Author: GT

Despite being one of the richest countries in the world, and the overwhelming preference of investors for the property market of the country over stocks, Saudi Arabia remained data-poor in the real-estate sector until relatively recently. That was something Ahmed Bukhamseen wanted to change, and his company Quant set out to transform the property investment market and open up pricing information to buyers, speculators, and investors. As you might expect, at the core of Quant is data – advertised and realised prices, mapping, details of proposed and ongoing construction, geo-spacial data, imagery, and much more. We spoke to Ahmed at the recent MWC…

Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has acquired Hotshot, a startup working on AI-powered video generation tools along the lines of OpenAI’s Sora. Aakash Sastry, Hotshot’s CEO and co-founder, announced the news in a post on X on Monday. “Over the past 2 years we’ve built 3 video foundation models as a small team — Hotshot-XL, Hotshot Act One, and Hotshot,” Sastry wrote. “Training these models has given us a look into how global education, entertainment, communication, and productivity are about to change in the coming years. We’re excited to continue scaling these efforts on the largest cluster in the world,…

Creating a startup that competes with your former employer can be risky. Apple, for example, once sued a former chip design executive who founded his own chip startup in a case that was dropped in 2023. A recent case involving logistics unicorn Flexport and a new competitor formed by two former employees sheds light on those risks. Flexport is suing the pair alleging that they stole thousands of its documents along with its source code to create their own rival startup, Freightmate AI — claims strongly denied by Freightmate. Both startups use technology to automate complex logistics and shipping processes. Flexport says it…

By Suzanne McGee (Reuters) – Canary Capital Group, a digital assets investment firm, said on Monday that it is seeking the green light from regulators to launch an exchange-traded fund tied to the spot price of Sui, a cryptocurrency associated with Sui Network, a blockchain service provider. That brings Canary’s list of cryptocurrency filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission to six, and again extends the roster of new ETF filings on a growing array of coins seeking regulatory approval submitted since the election of President Donald Trump last November. Trump’s pledge to shake up the regulatory treatment of the…

Users on social media have discovered a controversial use case for Google’s new Gemini AI model: removing watermarks from images, including from images published by Getty Images and other well-known stock media outfits. Last week, Google expanded access to its Gemini 2.0 Flash model’s image generation feature, which lets the model natively generate and edit image content. It’s a powerful capability, by all accounts. But it also appears to have few guardrails. Gemini 2.0 Flash will uncomplainingly create images depicting celebrities and copyrighted characters, and — as alluded to earlier — remove watermarks from existing photos. New skill unlocked: Gemini…

Ripple Labs has filed a trademark application for “Ripple Custody,” signaling an expansion into the crypto custody space. The trademark application, filed on Feb. 25, outlines four key use cases, including “custodial services in the nature of maintaining storage and possession of cryptocurrency […] for financial management purposes.” Crypto custody services are becoming increasingly important, especially following the approval of Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. in 2024. Major financial institutions like Coinbase, Citi, and BNY Mellon have already established their presence in this space, providing secure storage solutions for institutions and individuals. Ripple’s move suggests it is looking to enter…

The fintech segment, which saw massive growth during the pandemic and immediately after, had a fairly rough 2024, ending with the abrupt shutdown — and then unexpected acquisition — of accounting startup Bench. Though the rapid pace of funding has slowed, some fintechs are continuing to see growth and expand their teams. In an effort to better understand just how many fintechs might fit into this category, I put out a call last year asking for fintech companies that are hiring. After just over an hour, I got more than a dozen responses. Over the span of a few days,…

Cryptocurrency Crypto asset manager 21Shares is liquidating two bitcoin and ethereum futures exchange-traded funds, according to a recent press release. The move comes amid a crypto market slump that’s developed due to concerns of a possible economic recession. The ARK 21Shares Active Bitcoin Ethereum Strategy ETF (ARKY) and the ARK 21Shares Active On-Chain Bitcoin Strategy ETF (ARKC) will liquidate “on or around March 28.” Investors can trade their holdings in the two funds until the end of the trading day on March 27. The scheduled liquidation is taking place “based on routine review of the firm’s product lineup to ensure…

The first satellite of the Google-backed FireSat constellation successfully made it to orbit over the weekend, kicking off what promises to be a new era in wildfire detection and monitoring. The constellation will keep a close eye on wildfires. When fully operational, the constellation’s more than 50 satellites will be able to image nearly all of Earth’s surface once every 20 minutes. The initial phase will consist of just three satellites, and it will revisit every point on the globe twice per day when it’s operational in 2026. The first satellite was built by Muon Space and launched aboard SpaceX’s…

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona’s highest court has created a pair of AI-generated avatars to deliver news of every ruling issued by the justices, marking what is believed to be the first example in the U.S. of a state court system tapping artificial intelligence to build more human-like characters to connect with the public.A court in Florida uses an animated chatbot to help visitors navigate its website, but the Arizona Supreme Court is charting new territory with the creation of Victoria and Daniel. Made of pixels, the two avatars have a different job in that they serve as the face of…