Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning we're bringing you notes on the release of a new open source AI voice model; Bluesky spinning up a viral T-shirt drop that dunks on Big Tech; and surveillance tech basking in the VC spotlight. We've also got items on SoftBank's latest AI moves, controversy over Apple 'backdoor' hearings in the UK, and the latest from SXSW. Let's dive in! | | | Image Credits: Bryce Durbin | Open Sesame: The conversational AI voice app Maya has gotten a huge amount of attention because of how strikingly, humanly realistic — some might even say creepy — its assistant voices sound, warts and all. Now Sesame, the startup behind Maya, is taking things to the next level with the release of its first base model. It's built on top of an open source Apache 2.0 license, and users can create conversational assistants based on different voices (even their own). Looks like there are few guardrails on what these new voices will say… Use Bluesky? Now buy the T-shirt: Jay Graber is a master of subtle trolling when it comes to the titans of Big Tech. At SXSW, the CEO of Bluesky wore a T-shirt mocking a shirt Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wore with words celebrating his leadership … in Latin. Graber's response tee (in Latin, of course) got so much buzz, Bluesky printed and sold more shirts to raise money for its developer programs. They sold out in 30 minutes flat. Investors are flocking: Money and interest continue to flow into the wider world of defense tech. The latest startup to get a windfall is Flock Safety, a YC alum that is building computer vision-based video surveillance tools. With customers in both the public and private sectors, the startup has now picked up $275 million on a $7.5 billion valuation. Keep your eye on what it will be doing next. | | | Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch | ✈️ Mr Smith goes to Europe: Apple's resisting a government order in the U.K. to build a backdoor into encrypted iCloud storage, and now U.S. legislators are stepping into the fray, calling for an open hearing on the matter (they're not the only ones). 🏛️ And to Washington: Meanwhile, YC's legal team is lobbying in Washington, D.C., for the U.S. to get behind the Digital Markets Act, a big piece of European legislation aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech. 🎌 SoftBank goes hard on data centers: SoftBank still has yet to close its mega investment round of $25 billion for OpenAI, but it's pushing ahead with its (Open)AI plans anyway. Today the Japanese tech giant inked a $676 million deal to buy an old LCD panel factory from Sharp. The plan is to redo it to house a new data center. 💡 Here's a bright idea: Light, the maker of minimalist handsets designed to unhook you from constantly looking at your smartphone, said that its latest model, the Light Phone III, will be available starting March 27. In keeping with the ethos of Light, the III will come with just a few more extra perks, including a better screen, NFC for payments, and a camera. Still no way to get those pics on Insta, though. 🤘 ALL your SXSW news! Pick up some BBQ and check out our latest coverage of SXSW 2025, the Big Tech confab in Austin. 💬 We do speak the same language: Another small bit of progress in the years-long effort to get iPhone and Android phones to be able to send more feature-rich SMS messages to each other as part of the phones' native experiences — a new RCS protocol will enable end-to-end encryption for those messages. | | | 👂 Hear me out: Apple is reportedly planning a new feature for AirPods that will give users the ability to get real-time translations of in-person conversations. This is expected to be rolled out in an update later in 2025, writes Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. 🧠 Nobody move: DeepSeek and its hedge fund parent High Flyer have been blindsided with the runaway, viral success of its competitor to ChatGPT. But there are also some very odd stories emerging out of its efforts to ride the wave without going under. According to this story in The Information, the company is forbidding some members of its R&D team from traveling internationally, and they're snapping up their passports to make sure they do not. | | | ☠️ Baby, remember my name: Bryan Johnson once was best known as the entrepreneur behind the trailblazing fintech Braintree, and then as an investor. Nowadays he's most famous for something else — his commitment to living forever. His latest idea of how to hack our lifespan involves mapping a "foodome" (a play on genome), tracking what people consume and what nasties those items contain, as a route to figuring out how to eat more healthily. | | | Featured jobs from CrunchBoard | | | Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. | | | Update your preferences here at any time | | Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 680 Folsom Street,San Francisco,CA | | | | |
