Here are the hottest product announcements from Apple, Google, Microsoft and others so far in 2024

by with No Comment Tech

Apple Intelligence shown on multiple devices

Image Credits: Apple

If you love gadgets and gizmos, this year’s product conferences have been right up your alley.

We’ve poked through the many product announcements made so far this year by the biggest tech companies and trade shows to create a list of what we think are the most important, or the most interesting, reveals. So far this list covers Apple WWDC, Apple Let Loose, Google I/O, Microsoft Build, Mobile World Congress and CES. Please check back as we’ll continue to update what’s below.

‘It’s Glowtime,’ or the annual iPhone event

Apple Event 2024
Image Credits: Apple

iPhone 16

No surprise that Apple’s annual September event included a brand new iPhone. This one, dubbed iPhone 16, was “designed around Apple Intelligence, from the ground up,” CEO Tim Cook said at the time, though news out of the event was that buyers of the new models will have to wait a bit before all of the AI features are available. Still, it’s got other new features.

The 48-megapixel camera offers a 2x telephoto lens, includes autofocus, and it can capture up to 2.6x more light for low-light images. It can also shoot in macro, and the new vertical design allows the handset to capture Spatial Photos and Videos that can be viewed on the company’s Vision Pro. 

Along with the base 16 model, Apple also released the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, both of which feature the new A18 Pro chip. The models come in 6.3- and 6.9-inch displays, include a devoted camera button, as well as additional camera features that offer more control both before and after stills and video are shot. Of course, increased battery life is a part of the package. For more specs and to compare the models, check this out. And to find out why Apple added another button to the phones, read this. 

iPhone 16 Camera Control
Image Credits: Apple

Apple Watch Series 10

If you are not among the Ultra set but want a bigger screen and a thinner display than what you’re used to, the Watch Series 10 is after your wrists. The screen is “up to 30%” larger, and the body is 10% thinner than the previous model. An updated speaker lets wearers listen to music or podcast episodes from the device; a new charging coil promises to charge it 80% in 30 minutes; and it’ll give you 18 hours of battery on a full charge. But among the biggest changes to the Series 10 are the new sleep apnea detection, which was approved by the FDA, and a depth sensor for use while snorkeling (not scuba diving like with the Ultra) and surfing. 

AirPods 4

AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation debuted at the event, too, with $50 separating the two. Both models feature USB-C charging, while the ANC models bring wireless charging and a built-in speaker for Find My functionality. The new AirPods are powered by the H2 chip, which brings improvements to playback and call sound quality. Charging options increase with AirPods 4 with ANC, as listeners can use a Qi‑certified charger, as well as the typical Apple Watch charger.

AirPods 4
Image Credits: Apple

iOS 18

Version 18 of Apple’s mobile operating system launched without its highly anticipated Apple Intelligence features, which will be available later this year. But what you do get is a slew of other updates to your oft-used apps that should tide you over for a bit. You can now schedule iMessages and take your pick of emojis to react with; search through your call history; and customize the look and layout of your app icons and Control Center, which now allows you to include third-party apps. Read our full review of iOS 18 here. And click here to see all the devices compatible with iOS 18.

Apple WWDC

Apple
Image Credits: Apple

Apple Intelligence 

The biggest buzz at this show was the new feature called Apple Intelligence (AI, get it?). Apple promised its AI will be highly personalized and built with safety at its core. Read more

Apple also revealed how developers will soon be able to bring the Apple Intelligence experience into their software, allowing for things like image generation, or new prompts to Siri. Read more

Apple is also working with OpenAI to allow its device users to access OpenAI with plans to add options to other LLMs in the future. Read more 

Apple’s new Passwords app

While you can already use your iCloud account to store and sync passwords across your devices, it wasn’t easy to figure out. The new Passwords app will include new features like a new column on the left that lets you more easily navigate your password collection. For instance, you can view all your passwords or just Wi-Fi passwords (a new addition), passkeys or codes that aren’t related to a website or service. Read more

MacOS Sequoia, iOS 18

The latest operating system version is called macOS Sequoia. One of the biggest features is iPhone mirroring, which lets you control your iPhone from your Mac. Read more

As for the latest iOS, iOS 18, one big new feature is that users will be able to lock an app when they hand over their phone to do things like show someone a picture or let them play a game. Read more

There were more Apple WWDC announcements as well. Read about the others

Apple Let Loose

Image Credits: Apple

iPad Air with M2 chip

The iPad lineup is getting a facelift and one of the most important additions is that it now comes in two sizes, the 11-inch display and a 13-inch display. The cost is $599 for the 11-inch and $799 for the 13-inch. Read more

iPad Pro with M4

The iPad Pro is being touted as the thinnest iPad ever. Features include an OLED display in two panels called Tandem OLED. It also has a nanotextured glass option for less glare. And, it features the next generation of Apple silicon called M4, a jump from M2. In the U.S., the 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $999 for the Wi-Fi model, and $1,199 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model. The 13-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,299 for the Wi-Fi model, and $1,499 for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model. Read more

Inside the M4 chip

The M4 chip is the fourth generation of Apple’s custom SoCs. It features a new display engine, as well as significantly updated CPU and GPU cores. Apple claims that the new CPU is 50% faster than the M2 chips that powered the last generation of iPad Pros, while the GPU will offer a 4x increase in rendering performance. Read more

Inside Tandem OLED

Among its many features, the Tandem OLED screen can support an incredible 1,000 nits of full-screen brightness for both SDR and HDR content, and 1,600 nits of peak HDR brightness. Read more

Apple Pencil Pro

Shocking as it may seem, it’s been nearly a decade since the first Apple Pencil was announced, way back in 2015. The stylus hasn’t seen much in the way of updates since then. The most significant arrived in 2018, bringing magnetic charging to the line. Last year, meanwhile, saw the arrival of a less expensive model with fewer features and USB-C charging. Many of the new features with the Apple Pencil Pro come from the squeeze. You can create animations, move and rotate the object and even apply lens blurring. Read more

Magic Keyboard

Apple announced a new and improved Magic Keyboard, its keyboard accessory for iPad. The Magic Keyboard has been “completely redesigned” to be much thinner and lighter, Apple says, and now includes a function row for quick access to controls like screen brightness. Beyond that, the new Magic Keyboard features aluminum palm rests and a larger trackpad. Plus it’s more responsive, Apple says, with haptic feedback. Read more

There were more Apple Let Loose announcements as well. Read about the others

Google I/O

Google Pixel 8 Pro in Bay, being held aloft with the back facing the camera
Canadian drag queen Tynomi Banks holds the new Google Pixel 8 Pro
Image Credits: Darrell Etherington

The top new AI products and features unveiled

Back in May, Google hosted its annual I/O developers’ conference, and our own Kyle Wiggers took readers you on journey of all of the company’s AI announcements, including around generative AI and accessibility. Read more

Wear OS 5

It was at the event that Google first gave a developer preview of the new version of its smartwatch operating system, Wear OS 5. This release focuses on improved battery life and other performance improvements, like more efficient workout tracking. Developers are also getting updated tools for creating watch faces and building watch apps. Read more

Tensor Processing Units

Google unveiled its next generation — the sixth, to be exact — of its Tensor Processing Units (TPU) AI chips. Dubbed Trillium, they will launch later this year. If you recall, announcing the next generation of TPUs is something of a tradition at I/O, even as the chips only roll out later in the year. Read more

Pixel 8a

It also revealed a new Pixel 8a smartphone that is a budget version starting at $499 but is packed full of features. Read more

Pixel Slate

Google’s Pixel Tablet, called Slate, is now available, too. If you recall, TechCrunch’s Brian Heater reviewed the Pixel Tablet around this time last year, and all he talked about was the base. Interestingly enough, the tablet is available without it. Read more

Gemini 1.5 Pro

Everyone can use a “half” every now and again, and Google obliges with Gemini 1.5 Pro. This, Kyle wrote, is “Google’s most capable generative AI model,” and is now available in public preview on Vertex AI, Google’s enterprise-focused AI development platform. The new version of this LLM supports more tokens, making it more powerful, and has audio-processing capabilities. Read more

Axion

Back in April, Google Cloud joined AWS and Azure in announcing its first custom-built Arm processor, dubbed Axion. Frederic Lardinois wrote at the time that “based on Arm’s Neoverse 2 designs, Google says its Axion instances offer 30% better performance than other Arm-based instances from competitors like AWS and Microsoft and up to 50% better performance and 60% better energy efficiency than comparable X86-based instances.” Read more

There were more Google I/O announcements as well. Read about the others.

Microsoft Build

Microsoft Surface Laptop
Microsoft Surface Laptop
Image Credits: Microsoft

Copilot+ PC

Copilot+ PCs are Microsoft’s vision of AI-first, flagship Windows hardware. All include dedicated chips called NPUs to power AI experiences like Recall. And they ship with 16GB of RAM minimum, paired with SSD storage. Copilot+ PCs start at $999. Read more

Surface Pro and Surface Laptop

Microsoft’s new Surface devices, the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro, focus on performance and battery. The latest Surface Laptop — available with a 13.8- or 15-inch display — has been redesigned with “modern lines” and thinner screen bezels. Read more

There were more Microsoft Build announcements as well. Read about the others

Mobile World Congress

Lenovo’s transparent laptop.
Image Credits: Brian Heater

Ultraleap is bringing haptic touch to cars and VR headsets

If you don’t know what haptics are, you will by the end of this article. Brian Heater spoke with Ultraleap co-founder and CEO Tom Carter about adapting the technology for use in automotive and virtual reality. However, that’s not all the company can do with it. Read more

Nothing Phone (2a)

The Nothing Phone (2a) is Nothing’s third phone that goes directly after the mid-tier/budget space, with a starting price of $349. Much about the phone is similar to Nothing’s earlier devices, however what’s different is that the Phone (2a) is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro chip, a variant built specifically for the device. Read more

HTC Vive became an enterprise business

HTC broke off into a mixed reality division about a decade ago. During that time, Vive’s headsets have gone from a mostly consumer play to more of an enterprise tool. Brian Heater sat down with Dan O’Brien, HTC’s Vive general manager, and John Dabill, the brand’s head of product operations, to discuss Vision Pro, Magic Leap, the metaverse and generative AI. Read more

Displace wireless television

Mike Butcher caught up with Displace founder and CEO Balaji Krishna, who discussed the company’s 55-inch Display Flex product. It’s a “wireless” $3,000 4K OLED TV that sticks to walls without a traditional mounting. Krishna said more versions of the screen, and new features, are coming and hinted at future features based on an “AI-powered shopping engine” letting consumers purchase products from ads, and a contactless payment reader. Read more

Motorola’s rollable concept phone

What’s the maximum size of a device that you will wear on your wrist? If “bigger is better” is your go-to answer, Lenovo has something for you. The company has designed what it’s calling a “rollable concept phone” for Motorola that folds around your wrist. The key word being “concept,” because there is no proof this could become a product. Regardless, it’s fun to see. Read more

Xiaomi’s first electric car

Xiaomi EV’s first product — the highly anticipated Xiaomi SU7 — is a “full-size high-performance eco-technology sedan” with plans to arrive in China at some point next year. In addition to design, Xiaomi has developed the five core EV technologies: E-Motor, CTB Integrated Battery, Xiaomi Die Casting, Xiaomi Pilot Autonomous Driving and Smart Cabin. And, as mentioned before, it will have the “HyperOS” operating system. Read more

Samsung’s first smart ring

Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but if you’re a girl who can’t sleep, Samsung’s new Galaxy Ring may be your new BFF. Some of the features include on-board sensors to measure heart rate, movement and breathing to create a cross section of the wearer’s health and sleep patterns. Read more

Xiaomi’s CyberDog

After years of reporting on Xiaomi’s CyberDog, Brian Heater was finally able to see the robotic dog up close at MWC. He got to see the little dog’s dressage shuffle and do a little dance, which he wrote reminded him “of a scaled-down version of Boston Dynamics’ familiar robot.” CyberDog 2 can currently be purchased online for $3,000 — that’s nearly double the $1,600 price point of its predecessor. Read more

Lenovo’s laptop concept

If you’ve always wanted to look at the back of your desk while working, Lenovo’s new transparent laptop will certainly give you that joy. That is, if it ever makes it to production. It looks like your standard laptop with a few exceptions — the screen has a transparent pane, and it and the keyboard part remind us of an augmented reality experience, meaning the graphics are overlaid on whatever is behind it. For now, Lenovo enjoys showing off its creativity. Read more

There were more Mobile World Congress announcements as well. Read about the others

CES

honda saloon concept vehicle ces 2024
Image Credits: Honda

The weirdest tech of CES 2024

One thing is consistent throughout every CES: weird and unexpected gadgets and gizmos appear from unexpected places. We published a rundown of some of the most noteworthy products and services here, which include expensive binoculars with birdwatching AI, voice-absorbing muzzles, pay-as-you-go bathroom access and a router that tries to fit your aesthetic. Read more

Hyundai shows off its eVTOL, air taxi ambitions

Supernal’s electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft got a showcase from its parent company Hyundai Motor Group on the ground in Las Vegas, as the so-named S-A2 moves closer to its planned 2028 launch for shuttling passengers. Head here for a full rundown on the aircraft, and the challenges in expanding airborne mobility. Read more

This delivery bot handles stairs with ease

Mobinn, a new spinoff from Hyundai, showed off how its new delivery robot can use its flexible wheels to navigate stairs and changes in elevation to drop off deliveries, with tests already being conducted in Korea. Read more

All electric vehicles, all the time — Honda, VinFast, Google Maps

We had an early look at Honda’s upcoming 0 Series electric vehicles, a thin and light take on what has typically been a thick and heavy EV trend. The automaker teased two concept vehicles, the Saloon and Space-Hub, and said the first commercial model in its 0 Series EV lineup will launch in North America in 2026. Read more

Vietnamese EV startup VinFast also revealed plans this year to get into the electric pickup truck game with the reveal of a new concept called the VF Wild. The truck will have midsize pickup dimensions, and a folding mid-gate to allow the five-foot bed to turn into something functionally closer to an eight-foot bed (when the rear seats are down). The company also officially announced plans to start selling its smallest EV, the VF3, outside of Vietnam. Read more

Ultrahuman unveils ‘home health’ tracker

Indian wearable startup Ultrahuman said it was getting into the smart home game with the upcoming launch of connected hardware that’s designed to monitor the “health” of your home, as its marketing puts it. The device, which it’s calling the Ultrahuman Home, has a price of $349 and a shipping date slated to start in July. Read more

Pivotal begins personal aircraft sales

Pivotal, which is backed by Larry Page, this year launched its U.S. sales of its lightweight electric Helix aircraft, which notably does not require a pilot’s license to be able to fly. That doesn’t mean those paying at least the $190,000 base price will go without mandatory training; a number of rules and regulations still apply. Read more

Sony highlights mobility partnerships, creators and content authenticity

Sony focused on creators; the success of its IP across its gaming, film and streaming studios; and a focus on its partnership with Honda to imagine the mobility space as a “creativity space.” The latter was demonstrated in part by teasing Fortnite in its Afeela car and driving it onstage with a PlayStation 5 controller. Its “digital birth certificate” also reminded us of the brighter side of NFTs, which Haje explains in detail here.

Kia’s new modular EV van lineup

Kia’s new EV vans come with a modular twist. In addition to using a modular powertrain, the vehicles will also have modular tops that allow for many different cabin options. But they remain vague on pricing, specs and expected launch dates for this new fleet of commercial EVs. Read more

Samsung brings back Ballie; renews green initiative

Meet the new and improved Ballie, Samsung Electronics’ home robot, which it previewed earlier this year. It’s around the size of a bowling ball with a battery designed to last two to three hours. Ballie sports a spatial lidar sensor to help it navigate rooms and obstacles, as well as a 1080p projector with two lenses that allows the robot to project movies and video calls and even act as a second PC monitor. Read more

Expanding beyond cute, rolling robots, Samsung showcased its wider initiatives for connected homes. Aside from expected UI and feature updates for its existing SmartThings home automation platform, Samsung showed off a “map view” for users that creates an interactive home map that even includes animated avatars of residents and pets. Read more

X1 Interpreter Hub: A new real-time translator

Timekettle announced the X1 Interpreter Hub, a more robust solution, designed for meetings. Timekettle calls it “the world’s first multi-language simultaneous interpretation system.” The system works out of the box, without having to download a separate app. For in-person meetings, two devices are touched together to initiate conversation translation. The handheld devices house earbuds, similar to past Timekettle products. All told, the X1 is capable of supporting up to 20 people at once in five languages. Read more

LG’s transparent television

The consumer technology giant unveiled what it touted is “the world’s first” wireless transparent OLED TV. The LG Signature OLED T combines a transparent 4K OLED screen with LG’s wireless video and audio transmission technology. Read more

More from Samsung: bigger, foldier, more rollable displays

Samsung Electronics showed off a “new generation of products that can be folded inward and outward,” along with “monitor-sized” folding and sliding OLEDs. It also unveiled a “Transparent MICRO LED” display for the first time. Read more

Nvidia gets its game on

Nvidia got into artificial intelligence in a big way at the start of the year with the unveiling of its GeForce RTX, including the GeForce RTX 40 Super series of desktop graphics cards. Much of these are meant for gaming

Nvidia also announced that its partnership with Getty Images would include a new service for iStock customers, which can create licensable images trained on the existing iStock photo library. Read more

More chip updates from AMD

Speaking of chips, AMD debuted its new Ryzen 8000G processors for the desktop, with a big focus on their AI capabilities. Read more

Bosch’s in-car eye-tracking

Bosch showed off two technologies earlier this year in eye-tracking while driving: One will see that you have tired eyes and ask if you need an espresso when you arrive home. If yes, its connected technology will tell your fancy machine to have one ready. The other is a bit more complicated in that it’s developed to track what you’re looking at as you drive. Read more.

The founder building a wealth-management product her grandmother would have loved

by with No Comment Tech

Image Credits: Mical Jeanlys-White

Mical Jeanlys-White built WealthMore out of frustration. 

She spent years on Wall Street, building products at American Express and serving as a managing director at JPMorgan Chase. She realized the finance industry still had a long way to go when it came to helping consumers build and understand wealth. 

“Seventy percent of Americans do not have access to a wealth adviser due to high account minimums and high fees, yet those with a wealth adviser grow 2x more wealth,” she told TechCrunch. “When I tried to find a wealth adviser, I came across the same frustrating, broken experience.” 

Her response was to launch WealthMore, an investment platform that requires only a $5,000 minimum to connect customers with adviser-led portfolios, licensed wealth advisers, and financial planning services. 

The idea came to her while she was riding her Peloton, naturally. 

“I like to say that WealthMore is Peloton meets wealth management,” she said. “Our goal is to normalize that for the 99%. When more people do better financially, the social and multiplier impact is significant.” 

After two years of building the company, the company quietly launched its beta in June and is officially announcing it today, right here, in TechCrunch. 

Building this product has been a deeply personal journey for Jeanlys-White. Her grandmother immigrated to the U.S. from Haiti and was the family’s unofficial money coach. She, like many immigrants, was part of a savings club, which helped her hit goals and put a down payment on a home. She enjoyed talking about money and being around people with similar interests. 

“But her money languished in low-interest paying savings accounts and CDs,” Jeanlys-White continued. “She never made a banker’s call list. With the benefit of a wealth adviser, she could have been a millionaire and created generational wealth.” 

The racial wealth gap is wide. Federal data shows that though the median Black wealth increased from $27,970 to $44,890 between 2019 and 2022, the numbers are still behind other racial groups. Hispanic households have a median wealth of $62,000, white households’ wealth stands at $295,000 and Asian American households have a median wealth of $536,000. The 2021 U.S. Census found that white households hold 80% of the wealth in this country compared to the 4.7% owned by Black families. That racial wealth gap has been hard to close, with some experts believing it could take another hundred years to even come close. 

Jeanlys-White notes that women can lose out on up to at least $1.2 million due to the gender pay gap, and only 49% of Black women have a 401K compared to 62% of overall adults. “The wage gap is a key contributor to the retirement savings and wealth gap,” she said. 

Image Credits: WealthMore (screenshot)

Surveying potential users and building the brand 

Before Jeanlys-White started building the platform, she surveyed over 300 potential users to see what they would be willing to pay for. That helped her determine the company’s pricing levels — there are three tiers, starting at $25 a month for a $5,000 minimum account size — and the design of the website. It has partnered with Apex Clearing Corporation to provide brokerage services. 

To help build the brand, the company released lifestyle products, such as clothing, and hosted wealth-building conversations at hair salons, doctor’s offices, and conferences. “People were willing to be honest and vulnerable with us.” In addition, Jeanlys-White made sure to have diverse wealth advisers on the platform, saying that wealth builders often do not see themselves represented in the industry.  

On the app, the company has created communities such as #firstgenwealth and #newinvestors for people to join and host activities and events.  “We created communities, like #blkwomenwealth, to address these unique factors and empower our community to leverage investing and sound financial planning to get ahead,” Jeanlys-White told TechCrunch. (She said users can find her in #firstgenwealth, #blkwomenwealth, and #womenwhowealth). 

Despite a difficult funding environment for fintechs, Jeanlys-White started fundraising for her company in October 2023 and closed an oversubscribed pre-seed round of at least $1 million led by Emmeline Ventures in April 2024. Other investors include a16z TxO, the BFM Fund, and First Row Partners. 

She recalled early investors raised concerns about previous fintechs who struggled in this space, but she continued to hone the company’s story.

“Once investors could ‘see’ the product, our fundraising traction changed dramatically,” she said. 

Currently, there are 10 people on the team. The first hire was the head of engineering, as Jeanlys-White was not a technical founder and needed someone to help get the product into the hands of users, she said. 

She hopes the company can come out of beta mode around the end of the year, in time to help people with their financial New Year’s resolutions. For now, Jeanlys-White is just excited to see people start engaging with the platform and thinks back to her grandmother’s experience. 

“She would have loved WealthMore,” she said, noting she especially would have loved the communities. “Our wealth advisers would have helped her overcome her fear of the stock market and that would have been a huge win. She’s smiling down on WealthMore.”

This post was updated to correct the name of the community groups on WealthMore.

Yelp’s chief product officer talks AI and authenticity

by with No Comment Tech

Yelp might not be the first company that comes to mind when someone mentions artificial intelligence, but Chief Product Officer Craig Saldanha said AI is already transforming the Yelp experience.

In fact, most of the company’s recent announcements center on AI, whether that’s adding new AI-powered summaries or launching an AI assistant to connect consumers with service providers. So I spoke to Saldanha (who joined Yelp after nearly a decade at Amazon) to learn more about Yelp’s AI strategy.

We also discussed what advantages Yelp brings to the AI race, how Yelp can add AI without threatening the authenticity of the user reviews on the platform, and how it’s competing with new avenues for local discovery like TikTok.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Going back through all the recent news from Yelp, it’s all AI, AI, AI. Can you say more about how you look at AI and the role it plays at Yelp?

headshot of Craig Saldanha
Image: Yelp

Just to set the table, our stated mission hasn’t changed. Our goal is to connect consumers with great local businesses, and that hasn’t changed over time. 

We’ve been investing in AI for more than 10 years now. But over the last couple of years, the advances in generative AI and other LLMs has really allowed us to take advantage of a couple of things. The first is, the real differentiator of Yelp is the hundreds of millions of reviews that we have. LLMs essentially allow us to parse all of that data in a way and at a speed that we’ve never had before. It allows us to present information to consumers in a way that feels both precise, as well as personal — you can now find that needle in the haystack.

We recognize that users come to Yelp to connect with either other users or pros, and they come because of the authenticity of our content, because they know it’s from actual human beings. We’ll never take that away. So we use AI, essentially, to remove all of the friction to facilitate those types of connections. 

We think about the consumer as having three phases when they come to Yelp. The first is, they come with a very strong search intent, they know they want to find a plumber, they know they want to find a good place for lunch, etc. So the first step is essentially defining that intent. The second step is, once we’ve helped them define that intent, and they know exactly what they’re looking for, we present them with a lot of different results, and they need to pick either a single business or like a couple of businesses that they want to connect with. Then the third step is actually making that connection. We’ve invested heavily in AI in each of those steps.

The first step, refining search intent when a consumer comes to Yelp. [If you’re doing a simple search like] “I’m looking for a Mediterranean restaurant,” we have a pretty sophisticated model that first understands what you’re looking for, and then essentially decides not only what restaurants to show you, but the order in which to show you those restaurants.

What’s really cool now is the advent of LLMs means you can search for even more specific things, and it will understand what you’re looking for. As an example, we live in suburban Seattle, and my wife is always on the hunt for these very specialized spices for different kinds of cuisines. In the past, let’s say she’s making Indian food, I would look for “Indian grocery store,” and we essentially do a match for those words and return the results. Now, I can search for a very specific Indian spice, and the LLM will understand that it’s a spice, that it’s found in an Indian store. Even better than that, it is able to go through all of the reviews that we have, understand when other consumers are referring to those spices — so it could be a different spice, but it understands now that those grocery stores actually carry these types of spices. 

Then when it shows me the results, it will not only order them in a way that is a better match for me, but it will highlight the specific snippets of consumer reviews. That’s super powerful, it genuinely feels very, very personal.

In the past, say, if you were looking for tacos, we would show you restaurants that had tacos, not a big deal. Now, we are able to look at every photo that consumers have submitted for every single restaurant, pull out tacos from those specific restaurants and show them right in search.

I think the piece that I’m most excited about is that we’re taking [these capabilities] off of Yelp as well. So we’ve recently announced what we’re calling  our Yelp Fusion API. [This interview was conducted prior to a recent controversy among indie developers over paid access to Yelp’s API.]

Now, someone on a third party, let’s say a travel website, can essentially ask a question, “Where can I find a Sunday brunch that’s open after 11, and kid friendly?” And through our API, we can return with the same level of personalization off of Yelp. I think that just expands the number of consumers we can help simultaneously.

For Yelp to differentiate in AI, you don’t need to have the most incredible AI team or create breakthrough core technologies, it’s more about this unique data set. Is that right?

I think it’s both. Our core value proposition is content. Our consumers are just awesome, they write such deep reviews that are so nuanced. And that’s what keeps folks coming back.

For finding snippets and stuff like that, we can use a lot of off-the-shelf models, because the core problem we’re trying to solve is simply natural language processing.

I think the place where our technology shines is in areas like Yelp Assistant. In 2016, Yelp introduced “request a quote,” and that allowed consumers to quickly get a variety of quotes from a variety of service providers. We’ve expanded that over time, we added Yelp Guaranteed, all of that has helped to reduce the friction and drive quicker and deeper connections.

Then last year, we updated our whole back-end AI model to use neural networks; that really helped drive precise matches. So then the next problem to solve was, what if you don’t know which [type of pro] you’re looking for? If you see a wet spot in your wall and you don’t know if your roof is leaking, your gutter’s leaking, or if you have a broken pipe.

We felt like the next step of this was: Just tell us what your problem is, we’ll help you narrow down, we’ll help you find the pro.

And I think that’s where we really push the technology, because general models will give you general responses. What we have, and what we’ve built up over time, is a very deep understanding of what pros do, and what types of jobs they don’t actually do, too.

You also mentioned the importance of protecting the authenticity of user reviews. As you imagine AI, including generative AI content, becoming a more central part of the Yelp experience, how do you protect that authenticity?

First, just to say upfront, using Gen AI to write reviews is a violation of our policies. We work very hard to keep those types of reviews out. We have been investing in pretty sophisticated solutions for a long time to validate the authenticity of reviews, and whether it’s bots, or solicited reviews, this was something that we were thinking about from day zero. And so we are prepared for it, we’ve deployed a bunch of solutions, all types of technology. It’s a constant game of keeping ahead of what bad actors might use; we will continue to draw a hard line.

I imagine that one of the incentives for writing a thoughtful review is that I’m hoping somebody will actually read it, not that it’s just going to be fed into an AI model that spits out a summary. How do you make sure there’s still an incentive for users to write good reviews?

Overall, I think Gen AI will be very helpful for both the quantity and the quality of the reviews. The more connections you get between consumers and businesses, the more shots you have at writing reviews.

On the review writing piece, there are a couple of things that are very helpful. First is, we are now using AI — and specifically Gen AI — to give you gentle nudges and prompts to help you remember what made your experience special. So as you’re typing, if you talk about the ambience, it will give you a little tag that says, “You’ve checked off the ambience, now you can talk about the service, you can talk about the food, etc.” We’ve rolled this out for restaurants, we’re rolling this out for other categories. That really helps with the depth and the quality of the reviews.

The second piece is photos. Now your photo surfaces into places which are new. We have a brand-new home feed, which is very visual, it’s very photo- and very video-heavy. And we talked about [photos in search].

Then to answer your specific question: We put our reviews front and center. So instead of telling you what the answer is, we have gotten to the source faster. We’re taking you to the reviewer and to the review. We’re making it easier for you to find the exact user who had the same experience.

So my hypothesis is that it’s actually an even bigger motivation [now]. Because in the past, if you’re at a restaurant that has 200 reviews, and you’re the 200th, [you might think,] “Can I really add value?” But now, knowing that I can say, “They brought my 18-month-old a highchair and they gave her something to color with,” that’s new information. If somebody with an 18-month-old is looking for it, they’ll find my specific review.

And now we actually close the loop. So if you write a review, we will actually send you feedback and say, “Since you wrote that review, this business has got 200 more views” or “seven people found it helpful,” etc.

So we’ve been talking about how AI has already changed the Yelp experience. Is there anything you can say about what you’d like to see happen with AI and Yelp in the future?

We have pictures and we have video and we have descriptions, and we’re using AI to stitch all of those together and give you that whole 360 experience of what it’s like to actually be there. I’m very, very excited about that because that’s not a single person’s point of view, but it’s all user-generated content. We’re not artificially generating anything, so it feels authentic. 

On the business side, it’s not Gen AI, but we have a ton of AI, and a really big team focused on matching. Pros and businesses have told us we have high intent consumers, and they want those high intent leads. So we spend a lot of time just focusing on how do we get a better match? How do we match the right pro with the right consumer at the right time?

The second piece [for businesses] is: we announced smart budgets. We found that a lot of new businesses, they’re really good at what they do, but they don’t know how to run a business, it’s day one for them. So we have this AI tool that takes a bunch of information about where they’re located, what competitors are spending, what’s the size of their business, what the number of leads we think they would need to grow, and every business gets its own recommendation for how much money we think they should spend.

[Back on the consumer side,] AI is getting good enough that you can just show me a picture or take a video [and we can match you with the right pro or business]. We’re not there yet, but it’s quite logical to see that’s the path. And then on the pro side, there’s a lot we can do to help them qualify leads, whether it’s asking questions on their behalf, whether it’s making sure that they never miss a call by having an assistant for them, by guiding them on how users might prefer their response, whether it’s structured or unstructured.

Stepping back from AI, the local discovery landscape has changed dramatically in the last few years. I have friends who now say, “Let’s go try this dish, let’s go to this restaurant because I heard about it on TikTok.” And obviously, search is changing. So as all this is happening, what do you see as Yelp’s role and differentiator? 

First, we already talked about the breadth and depth and volume of our reviews. At Yelp, you get the wisdom of the crowd, you get a collective sense of what a restaurant is, and you’re able to very quickly combine different points of view and choose which one is closest to your own. Versus with the influencer model, you could trust an individual, that’s why you follow them, but it’s a single individual.

I think the two less obvious [differences] are, one is just the breadth of categories that we have on Yelp. It’s quite easy to follow influencers for restaurants and maybe home decor and stuff like that. But as you think about plumbing and roofing and accountants and lawyers and doctors, the breadth of coverage that we have is very, very useful.

Then the last one is really the balance of the views. Most of the time on social media, people will share if they had a phenomenally good experience, or a phenomenally bad experience. There was a study done on the review distribution of various platforms, and Yelp has the most even distribution between one, two, three, four and five stars. If you really want that balanced view, as opposed to the polarizing one star or five stars, that’s where Yelp can make a difference.

Doly lets you generate 3D product videos from your iPhone

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Image Credits: AniML

AniML, the French startup behind a new 3D capture app called Doly, wants to create the PhotoRoom of product videos, sort of. If you’re selling sneakers on an online marketplace or need to create Instagram ads for your direct-to-consumer wares, Doly helps you generate 3D models with your phone and turn them into professional-looking product videos.

While video creation is notoriously hard, generating a 3D model is even harder. That’s why the AniML team has focused on simplifying the experience. They want to turn 3D capture into a mainstream technology, starting by packaging it into an iPhone app.

Here’s how 3D capture with Doly works: The user points their phone camera at the product and physically moves around it to capture it in 3D. Behind the scenes, the app grabs still images and sends them to the cloud. AniML has built a reconstruction pipeline using something called Gaussian splatting to turn these images into a realistic 3D model.

3D models are traditionally created with a collection of points in 3D space, some 2D texture projected on top of these surfaces and lighting effects. Gaussian splatting is an entirely new rendering pipeline that involves estimating a 3D point cloud from a set of 2D images using a pre-trained AI model.

“Our starting point was a technological finding: AI had just arrived in the 3D world. So people at Facebook, but even more at Google, were doing research and wrote a fairly important research paper on something called NeRF,” AniML co-founder and CEO, Rémi Rousseau, told TechCrunch. “It’s a new paradigm in which you try to reconstruct 3D by letting machine learning do the job.”

“You’re no longer working in polygon-based 3D, but now you’re in neural-based 3D,” he added.

Gaussian splatting isn’t exactly the same as NeRF, but it’s a sort of descendant 3D modelling technology, as Rousseau tells it.

So that’s the technical part. AniML then focused on finding a use case that could grab users from day one. E-commerce companies were the obvious choice for a creation tool for 3D models.

What else does the app offer? After capturing a 3D model, Doly users can browse a template library to choose a 3D scene for their object to be integrated into. This can be a simple 3D rotation with a plain background or something more dramatic, in terms of marketing staging, such as the camera slowly approaching the object and switching to different angles.

If a customer likes the result, they have the option to buy the video from the app and download it for use elsewhere.

Image Credits: AniML

Rousseau previously founded two VR companies — including Mimesys, a startup that was acquired by Magic Leap in 2019. His co-founder Pierre Pontevia also has an interesting track record as he sold a company to the 3D tools giant Autodesk; and another to the 3D content development platform, Unity.

So far AniML has raised $2 million, with Adjacent leading the seed round. The startup also participated in AI Grant, the startup accelerator led by Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross. Also investing are Kima Ventures and several angel investors, including Julien Chaumond from Hugging Face; Nicolas Steegman and François Lagunas who previously founded Stupeflix; Alban Denoyel of Sketchfab fame; Bertrand Schmitt; Thibaud Elziere; and Vincent Nallatamby. We’re also told Bpifrance contributed to a portion of this round with a grant.

It will be interesting to see whether big brands, second-hand resellers and other e-commerce professionals embrace 3D rendered videos for upcoming campaigns and online listings. But it’s already nice to see that you might not need a professional video recording studio to create compelling product visuals thanks to artificial intelligence.

TechCrunch Early Stage 2024

Sequoia's Jess Lee will demystify product-market fit at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024

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TechCrunch Early Stage 2024

Build something people want. It’s a simple concept — and one that Y Combinator loves to repeat — but one that can be hard to get right when building a startup.

How strongly a technology good or service resonates with potential customers is often called “product-market fit,” or PMF. The more product-market fit you have, the easier it will be to sell your startup’s products and, usually, the less frequently customers will churn.

PMF is therefore a critical startup theme, even if it is hard to define precisely. One definition that has always resonated with your humble servant is that product-market fit is when customers are ripping the product out of your hands. That doesn’t apply evenly to all startup products, but it’s a good rule of thumb.

Jess Lee is coming to TechCrunch Early Stage in Boston this year to help founders looking to reach, or refine, their current PMF guide their upstart tech companies in the right direction.

Early Stage is shaping up to be possibly our best-ever shindig for early-stage founders, with NFX’s James Currier, Underscore’s Lily Lyman, and of course Lee herself coming ’round to talk shop.

As with all Early Stage events, audience Q&A will be a critical component of every session, so bring your notebook, several pens, and I’ll see you on April 25! Grab your tickets now to save $200, before prices go up on March 29.

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TechCrunch Early Stage 2024? Reach out to our sponsorship sales team by completing this form.

Google Vids start screen. You create a video and this wizard walks you through the process of creating a video using generative AI.

New Google Vids product helps create a customized video with an AI assist

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Google Vids start screen. You create a video and this wizard walks you through the process of creating a video using generative AI.

Image Credits: Google Cloud

All of the major vendors have been looking at ways to use AI to help customers develop creative content. On Tuesday at the Google Cloud Next customer conference in Las Vegas, Google introduced a new AI-fueled video creation tool called Google Vids. The tool will become part of the Google Workspace productivity suite when it’s released.

“I want to share something really entirely new. At Google Cloud Next, we’re unveiling Google Vids, a brand new, AI-powered video creation app for work,” Aparna Pappu, VP & GM at Google Workspace said, introducing the tool.

Image Credits: Frederic Lardinois/TechCrunch

The idea is to provide a video creation tool alongside other Workspace tools like Docs and Sheets with a similar ability to create and collaborate in the browser, except in this case, on video. “This is your video editing, writing and production assistant, all in one,” Pappu said. “We help transform the assets you already have — whether marketing copy or images or whatever else in your drive — into a compelling video.”

Like other Google Workspace tools, you can collaborate with colleagues in real time in the browser. “No need to email files back and forth. You and your team can work on the story at the same time with all the same access controls and security that we provide for all of Workspace,” she said.

Google Vids template screen.
Image Credits: Google Cloud

Examples of the kinds of videos people are creating with Google Vids include product pitches, training content or celebratory team videos. Like most generative AI tooling, Google Vids starts with a prompt. You enter a description of what you want the video to look like. You can then access files in your Google Drive or use stock content provided by Google and the AI goes to work, creating a storyboard of the video based on your ideas.

You can then reorder the different parts of the video, add transitions, select a template and insert an audio track where you record the audio or add a script and a preset voice will read it. Once you’re satisfied, you can generate the video. Along the way colleagues can comment or make changes, just as with any Google Workspace tool.

Google Vids is currently in limited testing. In June it will roll out to additional testers in Google Labs and will eventually be available for customers with Gemini for Workspace subscriptions.

Image Credits: Frederic Lardinois/TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/09/google-cloud-next-2024-everything-you-need-to-know/

Canva launches a proper enterprise product — and they mean it this time

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Canva logo on bag sitting on a table.

Image Credits: Bloomberg / Getty Images

Back in 2019, Canva, the wildly successful design tool, introduced what the company was calling an enterprise product, but in reality it was more geared toward teams than fulfilling true enterprise requirements. On Thursday, the company changed that, announcing a new enterprise version that is truly geared toward the needs of larger organizations.

That includes the types of features that you would expect in this kind of product, including single sign-on, enhanced security offerings and tools for managing larger groups of users that IT would expect. It also offers centralized brand management and dedicated support.

Cam Adams, co-founder and CPO at the company, says in 2019, they were looking at moving from supporting mostly individual users to supporting small teams from between five and 100 users. Over the intervening years, they began seeing much larger organizations using Canva, and recognized that they needed a product more geared toward the requirements of these larger companies.

“We now have cohorts with up to 5,000 people using Canva inside an enterprise, and because of that, there’s a new type of Canva enterprise product that we’ve needed to ship to meet the needs of those larger groups. And that’s what we’ve actually done with Canva Enterprise,” Adams told TechCrunch.

This version is trying to address three specific problems Canva saw as it moved into larger organizations.

For starters, design isn’t confined to one group anymore. It spans multiple departments and industries. Secondly, there are myriad AI tools and Adams says he’s seeing CIOs becoming increasingly wary of “AI tool creep.” And finally, there is a workflow component. As more departments are involved in the design process, and as AI becomes more prominent, it requires a tool that can handle not just back-end user management, but also moving work across these different constituencies.

“We’re no longer just thinking about empowering every person. We’re really thinking about the second decade of Canva being about empowering every organization. And when we think of enterprises, we’re really looking at bringing all that fragmentation together into the one platform,” he said.

The prior version of the product is becoming a proper teams product and will cost $100 per seat per year with a three-person minimum. The enterprise pricing starts at $300 per seat per year, but with negotiated volume-based discounts available.

The Australian company was founded in 2012 and has raised more than $560 million, most recently at an astonishing $26 billion valuation, per the company. It boasts over 180 million monthly users worldwide.