BTC returned to its rangebound ways a day after it rose suddenly and then subsequently dropped as dramatically.
Read more The liquidity provider just withdrew 8 million of Arkham’s ARKM token from Binance, increasing its position by 731%.
Read more For Web3 to go mainstream, wallets should be as invisible to the users as databases are in Web2, says Ben Turtel, of Kazm.
Read more The way artificial intelligence can write software has already prompted many companies to introduce code-generating products, so it’s no surprise that SettleMint, a low-code blockchain programming tool for enterprises, recently added an AI assistant to its platform.
The AI assistant, which arrived about nine months after SettleMint announced its 16 million euro Series A funding round, promises to help developers create smart contracts, integrate data, and enhance quality assurance (QA) testing.
Despite a climate where digital currency prices have nosedived, the seven-year-old Belgium company is seeing steady user growth as more enterprises are recognizing the benefits of blockchain technology but lack the technical skills to bring their ideas to fruition.
In a survey done by the programmer Q&A site Stack Overflow, only 1% of the respondents reported having done extensive work in Solidity, the programming language used to write smart contracts, which are self-executing digital contracts built on blockchains, normally Ethereum.
SettleMint didn’t create the AI assistant to replace humans, said Roderik van der Veer, co-founder and CTO at SettleMint. The AI could help draft smart contracts, but its real value is explaining what each line of code does.
“If you understand a piece of code, you know where you get it wrong,” said van der Veer. “So instead of having to look at the screen and trying to Google whatever you see, and processing all [the information on] the internet in your mind and [use] your Google skills to form a conclusion of what could be wrong, it does it for you.”
While the AI assistant can suggest modifications to avoid vulnerabilities, the code won’t be bug-free, said van der Veer. Technical audits are still necessary, especially given the complexity of blockchain systems. But having SettleMint as the first layer of screening means auditors can spend more time on the “non-trivial” parts of the code to debug, the founder suggested.
SettleMint is training the AI assistant mostly on OpenAI’s GPT-4 and supplying it with up-to-date information on blockchain development, which is transforming rapidly with frequent technical upgrades.
Product screenshot of SettleMint’s new AI assistant. Image: SettleMint
The “crypto winter” hasn’t had an adverse impact on SettleMint, which has been “growing quite a bit” in lead generation and signed contracts with sales multiplying 3-4x this year, according to van der Veer. Changing customer behavior also reflects a maturing of the enterprise blockchain space, as its users went from mostly “small teams within companies doing a specific project” to much larger groups undergoing “huge internal training.”
Companies are also using smart contracts for different purposes in crypto’s market downturn. NFT use cases, observed van der Veer, are moving away from collectibles towards practical use cases such as ticketing and guarantees as proof of ownership.
With offices in Leuven, Dubai, New Delhi, Singapore and Tokyo, SettleMint is pushing steadily into Asia with funding from the Japanese electronics giant Fujitsu, while it sees “a lot of growth” in the Middle East.
User morale isn’t the only thing that’s down at Reddit. More than 30,000 people have reported outages on Reddit since about 4:30 PM ET, according to Downdetector.
While many users have been able to access the platform again, not all issues have been resolved yet.
TechCrunch reached out to Reddit for comment. Reddit has not yet addressed the outage via its status pages.
This story is developing…
The DJI/GoPro relationship has been an uneasy one ever since planned drone collaboration fell back down to earth some eight or so years back. After the deal fell through, GoPro launched its Karma drone, but ultimately failed to find purchase in a category that DJI continues to dominate.
DJI, on the other hand, has entered the action camera space with considerably more success. The Osmo Action had some kinks to work out early on, but it’s also managed to bring innovative ideas to a category whose moment once appeared to have already past. Since then, the race between GoPro’s Hero and DJI’s Osmo Action has tightened considerably, with the two cameras running neck and neck.
Case in point, the newly announced Osmo Action 4. The device goes toe-to-toe with the GoPro Hero 11 Black, and from the standpoint of sheer specs, there’s really no clear winner between the two. One place DJI does have the competition beat, however, is low light. The new Osmo Action has a much improved sensor to boost night shooting. Depending on what you’re looking for in this sort of a device, that may well be enough reason to jump ship to DJI.
The Action is also a bit more compact at 70x44x33mm to the Hero’s 71x55x34mm. At 5.4 ounces, it’s also a touch lighter than the GoPro, in spite of having a slightly larger battery (1770 versus 1720mAh). The Action’s waterproof rating is up to 18 meters — eight more than the Hero.
The GoPro bests DJI on resolution with 5.3K (60 fps) video versus 4K (both shoot up to 120fps in 4K, BTW). The displays are effectively the same. Both have a front-facing 1.4-inch display, while the DJI’s rear screen is 0.02 inches larger at 2.27 inches.
The Osmo Action 4 is priced at $399. That’s a full $70 more than its predecessor, but it puts it in line with the GoPro’s reduced price (down from $499). At a glance, I’d say DJI’s got the edge here. The Action 4 is available starting today.
HackerOne, a widely known bug bounty and penetration testing platform, is cutting up to 12% of its workforce as the global economic slowdown continues to impact the tech community.
The San Francisco-based startup announced its layoffs on Wednesday, TechCrunch learned and confirmed with the startup. The decision will impact the startup’s employees worldwide, including those in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Netherlands and other countries, HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos said in an email to employees, which was also posted to the company’s blog.
“This comes as disappointing news, as we’ve all built strong connections with our fellow Hackeronies. These actions are necessary to be successful long-term,” said Mickos. “We’ve designed this reduction in force as a one-time event. We don’t claim to have perfect visibility into our future financial performance or the macroeconomic climate, but we unequivocally wanted to take a single action and move forward with confidence.”
HackerOne has more than 450 employees globally. This suggests the layoffs will impact more than 50 employees.
Mickos said the affected employees will receive severance packages including cash compensation and non-cash benefits.
HackerOne said the company continued to hire new employees and invested in new products to expand its platform capabilities, but the products did not meet expectations and caused cost burdens, the executive noted.
“HackerOne remains a category leader. We are one of the most important contributors to cybersecurity worldwide. We plan to be better, stronger, and faster when an improved business climate ultimately emerges,” Mickos said.
HackerOne has raised close to $160 million since its inception in 2012, with the last funding of $49 million received in January last year. The startup counts GP Bullhound, New Enterprise Associates, Valor Equity Partners, EQT Ventures and Dragoneer Investment Group among its key investors. Moreover, it serves its bug bounty platform to entities including the U.S. Department of Defense, Google and Microsoft to help fix their vulnerabilities by connecting them with a worldwide community of security researchers.
Black founders raised $212 million out of $29 billion this Q2, picking up just 0.71% of the capital allocated to U.S. founders this quarter, according to Crunchbase. In Q2 2022, Black founders raised $602 million out of $62 billion, or 0.97%, of the capital allocated.
In total, Black founders raised around $565 million out of $75 billion in H1 2023, which is 0.75% of all capital raised in the U.S. so far this year. That, too, is a drop from the $1.8 billion out of $144 billion, or 1.25%, that they raised in H1 2022. Overall, funding to Black founders has gone down from previous years, but the overall amount of funding allocated has gone down, too.
This isn’t surprising. Black founders have never raised more than 2% of capital in any given quarter, and the funding to them has been on a steady decline since the first quarter of 2022. Black founders picked up at least a billion in every quarter of 2021, momentum pushed forward by the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. But quietly, attention has moved elsewhere, and the consistent decline in funding proves the waning investor interest.
There seem to be two different worlds within the venture ecosystem. There is the old guard, the ones who have billions of assets under management, who operate in their bubble and rarely leave. Founders must go to them. Then there is the new guard, the emerging fund managers, many of whom are diverse, who are here to shake up the playbook. The problem is that they don’t have billions of AUM (assets under management), so even though their intentions are good, their checkbooks are dry.
Enterprises are shifting operations from on-premises to the cloud, and industry momentum for digital transformation continues to push forward. Gartner estimates that 80% of CEOs are increasing investment in digital technologies in 2023 to achieve greater efficiency and productivity. Cloud and digitization are becoming a necessity across industries to ensure competitiveness.
But as companies make these shifts, employees feel the change in atmosphere. And according to the American Psychological Association, people often reflexively resist organizational change, especially when they don’t understand the reasons for the change. Transformation is not just about onboarding technology: it means changes in people’s responsibilities, daily routines, and workstyles. The key to taking full advantage of these powerful digital tools is understanding how they affect employees at all levels.
It can be hard for leaders to avoid rushing ahead, because digital transformation is a chance to look at the whole operation, says Jennifer Chilton, principal of advisory and enterprise solutions at KPMG. It’s exciting to ponder an all-encompassing view of efficiency that can automate manual processes, she says, not only for a smoother workflow, but for faster information flow around the business: “Improve the controls, improve the speed.”
A successful transition requires an equally expansive view of the one component on which it all hinges: people. Michelle Kent, principal at KPMG’s people and change practice, has a blunt message for executives who give their staff little notice before major changes, scant information about the future state of the company, and negligible involvement in the planning: “That’s not how people work.”
This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by MIT Technology Review’s editorial staff.
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.
Decoding the data of the Chinese mpox outbreak
Almost exactly a year after the World Health Organization declared mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) a public health emergency, the hot spot for the outbreak has quietly moved from the US and Europe to Asia. China in particular is experiencing a concerning increase in mpox cases right now.
While Beijing did recently issue a guidance on mpox prevention, the country hasn’t taken a very proactive approach to containing the outbreak. It hasn’t talked at all about using mpox vaccines, for example. And the way Beijing has so far reported disease data, combined with the way the WHO publishes it, makes it really difficult to understand the exact scale of mpox in the country. Read the full story.
—Zeyi Yang
This story is from China Report, Zeyi’s weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things happening in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.
Check out Zeyi’s story digging into China’s public mpox health crisis published earlier this week.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Meta has started blocking news in Canada
Publishers have branded the decision an abuse of power. (The Verge)
+ And the US could be next. (Vox)
+ The news business is in a state of flux right now. (NY Mag $)
2 The US is set to give South Korea billions in chip subsidies
And China’s not happy about it. (FT $)
+ Relations between South and North Korea are at a new low. (Economist $)
3 Kenya has suspended Worldcoin from operating there
Its authorities are probing whether it’s safe—or legal. (Reuters)
+ How Worldcoin recruited its first half a million test users. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Ukraine is hitting Russians with 3D-printed bombs
They’re lightweight, cheap, and deadly. (Economist $)
+ Mass-market military drones have changed the way wars are fought. (MIT Technology Review)
5 China is still trading billions of dollars’ worth of crypto
Despite it being illegal there since 2021. (WSJ $)
+ The country is cracking down on young people spending time online again. (Bloomberg $)
+ Why China kicked out the crypto miners. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Amazon’s grocery business is struggling
Turns out bricks and mortar stores aren’t so easy to run after all. (WP $)
+ So the company’s growing its health services instead. (Bloomberg $)
7 The FDA could approve the first pill for postpartum depression
It’s much faster-acting than current antidepressants. (Wired $)
+ Reproductive health misinformation has flourished on Meta’s platforms. (Slate $)
8 NASA has regained contact with Voyager 2
After a week in the dark, the 46-year old spacecraft is back in business. (New Scientist $)
9 A YouTube sleuth became caught up in their own true crime investigation
But our appetite for grisly drama remains unabated. (New Yorker $)
+ YouTube is benefiting off the back of the Hollywood labor strikes. (The Information $)
10 We need new antibiotics
Ancient drug molecules could hold the key to helping us discover new treatments. (Vox)
+ AI is dreaming up drugs that no one has ever seen. Now we’ve got to see if they work. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“Some people think I look too human when I stand up. I am a Malayan sun bear!”
—A statement from Hangzhou Zoo in China reassures visitors that, contrary to internet conspiracy theories, its Malayan sun bear is not a man in a suit, the New York Times reports.
The big story
Zimbabwe’s climate migration is a sign of what’s to come
December 2021
Julius Mutero has spent his entire adult life farming a three-hectare plot in Zimbabwe, but has harvested virtually nothing in the past six years. He is just one of the 86 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who the World Bank estimates will migrate domestically by 2050 because of climate change—the largest number predicted in any of six major regions the organization studied.
In Zimbabwe, farmers who have tried to stay put and adapt have found their efforts woefully inadequate in the face of new weather extremes. Droughts have already forced tens of thousands from the country’s lowlands to the Eastern Highlands. But their desperate moves are creating new competition for water in the region, and tensions may soon boil over. Read the full story.
—Andrew Mambondiyani
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ Any gamers planning a trip to Tokyo should swing by the Final Fantasy Eorzea cafe.
+ It turns out that jellyfish have been bobbing about for over 500 million years 🪼
+ What’s your all-time favorite rap song?
+ It’s definitely time for a banh mi.
+ Let the Oppenheimer hype remind you about how into black holes he was.