Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we've got notes on ChatGPT's Studio Ghibli moment, an impressive round for Island, and a startup that's seizing the culture of remittance. We've also got a deepfake detection startup, a nuclear startup's foray into SPAC Land, Google's AI travel planning features, and more. Let's dive in! — Rebecca | | | Image Credits: Eugene Gologursky/The New York Times / Getty Images | 1. The Boy and the Chatbot: It took less than 24 hours for OpenAI's new image generator to result in a flood of images copying the style of Studio Ghibli, raising concerns once again about potential violations of copyright laws. Read More 2. Go big or go home: Enterprise-focused browser startup Island isn't as lonesome as its name suggests. The Dallas-based firm just raised $250 million from its friends at Coatue, Insight Partners, Sequoia and others, and at an impressive $4.85 billion valuation. Read More 3. Concerning: United Health is the latest big company to erase mentions of diversity, equity, and inclusion from its website. For an insurance company that's now known as being careless with its customers' health, one can only hope that this political posturing doesn't extend to patient care. Read More | | | Image Credits: Wildpixel / Getty Images | 👀 What's the opposite of deepfake? GetReal! This startup from Hany Farid, one of the pioneers in detecting deepfakes, aims to help governments and enterprises detect and halt AI impersonations. It just raised $18 million to scale. Read More 🤔 Are we still SPACing? Terrestrial Energy, a small nuclear startup, has gone public via SPAC. The company expects to net $280 million from the deal, which hopefully will help it bring its modular reactor to market. If the history of SPACs has taught us anything, though, it's that there's much risk for a pre-revenue company going public for access to cash. Read More 🇮🇳 Diaspora dollars: H-1B visas have created a thriving Indian expat community in the U.S., and remittance flows back home are on the rise. That's an opportunity for startups like Abound, which just raised $14 million to tap that growth with its mobile app. Read More 🤑 Closing out: OpenAI is getting close to finalizing a new $40 billion funding round led by SoftBank, with potential participation from Magnetar Capital, Coatue Management, Founders Fund and others. Read More ✈️ Google doesn't want to cede ground to ChatGPT when it comes to travel planning, so it's rolling out some new AI features across Search, Maps and Gemini to help you plan your summer vacay. The Search offering seems the most promising, as it combines photos, reviews and locations on a map when you query for a trip. Read More | | | 📺 Leave Elmo alone: Republicans are really out here trying to defund U.S. public media. A DOGE subcommittee brought the heads of NPR and PBS in to accuse them of having "communist agenda[s]" and being "radical leftwing echo chambers," per The Guardian. Read More 🏈 Haters gonna hate: Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said TSMC's pledge to spend an extra $100 billion on advanced manufacturing plants in the U.S. won't restore the country to a global leader in chipmaking, per The Financial Times. Read More 🛒 Hustle culture: Instacart has introduced a new way for shoppers to make money, reports The Verge. They can take videos of store shelves "one aisle at a time" so that Instacart can determine which products are available and which are out of stock. Read More | | | 💻 Psych! The Lumon Terminal Pro computer from the hit TV show "Severance" has appeared on Apple's retail website. But sorry, fans, it's not for sale. Still, considering Apple TV's losses, maybe it should be. Read More | | | 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 | | | | |
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