and what it was like constructing ReBokeh as an undergrad when every little thing went distant in 2020.
And over on Chain Response, Jesse Pollak, head of protocols at Coinbase, chatted in regards to the launch of Base, a brand new Ethereum-based blockchain that’s set to launch on Coinbase in only a few days. Pollak dove into what’s happening and why it issues, in addition to the place he sees Base going within the distant future.
TechCrunch+
TC+ subscribers get entry to in-depth commentary, evaluation and surveys — which you recognize if you happen to’re already a subscriber. In the event you’re not, contemplate signing up. Listed here are a couple of highlights from this week:
The way forward for AI is video: Haje writes about how generative AI video tech is advancing rapidly — and the way it’s opening up a world filled with potentialities which might be each good and horrible.
Crypto’s not lifeless but: The crypto world is likely to be shaky — however the blockchain developer area is displaying indicators of promise. Responding to a survey for TC+, builders confirmed most curiosity in good contract safety and account abstraction.
Room-temperature superconductors: Final week, a group from South Korea claimed to have created a fabric that superconducts at ambient temperature. It’s too early to inform whether or not their work will maintain as much as scientific scrutiny. However Tim writes that, if it does, many industries can be ripe for upheaval.
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