Author: GT

After two years as a venture capitalist for top-shelf firm Benchmark, Victor Lazarte is leaving that company to start his own investing gig, he announced on X on Thursday. Lazarte became known in tech for co-founding mobile gaming company Wildlife Studios, which was last valued at an estimated $3 billion in 2020. Wildlife raised money from a multitude of VCs, including Benchmark. During his two years at Benchmark, Lazarte invested in recruiting and data labeling startup Mercor, AI video intelligence platform HeyGen, and AI infrastructure company Decart AI. Lazarte is leaving Benchmark to “build a new investment practice,” he wrote…

The internet trend is simple: A friend or family member looks into the camera and tells viewers, in a slightly aggressive tone, that they are about to witness a presentation and that they better be nice.  That’s what Kendall, the sister of Lucious McDaniel IV, did, and after she stepped aside, her brother pitched his company, BiteSight, a food-delivery app that lets users watch videos of food before ordering. It also lets customers see what their friends have ordered and bookmark places to try out. The app plays on how young people engage with content — through short-form videos and…

Two years after securing $1 billion in commitments from over 20 countries, the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) is entering a new chapter, marked by the arrival of two new partners and the departure of a founding team partner. In a context of increased military spending across NATO members, investment in dual-use technology has skyrocketed since the initiative was first announced in 2021. Once a no-go zone for institutional investors, defense and resilience tech last year reached an all-time high of 10% of all VC funding in Europe, where nearly all of NIF’s backers are located. This boom should have given…

AI-powered coding tools have become so popular over the past few months that almost every major tech company is either using one or making its own. Makers of these so-called “vibe-coding” tools are a hot commodity at the moment, with startups like Lovable and Cursor fending off buyers and investors keen to tap a hot trend. Google’s now become the latest to hop on this bandwagon: The company is testing a vibe-coding tool called Opal, available to users in the U.S. through Google Labs, which the company uses as a base to experiment with new tech. Opal lets you create…

In response to the European Union’s incoming regulation of political advertising, Meta said on Friday that it will stop selling and showing political ads in the EU from October. Calling the legislation’s requirements “unworkable,” the tech giant wrote in a blog post that the law, dubbed Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising (TTPA), introduces “significant, additional obligations to our processes and systems that create an untenable level of complexity and legal uncertainty for advertisers and platforms operating in the EU.” Adopted by the European Commission in 2024, the TTPA mandates companies selling ads to clearly label political advertisements and provide…

Tea, an app designed to let women safely discuss men they date has been breached, with thousands of selfies and photo IDs of users exposed, the company confirmed on Friday. Tea said that about 72,000 images were leaked online, including 13,000 images of selfies or selfies featuring a photo identification that users submitted during account verification. Another 59,000 images publicly viewable in the app from posts, comments and direct messages were also accessed without authorization, according to a Tea spokesperson. No email addresses or phone numbers were accessed, the company said, and the breach only affects users who signed up…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.Manuel Orbegozo | ReutersMeta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday said Shengjia Zhao, the co-creator of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, will serve as the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs.Zuckerberg has been on a multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence hiring blitz in recent weeks, highlighted by a $14 billion investment in Scale AI. In June, Zuckerberg announced a new organization called Meta Superintelligence Labs that’s made up of top AI researchers and engineers. Zhao’s name was listed among other new hires in…

Tesla is well behind the pace needed to meet its earlier stated goal of producing at least 5,000 Optimus humanoid robots this year, The Information reports. Nearly eight months into 2025, and the number of bots Tesla has produced is only in the hundreds, according to two sources. That means Tesla will either need to step it up or push back the deadline.  The news comes after Tesla reported a 12% decline in overall revenue in the second quarter due to falling EV sales, less cash from regulatory credits, and a decline in solar and energy storage sales. During the Q2…

Apple is expanding its age-rating system for apps. The company on Thursday said it has updated its age-rating system to add 13+, 16+, and 18+ ratings to the existing slate of 4+ and 9+ ratings, and remove the 12+ and 17+ age ranges. In addition, app developers will need to answer a new set of age-rating questions to help identify the sensitive content in their app. Developers will also be able to update their apps’ age ratings to one of the new options, if needed. The company says it has automatically updated all apps and games across the App Store…

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesElon Musk is now a driving force in prediction markets.Musk’s xAI on Thursday announced a partnership to integrate its artificial intelligence chatbot Grok with Kalshi’s prediction markets service. In June, xAI announced a similar deal with Polymarket, a Kalshi rival.Kalshi, the company that turned heads with a made-with-AI commercial during the NBA Finals this year, said Grok will be hosted on its platform and “provide helpful context on developments and fluctuations in market prices.”In May, Grok made headlines when it provided unsolicited context to users on X about “white genocide” in South Africa. Earlier this month,…