Maximize Your Corporate Connections with Louisa: LinkedIn on Steroids by Goldman Sachs

Today:

Goldman Sachs created an A.I.-powered social media startup for corporate use

Well, butter my biscuit, Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street bigwig, is birthing tech startups now. Their first baby is called Louisa, an AI networking platform for employees, that's just cut the cord and gone independent.

The head honcho of this new venture is Rohan Doctor, a Goldman old-timer of 17 years. He's pitching Louisa as "LinkedIn on steroids," but instead of you thumbing through profiles, this smarty pants software does the heavy lifting. It creates profiles, reads a ton of articles, and matches folks who might hit it off - all by itself.

Doctor had his Eureka moment in 2018 after landing a whopper of a deal. But instead of patting himself on the back, he was scratching his head, wondering how he pulled it off and if it was just dumb luck. After all, he and his partner just happened to get thirsty at the same time, ending up in a bar and swapping info like baseball cards.

Doctor figured there had to be a better way to connect colleagues. So, he packed his bags, moved to New York, and started hiring tech whizzes to bring his idea to life. Now, he's looking to expand Louisa's reach beyond Goldman's playground.

The name "Louisa" used to be a nod to Goldman Sachs' history, but Doctor's realized he's got to play nice with Goldman's rivals. So, now it's all about being a "renowned warrior" - guess every startup needs a bit of fighting spirit.

With more than 20,000 users already, Doctor's been chatting up other clients and believes his timing couldn't be better. AI tech is hotter than a pepper sprout, and the shift to remote and hybrid work has made folks realize that the old way of networking - hollering questions across a crowded room - ain't cutting it anymore.

So, there you have it. Louisa's got its eye on the ball, ready to knock networking out of the park. Only time will tell if it's a home run or a swing and a miss.

READ THE ARTICLE ON CNBC.

Introducing Anthropic’s 100K Context Windows

Buckle up, folks. Claude, the AI brain, just went from reading a kiddie's storybook to digesting "War and Peace" in one gulp. Its text crunching limit jumped from 9,000 to a whopping 100,000 tokens, or about 75,000 words. Now businesses can shove piles of paper at Claude, and it'll come back with answers faster than a jittery squirrel on a caffeine binge.

For comparison, an average Joe or Jane would take a good 5 hours to read that much text. And that's before their brain's done cooking. Claude? It can wolf down a text of "Great Gatsby" proportions and spot a single line tweak in under half a minute. No sweat.

But it's not all about speed reading. Claude can rummage through your business docs, find the info you need, and spit it out like a well-trained secretary. Drop in a bunch of documents or a whole book, ask a question, and bam! Claude's got your answer. This works way better than other methods for those hard-to-crack queries.

The business crowd is buzzing about this upgrade. AssemblyAI even showed off Claude's new chops by having it transcribe and summarize a marathon podcast. With these super-sized context windows, Claude can now:

• Tackle weighty documents like financial statements or research papers

• Play Sherlock with a company's annual reports

• Weigh the good and bad of new laws

• Spot patterns and arguments in legal mumbo-jumbo

• Sift through developer docs and answer your techy questions

• Even play around with a whole codebase

This upgrade's ready to roll in our API. So if you're already in the Claude fan club, check out the model versions to call. And if you're still on the fence, just request access and see what Claude can do for you.

READ THE ARTICLE ON ANTHROPIC.

Stability AI releases Stable Animation SDK, a powerful text-to-animation tool for developers

Well, hold onto your pencils, artists and tech wizards! Stability AI, the big kahuna of open-source artificial intelligence, just dropped a shiny new toy: the Stable Animation SDK. It's like a magic wand for creating mind-blowing animations. Think Pixar on steroids, without all the storyboards and late nights.

You can make animations three ways: out of thin air with just prompts, from a starting image like a digital sketch pad, or even from a video you fancy. It's got all the latest features of the STABLE DIFFUSION MODELS, including the fancy new STABLE DIFFUSION 2.0 and STABLE DIFFUSION XL. Sounds impressive, right?

• The Text to Animation bit: You type a sentence and fiddle with some sliders and bam! You get an animation.

• Text plus Image: You start with a picture you like, add in some text, and voilà! It morphs into a full-blown animation.

• Video plus Text: Got a video clip you like? Throw in some text, and it's like your video just learned to do the jitterbug.

Want to know more? Check out their developer platform. Oh, and they've got a Discord for all you animation aficionados. So, go forth and animate, folks!

READ THE ARTICLE ON STABILITY.AI.

Airtable AI can seamlessly integrate AI into companies work and increase output

Alrighty then, here's the lowdown. Airtable's sprouting a new AI branch, making it a breeze for the big cheeses to add some serious brainpower to their daily grind. They're saying it's the bee's knees for everything from job listings to marketing campaigns and even the brainy bits of product development.

It's no secret that AI's gonna hit the economy like a ton of bricks. We're talking a $7 trillion boost and a 1.5% hike in productivity growth in the next 10 years. But here's the rub: it ain't all sunshine and rainbows. Companies are biting their nails trying to figure out how to hitch this AI wagon to their existing workflows.

That's where Airtable AI steps in. It's got a bunch of ready-to-go bits and pieces, and a slick interface that even your grandma could use. No coding degree required. You can tinker with AI, slot it into your workflow, and learn the ropes as you go.

Howie Liu, the head honcho at Airtable, is dreaming big. He wants to see AI woven into every nook and cranny of businesses, and he's convinced his company's no-code approach is just the ticket.

Eager beavers can sign up for early access to Airtable AI today. It'll cost ya, but the details are still under wraps. Expect a full release in about three months.

But wait, there's more. Airtable's also jazzing up its app building experience. They're promising pre-made apps and a straightforward "make-it-yourself" option. You could whip up an app that connects the dots across departments in a hot minute.

They've got a new lineup of pre-configured apps ready to tackle big enterprise headaches, plus something called Verified Data for managing the important stuff. To top it all off, there's a two-way sync feature that keeps data up-to-date across the board.

Finally, Airtable's rolling out the red carpet for Enterprise customers with a new partner program. It'll connect businesses with 41 industry experts to help them squeeze every last drop of value from their Airtable investment. More partners are set to join the fray in the coming months, ready to assist the whopping 450,000 organizations currently using Airtable. How's that for a slice of fried gold?

READ THE ARTICLE ON AIRTABLE.

BurpGPT – ChatGPT Powered Automated Vulnerability Detection Tool

Well, slap my knee and call me surprised! Here's a new contraption in cyber-town, called BurpGPT, for all those tech whizzes out there looking for sneaky vulnerabilities that traditional scanners just can't seem to find. Now, don't worry if "BurpGPT" sounds like a digestive issue – it's not. It's a fancy new tool that uses OpenAI's GPT (a smarty-pants AI model) to sift through web traffic like a pig hunting truffles.

Let me break it down for you: BurpGPT works a bit like a security guard at a fancy event, scanning all the guests (or in this case, web traffic) for any unsavory characters. It's a brainchild of a smart cookie from the UK, Alexandre Teyar, who designed this tool to be as flexible as a gymnast, adapting to each user's needs.

Now, the cherry on top is this: the tool gives you an automated report of any potential security hiccups. It's like your own little tech Sherlock Holmes, but instead of a magnifying glass, it uses AI and natural language processing to solve mysteries.

BurpGPT comes with a bunch of features. It can analyze HTTP data, detect more than just security issues, and allows users to tweak stuff like the maximum prompt length. Plus, it lets you choose your own OpenAI model, so you can pick your own adventure.

The installation is a bit like setting up a new BBQ grill. First, you need to download it, then build it using something called Gradle. And finally, you load it up into Burp Suite (which I'm guessing is not a collection of fancy hotel rooms).

Before you can start playing with BurpGPT, you need to enter an OpenAI API key, select a model, define the max prompt size, and customize some prompts. It's a bit like setting up a new video game console, just with fewer controllers and more API keys.

Oh, and it also lets you tailor the analysis with a placeholder system. Don't ask me what that is. All I know is it can analyze stuff like biometric authentication processes for any hanky-panky.

And if this all sounds a bit too complicated, don't sweat it. There's a whole guide on GitHub and a list of the top 10 best vulnerability scanner tools to help you out. So, roll up your sleeves and get to it!

READ THE ARTICLE ON CYBER SECURITY NEWS.

‘AI-powered’ VC firm Vela emerges from stealth with $25M under management

Well, here's a fresh twist on the old saying "money makes the world go round" - apparently now, it's AI. Yiğit Ihlamur, an ex-Google guy with a hankering for innovation, looked at the venture capital scene and thought, "Hey, we could use a dash more AI here!" So he threw together a brainy crew, and Vela Partners was born.

Vela Partners is a kind of venture capital firm with a robo-twist. They've got $25 million in the bank and 32 companies in their care, including a self-checkout firm named Grabango (catchy, ain't it?) and Bear Robotics. They're using AI to scope out the next big thing, checking out websites and social networks, even forking over some cash for fancy datasets like Crunchbase.

Of course, it ain't all rosy. Apparently, these smarty-pants algorithms can pick up biases from the data they chew on. And in the venture capital world, that's a real kicker. Last year, some Harvard folks found out that an investment recommendation algorithm was more likely to put its money on white, male entrepreneurs. Ihlamur acknowledged the issue but didn't really offer a solution, saying each problem is unique and needs a tailored approach.

Vela's not the first to bring AI to the venture capital party, but they're hoping to stand out with their "game-like" terminal that helps entrepreneurs, other VCs, and even their own investors. They're even kind enough to make their algorithms public for anyone to gawk at or use.

So far, it seems like their AI approach is paying off. They're breaking even, writing checks between $500,000 and $1.5 million. They've got their eyes set on AI, data, and developer-focused startups for the future. Despite a slowdown in tech, Ihlamur remains bullish, especially with AI making giant leaps forward.

So, in the world of venture capital, the new mantra might just be "AI, take the wheel!"

READ THE ARTICLE ON TECHCRUNCH.

3D DESIGN WITH TEXT-BASED AI

Alright, y'all, here's the skinny. AI, that smart-as-a-whip tech, is now branching out into 3D design - and ain't that a kicker? OpenAI, those big-brain folks, have rolled out this new doohickey called Shap-E. This gizmo takes your plain Jane English, and poof! It turns it into 3D doodles that wouldn't look out of place on your good ol' Super Nintendo.

Wanna see a chair shaped like an avocado? Or maybe a banana plane is more your style? Shap-E's got you covered, friend. Now, don't expect the Mona Lisa here. It's early days and the doodads it spits out are simple, but the sky's the limit.

Shap-E's name? It's a nod to OpenAI's DALL-E, a smart aleck AI that can draw pictures. DALL-E's a mashup of WALL-E, the lovable robot, and Salvador Dali, that artsy fella with the funky mustache. You can take Shap-E for a spin right now, just hit up their GitHub page.

But hold onto your hats, folks. Some are whispering that the real AI ruckus won't come from the big dogs like OpenAI or Google. No siree, they reckon it'll be the underdogs, the open-source coders, leading the charge. But hey, that's a tomorrow problem, ain't it?

READ THE ARTICLE ON HACKADAY.