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Glad Thursday, Crunchers!

In case you’ve been to Disrupt earlier than, you’ll keep in mind we had a stage or two or three. This 12 months, we’re going all out, with a bunch of tracks to tickle your curiosity bone. New for Disrupt 2023: The Safety Stage, for these of us who love us some hacking, safety, and the whole lot in between.

— Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch High 3

• Yabba dabba doo!: 🎶 Bedrock, meet the Bedrock, it’s a part of the trendy generative AI household. 🎶 From the city of Seattle comes Amazon’s entrance into the generative AI race with an providing referred to as Bedrock, writes Kyle. In fact, Amazon needs to be totally different, so as a substitute of constructing AI fashions by itself, it has tapped third events to host fashions on AWS.
• Pay attention up: Sarah studies on a pair of recent Spotify options: iPhone customers can now get to the app sooner by a brand new Lock Display screen widget, and there’s new tech for turning radio broadcasts into podcasts.
• Contained in the thoughts of a hacker: Our cybersecurity workforce does a variety of reporting on hacked programs, however Lorenzo bought a firsthand verification from a hacker who was a part of a gaggle claiming huge entry to Western Digital programs. The ending is spicy.

A snapshot of the world of AI

Synthetic intelligence, a creation that inhabits the realm of our deepest fears and highest aspirations, lurks inside the shadows of our existence. It lingers, a paradoxical drive, illuminating the abyss of human consciousness, while daring to problem the very cloth of life’s essence. A relentless, untamed wilderness, AI’s enigmatic potential stretches to infinity, evoking each surprise and trepidation. Humanity, treading the fragile tightrope between dystopia and utopia, should confront its personal nature because it forges forward into the unknown, a cosmic dance with the ghost of the machine.

Sure, the earlier paragraph is the results of asking GPT-4 to spit out 50 phrases on the state of synthetic intelligence within the model of Werner Herzog. Why? As a result of we will. But in addition as a result of Kyle’s story about Amazon coming into the generative AI race was the most-read story on TechCrunch immediately. And since we now have a veritable wall of protection on AI immediately:

Startups and VC

Comixology was genuinely a recreation changer. Earlier than the platform got here alongside, Brian knew only a few individuals who had ever learn a comic book on a telephone or pill. There was totally an excessive amount of friction within the course of to prioritize screens over print, he writes, and means that the app proved a viable possibility, courtesy of a stocked retailer and a intelligent UI that each embraced and tailored the sequential kind. Now, Comixology vets return with their very own publishing firm.

And we now have 5 extra for you:

13 VCs speak in regards to the state of robotics investing in 2023

A veritable baker’s dozen of VCs took half in our newest TC+ robotics investor survey, our first since February 2020.

“The time in between has arguably been a very powerful years for the sector,” writes {hardware} editor Brian Heater, who requested the group about a number of subjects, together with robotics as a service, rising client merchandise, and the way a lot of a task it’d play in addressing local weather change:

• Milo Werner, common companion, The Engine
• Abe Murray, managing companion, Alley Robotics Ventures
• Kelly Chen, companion, DCVC
• Neel Mehta, enterprise investor, G2 Ventures
• Oliver Keown, managing director, Intuitive Ventures
• Rohit Sharma, companion, True Ventures
• Helen Greiner, advisor, Cybernetix Ventures
• Kira Noodleman, companion, Bee Ventures
• Dayna Grayson, co-founder and common companion, Assemble Capital
• Paul Willard, companion, Grep
• Cyril Ebersweiler, common companion, SOSV
• Claire Delaunay, non-public investor
• Peter Barrett, co-founder and common companion, Playground International

Three extra from the TC+ workforce:

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup groups get forward of the pack. You may join right here. Use code “DC” for a 15% low cost on an annual subscription!

Large Tech Inc.

Ivan had a pair of in style reads immediately. First, Snap indicators new music licensing offers with a number of labels all over the world to increase its Snapchat Sounds library. And over to Twitter, which introduced it’s partnering with eToro to point out real-time inventory and crypto data. Ivan writes this follows a characteristic that launched in December that lets customers seek for a ticker or coin image like $TSLA, $APPL or $ETH to get costs straight in search outcomes.

And we now have 5 extra for you:

• Talking of Twitter: Taylor writes about extra newsrooms bailing on Twitter as Elon Musk meddles with account labels.
• I’ve the necessity, the necessity for pace: Google’s Chrome simply bought lots sooner on each Mac and Android, studies Sarah.
• The Saga is just starting: Jacquelyn bought to check out Solana’s web3-focused Saga telephone, writing, “The method itself was simple — and admittedly, enjoyable — however utilizing the telephone was not the smoothest expertise. The telephone was generally sluggish, and I needed to shut and reopen dApps a number of instances as a result of the crypto pockets and NFT minting platform saved freezing.” Don’t fear, she additionally writes that Solana is engaged on it.
• The moon is fabricated from cheese, er, water: Three brothers, and former SpaceXers, give up that gig to start out their very own firm to construct spacecraft powered by moon water. Aria has extra.
• It retains going and going, hopefully: In a transfer towards higher environmental stewardship, Apple says new batteries will use 100% recycled cobalt by 2025, studies Brian.