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OpenAI may be reversing course on how it approaches copyright and intellectual property in its new video app Sora. Prior to Sora’s launch this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI had been telling Hollywood studios and agencies that they needed to explicitly opt out if they didn’t want their IP to be included in Sora-generated videos. Despite being invite-only, the app quickly climbed to the top of the App Store charts. Sora’s most distinctive feature may be its “cameos,” where users can upload their biometric data to see their digital likeness featured in AI-generated videos. At the same…

Agriculture is a thirsty industry, consuming 70% of all fresh water used worldwide. In some countries, like India or Chile, it can be more than 90%. For Mario Bustamante, who lives in Chile, the problem hits close to home. “Lack of water is a big issue here,” he told TechCrunch. Bustamante is betting that AI can help slash water use in farms across the world. His startup, Instacrops, was originally founded to deploy internet-of-things (IoT) sensors on farms to warn farmers about damaging frost conditions, but as the hardware became commoditized, the company pivoted to software and water use. Now,…

Earlier this year, Anker, the Chinese company that makes Eufy security cameras, offered its users money in exchange for videos of package and car thefts.  The popular internet-connected security camera maker said it would pay its customers $2 per video to train its AI systems to help better detect thieves who steal cars and packages.   “To ensure we have enough data, we are looking for videos of both real and staged events, to help train the Al what to be on the lookout for,” the company wrote on its website.   “You can even create events by pretending to be…

BEIRUT (AP) — Minutes after journalists gathered outside a Gaza hospital to survey the damage of an Israeli strike, Ibrahim Qannan pointed his camera up at the battered building as the others climbed its external stairs. Then Qannan watched in horror — while broadcasting live — as a second strike killed the friends and colleagues he knew so well.“We live side by side with death,” Qannan, a correspondent for the Cairo-based Al-Ghad TV said in an interview.“I still cannot believe that five of our colleagues were struck in front of me on camera and I try to hold up and…

Apple has removed ICEBlock and other apps from its App Store that allow users to anonymously report sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, following pressure from the Trump administration. The app, which went viral earlier this year, allowed users to lawfully share information about where they’ve seen ICE agents within a 5-mile radius of their location, and also share details of the clothing agents are wearing. According to various media reports, Apple said it removed the apps after it was contacted by “law enforcement” about “safety risks” associated with ICEBlock and similar apps. “We reached out to…

PARIS (AP) — Light streamed through the stained glass of the Institut de France onto a surreal stage: a lone cellist playing a melancholy air, next to an upside-down umbrella and a rotating tableau of dying sunflowers. It was a theatrical overture for Saturday’s Paris Fashion Week. This was spring — Vivienne Westwood style.Andreas Kronthaler, who has helmed the house since Westwood’s death in 2022 and whose name joined the label in 2016, leaned hard into the madhat energy that made the brand a legend. Leopard-print men’s underwear sat alongside sheer, ribbed tunics with a medieval air. Punk flashed in…

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ life of luxury atop the hip-hop world vanished with his criminal conviction.He now faces the grim prospect of more years behind bars as his attorneys make plans to appeal.Combs’ carefully cultivated reputation as an affable celebrity entrepreneur, A-list party host and reality TV star came crashing down Friday. The Grammy-winning artist and music executive was sentenced to four years and two months in prison for transporting people across state lines for sexual encounters.It was a public reckoning for the 55-year-old music star, who made a plea for leniency and wept as his lawyers played a video portraying…

Destination DC (DDC) is reprising its “DC is Open” campaign to boost visitor numbers in the wake of the government shutdown.“We acknowledge the false perception that when the federal government shuts down, DC does too,” said DDC President and CEO Elliott L. Ferguson. “We want visitors to know most of DC’s attractions and experiences actually remain open.” The campaign is designed to inform travelers that public transportation, airports, museums, monuments, events, restaurants and many attractions are currently still open.It also provides information on such attractions as the destination’s national parks, including the National Mall, where the Lincoln Memorial and Washington…

Zehra Naqvi, 26, grew up as an obsessive fan girl in the 2010s.  This was the era of Tumblr and Twitter. She would stay up all night breaking down the release dates of Marvel movies or analyzing the movements of One Direction members. She eventually gained a collective 250,000 followers across the two platforms. “Those early internet rabbit holes taught me how magical it felt to not just consume culture but to contribute to it,” she told TechCrunch. She went on to start a company at 12, study art history at Columbia, and then became a consumer investor at Headline Ventures.…

When Jamie Gull graduated from Stanford University in 2007 with a master’s degree in aeronautics, there was one place he wanted to go next: the desert. The Mojave Desert, to be specific. A company called Scaled Composites had spent years developing experimental aircraft out on that arid land, and Gull wanted in. He could have tried to get a more traditional aerospace job, but Gull was worried he’d “work five years on a latch” — a common joke about those bigger, slow-moving companies. But at Scaled Composites? “I knew I would build something, and I would do it quickly, and…