Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch PM, your source for the most important startup, tech and venture capital news, all in a single package! Today we're looking at why Figma disabled its AI design feature; how Mastodon is throwing journalists some love; what X may have in mind regarding downvotes; and a job opening at Meta. Have a great Tuesday!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Haje Kamps / TechCrunch

Figma figures it out: Andy Allen, the founder of Not Boring Software, was using a Figma tool to help make apps and found that the tool would repeatedly reproduce Apple’s Weather app when used as a design aid. Figma has now disabled the AI design feature, with CEO Dylan Field saying more should have been done during the quality assurance phase. Read more

Plagiarism plagues Perplexity: Perplexity doesn’t train its own foundational AI models. Instead it uses those that are open or commercially available to take the information it gathers from the internet and translate it into answers. That has some news outlets none too happy. Read more

More on Evolve Bank’s data breach: Alternative investment platform Yieldstreet is the latest company to reveal that its customers were affected by the recent data breach at Evolve Bank & Trust. A Yieldstreet spokesperson declined to give details on what kind of customer information was stolen, nor how many customers were affected. Read more

Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Mozilla

Mastodon gives a nod to journalists: The open source, decentralized alternative to X has a new feature for journalists who post their stories there. It’s adding clickable author bylines on link posts that can direct Mastodon users to the author’s account on the fediverse, if active, in turn allowing journalists to gain more exposure and increase their following. Read more

X considers downvotes: Code was spotted for a possible downvote button on X. Before Elon Musk took over, the company had been testing both upvoting and downvoting buttons, similar to how users can vote on the social forums site Reddit. Read more

Snapchat gets personal: Snapchat is introducing new ways for people to personalize their experience on the app in an effort to separate itself from other platforms — while also enticing people to sign up for its Snapchat+ subscription service, now used by 9 million people. Read more

Do you have what it takes to join Meta?: Meta seeks someone to come on board who has experience bringing generative AI technology to video games. The new efforts come as a blockbuster product remains elusive for Meta’s Reality Labs, the division responsible for the company’s various metaverse projects, including its Meta Quest headset. Read more

Chips in space: Today, electronics in space are protected from harmful radiation in two ways — they’re physically shielded, using some combination of materials like aluminum and tantalum, and they’re radiation hardened, which generally means that they’re designed in ways that increase their tolerance to radiation exposure. Aethero wants to bring these kinds of more powerful computing systems to orbit, and the first payload launches this month on SpaceX’s Transporter-11 rideshare mission. Read more

TechCrunch Minute

Image Credits: Getty Images / MirageC

A beginner’s guide to the fediverse: “Fediverse” is one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean? The word comes from “federation” and “universe” being smooshed together, and it refers to a group of social networks — a federation, if you will — that can communicate with each other. Rather than one giant network that plays by one set of rules and is owned by one person or one company, you can let a thousand social networks bloom, each community can set its own rules and have its own conversations, and they can also talk to each other. Want to know more? Hit play and let’s chat!

Around the web 🌐

Iconic tech products become “vintage”: Twentysomethings are embracing the Amazon Kindle, and the Apple iPhone X is now “vintage,” TechRadar reports. I remember when it came out in 2017 and how much my colleagues at the time were so excited. Saying something is vintage may make you feel old, but with the way consumer behavior shifts, anything “vintage” could soon be hip again. Read more

Thunderbolt 5 is here: But as The Verge reports, there aren’t many devices available to plug in. Read more

AI is coming for banks: Reuters looks at how UBS is embracing AI and the ways the technology can help it better interact with customers. Read more