Citing data privacy concerns, Italy temporarily bans ChatGPT

Friday, March 31, 2023 Posted by bloggerdaddy 0 comments
TechCrunch Newsletter
TechCrunch logo
The Daily Crunch logo

By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Friday, March 31, 2023

Fri-yay Crunch!

We are pretty excited about Disrupt 2023 getting a whole stage dedicated to fintech. And while we're talking about events…There's just a few hours left to save $200 on TC Early Stage tickets in Boston in a couple of weeks, so get yer tickets while you can!

On that note, enjoy your weekend! — Christine and Haje

 image

Image Credits: Lee Woodgate / Getty Images

The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Italy gives ChatGPT the boot: Italy's government has been on a blocking kick lately. A few days ago, we wrote about a possible ban on cultivated meat, and today Italy wants to block ChatGPT, citing data protection concerns. Natasha L writes that the country's data protection authority is opening an investigation into whether OpenAI is breaching the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation.
  • Groupon gets its Czech book: Ingrid reports that Groupon has lost 99.4% of its value since its IPO and now has a new CEO who will run the business from the Czech Republic.
  • Jio gets its game on: Manish writes that Mukesh Ambani, CEO of India's streaming giant Jio, sees the Indian Premier League cricket tournament as "the perfect opportunity to revamp Jio's service adoption strategy even as the firm recognizes that cricket streaming will not turn a profit for several years."

Here's why the UK should be known as the 'Unicorn Kingdom'

Sponsored by GREAT Britain & Northern Ireland

Boasting more unicorns than Germany, France and Sweden combined, the UK tech sector is valued at $1 trillion, along with the US and China. Hear from the experts how the UK's ability to scale tech startups has now captured the interest of VCs on the West Coast.

Learn More

Startups and VC

What do you do when you have a very successful and popular product (marijuana) that is legal in some places, but federally has been a Schedule 1 drug since 1970? Well, you can't rely on any national institutions as your business partners, Haje reports. One of the major places that shows up is in payments and payment processing; even after recreational cannabis became legal in 21 states and decriminalized in another dozen or so, cannabis has become largely a cash business. In a world that is increasingly cashless, that's a problem for both consumers and businesses. Smoakland is currently beta-testing a loophole that lets its customers pay by credit card. The secret, it turns out, is crypto.

Need some more to get you through the long bleak gap of “less tech news” known as the weekend? Don’tcha worry fam, we gotchu:

Yeah, of course, YC's winter class is oozing with AI companies

Just over one-third of the fledgling startups in Y Combinator’s latest class say “that they are an AI company or use AI in some kind of way,” reports Rebecca Szkutak.

“You can't blame the YC companies for leaning into AI,” she writes. “If you saw VCs dumping dollars — in a tougher fundraising market, no less — into a technology like AI that you could implement into your own business, why wouldn't you?”

Three more from the TC+ team:

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Read More

Yeah, of course, YC's winter class is oozing with AI companies image

Image Credits: Getty Images

Big Tech Inc.

Checkout.com has a new president who recently spoke with Mary Ann about being bullish on a U.S. expansion and how she "welcomes" comparisons to Stripe. Céline Dufétel says of the payments industry this year: "Now more than ever amid the uncertain economic landscape, CFOs and heads of payments are narrowing in on the impact of payments on topline growth and profitability. Increasingly, business leaders are recognizing the measurable impact of high-performing payments systems in maximizing acceptance rates, minimizing costly fraud concerns, and reducing operational costs."

And we have five more for you:

Read more stories on TechCrunch.com

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram Flipboard

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Labels:

Citing data privacy concerns, Italy temporarily bans ChatGPT

Posted by bloggerdaddy 0 comments
TechCrunch Newsletter
TechCrunch logo
The Daily Crunch logo

By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Friday, March 31, 2023

Fri-yay Crunch!

We are pretty excited about Disrupt 2023 getting a whole stage dedicated to fintech. And while we're talking about events…There's just a few hours left to save $200 on TC Early Stage tickets in Boston in a couple of weeks, so get yer tickets while you can!

On that note, enjoy your weekend! — Christine and Haje

 image

Image Credits: Lee Woodgate / Getty Images

The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Italy gives ChatGPT the boot: Italy's government has been on a blocking kick lately. A few days ago, we wrote about a possible ban on cultivated meat, and today Italy wants to block ChatGPT, citing data protection concerns. Natasha L writes that the country's data protection authority is opening an investigation into whether OpenAI is breaching the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation.
  • Groupon gets its Czech book: Ingrid reports that Groupon has lost 99.4% of its value since its IPO and now has a new CEO who will run the business from the Czech Republic.
  • Jio gets its game on: Manish writes that Mukesh Ambani, CEO of India's streaming giant Jio, sees the Indian Premier League cricket tournament as "the perfect opportunity to revamp Jio's service adoption strategy even as the firm recognizes that cricket streaming will not turn a profit for several years."

Here's why the UK should be known as the 'Unicorn Kingdom'

Sponsored by GREAT Britain & Northern Ireland

Boasting more unicorns than Germany, France and Sweden combined, the UK tech sector is valued at $1 trillion, along with the US and China. Hear from the experts how the UK's ability to scale tech startups has now captured the interest of VCs on the West Coast.

Learn More

Startups and VC

What do you do when you have a very successful and popular product (marijuana) that is legal in some places, but federally has been a Schedule 1 drug since 1970? Well, you can't rely on any national institutions as your business partners, Haje reports. One of the major places that shows up is in payments and payment processing; even after recreational cannabis became legal in 21 states and decriminalized in another dozen or so, cannabis has become largely a cash business. In a world that is increasingly cashless, that's a problem for both consumers and businesses. Smoakland is currently beta-testing a loophole that lets its customers pay by credit card. The secret, it turns out, is crypto.

Need some more to get you through the long bleak gap of “less tech news” known as the weekend? Don’tcha worry fam, we gotchu:

Yeah, of course, YC's winter class is oozing with AI companies

Just over one-third of the fledgling startups in Y Combinator’s latest class say “that they are an AI company or use AI in some kind of way,” reports Rebecca Szkutak.

“You can't blame the YC companies for leaning into AI,” she writes. “If you saw VCs dumping dollars — in a tougher fundraising market, no less — into a technology like AI that you could implement into your own business, why wouldn't you?”

Three more from the TC+ team:

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Read More

Yeah, of course, YC's winter class is oozing with AI companies image

Image Credits: Getty Images

Big Tech Inc.

Checkout.com has a new president who recently spoke with Mary Ann about being bullish on a U.S. expansion and how she "welcomes" comparisons to Stripe. Céline Dufétel says of the payments industry this year: "Now more than ever amid the uncertain economic landscape, CFOs and heads of payments are narrowing in on the impact of payments on topline growth and profitability. Increasingly, business leaders are recognizing the measurable impact of high-performing payments systems in maximizing acceptance rates, minimizing costly fraud concerns, and reducing operational costs."

And we have five more for you:

Read more stories on TechCrunch.com

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram Flipboard

View this email online in your browser

Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Unsubscribe

© 2023 Yahoo. All rights reserved. 110 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Labels:

Ledger locks down another $108M to double down on hardware crypto wallets

Thursday, March 30, 2023 Posted by bloggerdaddy 0 comments
TechCrunch Newsletter
TechCrunch logo
The Daily Crunch logo

By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Thursdaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! It's one of our favorite days of the week. Definitely in the top 7. — Christine and Haje

 image

Image Credits: Ledger

The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Crypto wallet in disguise: Ledger, a company that designs and manufactures crypto wallets, is now flush with actual cash. Romain writes that after raising over $380 million in 2021, in today's dollars, Ledger brought in $108 million, raising at the same valuation and from a long list of investors.
  • Even contact centers need tech: Customers have lots of questions, and to provide the best experience, you need more than just a friendly voice on the other end of the phone. That's where Parloa comes in, raising $21 million to add a little automation to contact centers, Kyle writes.
  • Cashing in on the generative AI frenzy: In Kyle's second top story of the day, Fixie, backed by $17 million in venture capital, wants to make it easier for companies to build on top of language models.

Startups and VC

"Our story starts 15 years ago," Frédéric Utzmann, founder and CEO of Effy, told Romain. After 15 years of bootstrapping, the energy renovation company is at a crossroads and just closed a $22 million funding round from Felix Capital to make the most of the opportunities in the energy renovation space.

The layoffs continue: Indian edtech Unacademy slashes another 12% jobs, and online used-car marketplace Shift cuts workforce by 30%.

Another fistful of wisdoms and nuggets:

How to build a sales development representative strategy that will fill your B2B pipeline

Marketing teams deserve all of the credit for crafting innovative campaigns that break through the noise: Convincing someone to try out a new product or service takes real skill!

In practice, however, sales development representatives (SDRs) do most of the work required to land new customers, “making cold calls, writing email outreach, or sending outbound mail,” says GTM strategist Mike Tong.

Because it takes “about 15 touches for a prospect to want to see a demo,” Tong authored a TC+ guide for early-stage CEOs who need guidance around hiring and incentivizing SDR teams.

“Pipeline generation at early-stage companies is expensive and time consuming, often more so than the sales process itself. That said, getting it right is likely the most important thing you can do for your business.”

Three more from the TC+ team:

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code "DC" for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Read More

How to build a sales development representative strategy that will fill your B2B pipeline image

Image Credits: kampee patisena / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc.

It seems we can't go that many days without more news on a company cutting jobs. This time, Roku is doing a second round of layoffs, this time of 200 employees, or 6% of its workforce, citing "a larger plan to lower its year-over-year operating expense growth and prioritize projects that it believes will have a higher return on investment," Sarah writes. This comes four months after Roku laid off an initial 200 people.

Meanwhile, if you want to book an environmentally friendly ride, you're in luck. Uber expands its Comfort Electric offering to 14 new markets in the U.S. and Canada, Rebecca reports. You can choose from Tesla Models S, 3, X and Y; the Polestar 2; the Ford Mustang Mach-E; the Audi e-tron; the Porsche Taycan; and the Hyundai Ioniq.

And we have five more for you:

Read more stories on TechCrunch.com

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

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