Author: GT

Teladoc Health Inc. signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 31, 2024.Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesVirtual care provider Teladoc Health, which has seen its market value plummet over the past five years, said Wednesday that it acquired mental health company UpLift for $30 million in cash.Teladoc said the acquisition will help the company build out its struggling BetterHelp mental health segment. Revenue at BetterHelp declined 10% to about $250 million in 2024, and has faced challenges since the economy started reopening after the Covid pandemic.UpLift, which offers virtual mental health therapy, psychiatry and…

OpenAI has published a postmortem on the recent sycophancy issues with the default AI model powering ChatGPT, GPT-4o — issues that forced the company to roll back an update to the model released last week. Over the weekend, following the GPT-4o model update, users on social media noted that ChatGPT began responding in an overly validating and agreeable way. It quickly became a meme. Users posted screenshots of ChatGPT applauding all sorts of problematic, dangerous decisions and ideas. In a post on X on Sunday, CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the problem and said that OpenAI would work on fixes “ASAP.” Two days later, Altman announced…

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Conservative activist Robby Starbuck has filed a defamation lawsuit against Meta alleging that the social media giant’s artificial intelligence chatbot spread false statements about him, including that he participated in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Starbuck, known for targeting corporate DEI programs, said he discovered the claims made by Meta’s AI in August 2024, when he was going after “woke DEI” policies at motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson.“One dealership was unhappy with me and they posted a screenshot from Meta’s AI in an effort to attack me,” he said in a post on…

What one hour ago was looking like another positive day in markets has turned decidedly negative as the latest economic data fueled growing stagflation fears. First up was ADP jobs numbers for April. Coming two days ahead of the government’s own employment data for April, the ADP report showed just 62,000 private sector jobs created this month, well shy of estimates for 108,000 and March’s 147,000. It was the weakest print since July 2024. Next was the government’s first estimate of first quarter GDP growth, which came in at negative 0.3% against estimates for positive 0.2%. While the quarter ended…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg tries on Orion AR glasses at the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., September 25, 2024. REUTERS/Manuel OrbegozoManuel Orbegozo | ReutersMeta is continuing to sink billions of dollars a quarter into the metaverse.In its first-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, Meta said its Reality Labs unit recorded an operating loss of $4.2 billion in the period while bringing in $412 million in sales. Analysts were projecting an operating loss of $4.6 billion on revenue of $492.7 million.Meta’s Reality Labs unit is responsible for the company’s Quest-branded virtual reality headsets and…

Eight years after joining Benchmark as the firm’s first woman general partner, Sarah Tavel announced on X that she is transitioning to a more limited role at the storied venture firm. In her new position as a venture partner, Tavel will continue to make investments and serve on existing company boards, but she will have more time to explore “AI tools at the edge” and reflect on the direction of AI, she wrote. Tavel joined Benchmark in 2017 after spending one and a half years as a partner at Greylock and three years as a product manager at Pinterest. Before…

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft’s cloud computing and artificial intelligence business helped deliver $70.1 billion in sales and boosted profits by 18% for the January-March quarter, a dose of relief for investors during a turbulent time for the tech sector and U.S. economy.The company reported quarterly net income of $25.8 billion, or $3.46 per share, beating Wall Street expectations for earnings of $3.22 a share.The Redmond, Washington-based software maker posted revenue of $70.1 billion in the period, its third fiscal quarter, up 13% from the same period a year ago and also beating Wall Street expectations. Analysts polled by FactSet…

The Crypto Council for Innovation is making a case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that staking is not only a virtue for digital asset markets, but it should be hands-off for the securities regulator. The group — a coalition of staking interests, including Kraken, a16z, Lido, Galaxy, Figment, Polychain and Paradigm — argued in a letter to the agency’s crypto task force that the logic behind the SEC staff’s recent statement that “proof-of-work” crypto mining isn’t a securities transaction under the agency’s jurisdiction, should extend to the practice of staking, pulling it out of the securities bucket. “Stakers,…

Trucks travel through a flooded road while exiting from an Amazon delivery station in Carlstadt, New Jersey, U.S., on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAmazon said Wednesday it plans to spend roughly $4 billion by the end of 2026 on expanding deliveries in rural towns as part of a push to bring faster shipping times to more parts of the U.S.Once the expansion is complete, more than 200 delivery stations will be added, tripling the size of Amazon’s rural delivery network, the company said. The move will bring products closer to customers, and cut average delivery times…

Kintsugi, a Silicon Valley-based startup that helps companies offload and automate their sales tax compliance, has raised $18 million in new funding led by global indirect tax technology solution provider Vertex. The startup plans to enable more small and medium businesses to use its AI-enabled capabilities for tax calculations and filings. The ongoing growth of e-commerce and cross-border trade, combined with increasingly complex tax regulations, has driven global demand for tax automation solutions. Kintsugi aims to aid companies with its software that integrates with revenue-generating points, whether that’s Shopify, Stripe, Chargebee, QuickBooks, or a custom API implementation. This helps bring…