Google Chrome gets a little bit smarter: Google is adding new features to Chrome on mobile devices. One of the new features is shortcuts for local search results: If you Google "chiropractor near me," you'll see shortcut buttons like "Call," "Directions," and "Reviews." This is coming to Android devices first, and iOS devices will get the feature later this fall. Read More
The chatbot will see you now: Can chatbots replace human therapists? The founders of startup Sonia think so. They're offering an "AI therapist" that users can talk to or text with via an iOS app. Speaking as the daughter of a therapist, I think it's difficult to replace the human connection, but chatbots like these could democratize access to therapy for those who can't afford to see a human therapist. I just wish the three founders of this company had some background in psychology… Read More
Sat Sri Akal, Google: Google is adding support for 110 languages to its translation service, including Punjabi, Afar, Cantonese, Nko, Manx, Tamazight and Tok Pisin. The newly added languages represent over 614 million speakers or about 8% of the world's population, according to Google. Some of the languages don't have any active speakers, but people are working to preserve those languages, so this is a worthy effort. Read More
You get an AI assistant, and you get an AI assistant… French startup Dust wants to help companies create custom AI assistants that connect with their data and documents to help employees work more efficiently. So HR teams can talk to AI when they want to double-check corporate policy or engineering and data teams could ask a bot to write an SQL query on their customer base. Read More
And another one for enterprise AI: Many founders and VCs think AI agents that can perform actions autonomously – like copying info from an email and pasting it into a spreadsheet – are the next frontier of genAI. Orby is another startup that's cropped up to that end. Its genAI platform promises to not just automate workflows that involve data entry, documents processing and forms validation, but also to learn and act on workflows in real time. Read More
Curation comes to Bluesky: Users of social network Bluesky can now create a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow. Bluesky is calling this feature a "Starter Pack," and its goal is to help new users find interesting content out of the gate. Read More
Keeping Salesforce secure: Securing cloud services is an ongoing challenge for enterprises. That's why Odaseva has built its business to solely focus on securing Salesforce environments. If that goal seems weirdly specific, first consider that the founder used to work at Salesforce helping some of its biggest clients figure out how to use Salesforce and make sure it was secure, so he's got unique insights to tap. And also consider that Salesforce has over 150,000 company clients worldwide that could benefit from Odaseva's service. Read More
Chips on the edge: Demand for chips has skyrocketed with the generative AI boom, and investors are throwing money at new solutions to help businesses end their reliance on Nvidia. One AI chip startup that's gone somewhat under the radar is Axelera. The startup focuses on chips that run AI on edge devices, and it's just raised $68 million to expand to new markets ahead of full production of its flagship Metis AI platform. Read More
