Thursday, May 9, 2024

Welcome back to TechCrunch PM. Today I have for you a breach over at Dell, Mistral AI’s journey in search of more money, a new darker mode for WhatsApp and an app to hold all of your website links. Enjoy!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Joan Cros/NurPhoto / Getty Images

Dell tells customers about data breach: Technology giant Dell said it experienced a data breach involving customers’ names and physical addresses. Not much is known about who is behind this. Dell said certain information was taken, but not “any highly sensitive customer information.” It told customers via email, “We believe there is not a significant risk to our customers given the type of information involved.” That’s comforting, I guess? Read More

Mistral AI on the money hunt: We learned from sources that Mistral AI was looking to raise at a $6 billion valuation. SoftBank was linked to this investment earlier, but that rumor has been debunked … for now. There’s also a new investor name in the mix. Read More

Meeting summaries, by Amazon: Amazon CTO Werner Vogels likes to take notes, but as someone who has to be in meetings all day, he was presented with a conundrum. Out of that came Distill, an AI-powered meeting-summarizing app. Sure, there are a number of these, but this one has Amazon tech brains behind it. Read More

Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Bumble

The buzz on Bumble: The dating app is going in a new direction and wants to make more acquisitions. Like the site it operates, it sounds like Bumble has put its feelers out and is looking for the right match — for example, a smaller app that could offer users something they want. Read More

WhatsApp has an even darker mode: WhatsApp is updating its mobile apps for a fresh and more streamlined look, while also introducing a new “darker dark mode.” In addition, there’s a new color palette with over 35 colors to choose from, including deeper tones to reduce eye strain in low-light situations. Read More

Link organizer: Pinterest was popular for a reason — you get all these cool pictures and ideas and need one place to put them. Well, Plinky is doing that, but for all the links you come across. Sure, you can bookmark all the links, but where’s the fun in that? Plinky lets you save links to web pages, apps, videos, images and even app stores; label them neatly; and organize them in different folders. Read More

Google I/O is coming: Mark your calendars for May 14 to watch Google unveil the latest versions of its software platforms, including Android, Wear OS and Android TV. The team will be writing all the stories, and I’ll be wrapping it up in one package, complete with a bow. Read More

r/policy: Reddit is rolling out a new policy aimed at balancing its desire to license its content to larger tech companies, like Google, and protecting users’ privacy. The company also announced a subreddit dedicated to researchers working with Reddit’s data. Read More

Fika Ventures’ co-founder to step back: Eva Ho plans to step away from her position as general partner after Fund III, the firm’s current fund, is deployed. Fika’s other founding general partner, TX Zhuo, will remain with the fund. Read More

Money, money, money

Triomics raises a $15 million Series A to automate cancer clinical trials matching. Read More

Fairgen ‘boosts’ survey results using synthetic data and AI-generated responses. Read More

Around the web

Image Credits: Getty Images/Patra Kongsirimongkolchai / EyeEm

Roblox shares slip: It looks like fewer people are spending money within Roblox’s video-gaming platform. This caused the company to cut its annual bookings forecast Thursday, CNBC reported. Shares fell around 20% on the news. Read More

Bye-bye, Chevy Malibu: General Motors will retire the gasoline-powered sedan to make way for electric vehicles, The New York Times reports. Read More

AI and the afterlife: Business Insider has a look at “griefbots,” which are the AI-powered reincarnations of your loved ones. Read More

TechCrunch Minute

OpenAI will soon ask to use your content as training data: OpenAI is building a tool called Media Manager that will allow creators to better control how their content is being used to train generative AI models by giving them the option to opt out. Today we dig into what OpenAI has on offer and what it could mean for both the world of creators and AI remixers. Hit play and let’s chat!