Photos: Solar eclipse draws crowds of viewers in L.A. area
Brian van der Brug, Kelvin Kuo, Al Seib, Andrew Gombert
·1 min read
Millions of people across the U.S. looked up at the sky to witness a rare total solar eclipse Monday. California won’t experience totality, but there’s still plenty to see.
U.K. fintech Vitesse has closed a $93 million Series C round of funding led by investment giant KKR. KKR said it's making the investment through its Next Generation Technology Growth Fund III, a $3 billion fund it closed last year. Founded out of London in 2013, Vitesse is the handiwork of Paul Townsend and Phil McGriskin, who had sold an e-commerce payments company called Envoy to WorldPay back in 2011.
Zen Educate, an online marketplace that connects schools with teachers, has raised $37 million in a Series B round of funding. Founded out of London in 2017, Zen Educate replaces traditional third-party recruitment agencies that often use analog workflows and charge exorbitant fees. Zen Educate digitizes everything through a self-serve platform, removing pricey intermediaries from the equation in the process.
OpenAI is removing one of the voices used by ChatGPT. Users found that it sounded similar to Scarlett Johansson, the company announced on Monday, and Johansson herself released a statement saying she hired legal council to inquire about the Sky voice and get exact details about how it was developed. "We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity's distinctive voice—Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice," the company wrote in a blog post.
The top vehicle safety regulator in the U.S. has launched a formal probe into an April crash involving the all-electric VinFast VF8 SUV that claimed the lives of a family of four, TechCrunch has learned. A spokesperson for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told TechCrunch on Monday that its Special Crash Investigations division will "document the crash circumstances and the ensuing fire." The victims, who have been identified by the Alameda County Sheriff's Department as Tarun and Rincy George, and their two children, did not own the vehicle.
LeBron James is reportedly not involved in the Los Angeles Lakers' search for a new head coach. James does a podcast with JJ Redick, one of the reported candidates for the position.
When putting a video portal in a public park in the middle of New York City, some inappropriate behavior will likely occur. The Portal, the vision of Lithuanian artist and entrepreneur Benediktas Gylys, was designed to bring people together and let them share common experiences. After it opened earlier this month, the vast majority of people who went to the portal on both sides of the Atlantic waved to each other, brought their kids and pets and did friendly human things.
Dan Wetzel, Ross Dellenger and SI's Pat Forde react to Dabo Swinney's recent remarks about not using the transfer portal, why noon kickoffs are the worst, why small conferences are pushing back on the House settlement, and Dan's issues with a New York Times article on landscaping