Forerunner Ventures sees a future full of ‘digitally native franchises’
Forerunner Ventures first made its name in the venture world by betting on once-nascent startups like Jet, Bonobos and Glossier when it was far easier to build a digitally native brand. Yet as commerce evolves, so does the firm. As part of its ongoing evolution, Forerunner five years ago brought
Read moreBasecamp introduces special reduced pricing in India
Basecamp, one of the widely used project management tools first released in 2004, is now available to users in India with special reduced pricing that is as low as about $4 a month. On Tuesday, 37signals co-founder and CEO Jason Fried announced the reduced pricing of Basecamp for new customers
Read moreMeta releases Llama 2, a more ‘helpful’ set of text-generating models
The generative AI landscape grows larger by the day. Today, Meta announced a new family of AI models, Llama 2, designed to drive apps such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Bing Chat and other modern chatbots. Trained on a mix of publicly available data, Meta claims that Llama 2’s performance improves significantly
Read moreTikTok launches its music streaming service in Australia, Mexico and Singapore
TikTok is launching its new subscription-only music streaming service called “TikTok Music” in Australia, Mexico and Singapore. Today’s expansion comes almost two weeks after TikTok debuted the music streaming service in Brazil and Indonesia. The streaming service lets users sync the service to their existing TikTok accounts and listen, download
Read moreLogitech buys editing console maker Loupedeck
One day after competitor Corsair announced that it acquired mechanical keyboard maker Drop, Logitech has revealed a big purchase of its own. The accessory giant just bought Loupedeck, a Helsinki-based manufacturer of consoles for creative pros. Details of the transaction have not been disclosed, but the deal comes as Logitech
Read moreAO3 was offline a week ago, but there’s still a fandom brewing in the Downdetector comments
It was an internet nerd’s worst nightmare. On July 10, Archive of Our Own (AO3), a beloved, non-profit fan fiction platform, was plagued by DDoS attacks, rendering it inaccessible for over a day. It makes sense that this community would turn to Downdetector, a website where users crowdsource reports of
Read moreCameo announces more layoffs as celebrity greeting market shrinks
Cameo, a website for ordering video greetings from celebrities, is downsizing again. The Chicago startup, which was valued at more than $1 billion in 2021, intends to lay off 80 workers. Reached by TechCrunch, CEO Steven Galanis confirmed that Cameo decided to “reduce the size of our team,” but the
Read moreCoffee Briefing Jul. 18 – Musk aims to get a grip on reality using AI; Scotiabank and Xero join forces to support Canada’s small businesses; Shutterstock offers enterprise indemnification for AI image creation; and more
Coffee Briefings are timely deliveries of the latest ITWC headlines, interviews, and podcasts. Today’s Coffee Briefing is delivered by IT World Canada’s editorial team! Missed last week’s Coffee Briefing? We’ve got you covered. Musk aims to get a grip on reality using AI Co-founder of SpaceX and current chief
Read moreAs growth becomes more elusive, a new set of software product benchmarks emerges
Even the fastest-growing software startups aren’t expanding as fast as they used to. Of course, this is partly by choice; you have to trade off growth if you want profitability, and vice versa. The yardstick for measuring startup performance has changed over the past year, but changing startup performance standards
Read more50 shades of ethical hacking
What color hat is the hacker that just penetrated your organization without your permission wearing? Gray? Black? White? Hacking is often perceived as a dichotomous matter, with two distinct sides: either you are a malicious hacker who intrudes into systems for personal gain, or you are an ethical hacker who
Read more