TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Bluesky

☁️ Bluesky blossoms: Bluesky continues to see increased interest as people look for social media alternatives to X after the election. While Bluesky only has a fraction of the users that Meta's Threads has, there is reason to believe Bluesky might be able to close that gap. Read more

🧠 AI model memory: A new Gemini feature is rolling out for select users that allows the AI to remember things about them. While this feels like a slippery slope in some ways, Gemini remembering your favorite foods will help it give you better restaurant recommendations. Pros and cons! Read more

🎁 GitHub gives back: Open source projects often struggle to secure financing. GitHub wants to help. The Microsoft-owned platform launched a $1.25 million fund to back open source projects that includes investors such as American Express, Shopify, and Stripe. Read more

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: BrightAI

🔧 BrightAI's bootstrapping journey: BrightAI helps companies monitor infrastructure, like water pipes or industrial pest traps, through sensors and AI. The company bootstrapped its way to $80 million in revenue and just raised VC funding for the first time. Read more

🎙️ Data governance: When Collibra was founded in 2008, no one was paying attention to data governance. But now that's changed, especially with the rise of AI. Collibra CEO Felix Van de Maele came on the Found podcast to talk about the company's journey. Listen here

👮‍♀️ La16z Vegas Police: TechCrunch has been examining the ties between Ben Horowitz and the Las Vegas Police Department for a few weeks. Today we've got the latest: a16z has no plans to scale back this relationship, and the LVPD wants AI tools to blur sensitive info in body camera footage. Read more

🧩 Well OK, then: Netflix is releasing a daily word game for some reason. The new game is tied to Netflix's partnership with TED and is aptly called TED Tumblewords. Considering I almost exclusively access Netflix on my TV, I personally don't see the appeal. Read more

🗣️ Computer talk time: OpenAI's ChaptGPT Advanced Voice Mode is heading to the web. This will allow users to talk to the chatbot directly through their computers. What could go wrong??? Read more

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Around the web

🇨🇳 Chummy with China: Rest of World reports that multiple Silicon Valley startups that work with the Chinese police have been supported by Microsoft's and Google's respective incubator programs. Documents suggest these companies were already working with China when they entered these U.S. programs. Read more

📺 Can streamers make live events work? By now I'm sure you've read many takes on the Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson fight. If you're like me, anything you've read has been against your will. The Verge looks at how the stream wasn't very good, and if streaming giant Netflix can't make live events work, can anybody? Read more

Before you go

Image Credits: Google

🗺️ An IRL Minecraft world: Minecraft has plans to start opening theme parks based on the game. I love this idea and think it is a smart play to keep the game's younger-leaning userbase engaged. Read more