Starling Medical’s new urine-testing device turns your toilet into a health tracker

Image Credits: Starling Medical

If you enjoy some good toilet technology, then I think “urine” for a treat. Starling Medical is poised to launch its at-home urine diagnostic patient-monitoring platform, dubbed “StarStream,” that doesn’t rely on the traditional catching containers or dipsticks.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/27/starling-medical-urine-health/

Ticketmaster apologises for Taylor Swift tour sales fiasco

Taylor Swift said it felt like fans suffered “multiple bear attacks” in their attempts to secure tickets

“We need to do better and we will,” Joe Berchtold, president of Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company, told lawmakers on Tuesday.

According to Senator Amy Klobuchar, who chairs the US Senate committee on consumer rights, Ticketmaster is responsible for 70% of ticket sales in the US.

“In truth, there is no other choice. It is a monopoly,” she told MSNBC last year.

Regarding the Swift tour, she added: “The high fees, site disruptions and cancellations that customers experienced shows how Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-64384304

This startup hopes to take on Canva, raising a $11.6M Series A for its design platform

“With Kittl we allow users to create professional-grade designs fast and easily by removing the barrier of a tough learning curve. Our features are designed to make complex design processes simple and accessible with a few clicks. Our competitors either focus on basic tools that only allow a small range of creative freedom, or they take a lot of training and practice to get good at.”

https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/26/this-startup-hopes-to-take-on-canva-raising-a-11-6m-series-a-for-its-design-platform/

Google releases Flutter 3.7, teases future of app development framework

Having grown from humble beginnings on Android and iOS, Google’s Flutter SDK can now help you create apps for mobile, desktop, web, and more, all from a single Dart codebase. Since launch, over 700,000 Flutter apps have been published across various platforms.

Overall, the Flutter framework is clearly still moving full steam ahead, moving ever closer to the dream of perfect “write once, run anywhere” apps and games.

https://9to5google.com/2023/01/25/flutter-forward-teaser/

Here’s How Art Schools Are Dealing With The Rise of AI Generators

IMAGE BY JANUS ROSE, GENERATED WITH STABLE DIFFUSION

“My worry was that they would use the AI generators to come up with mood boards and references of things that don’t exist in real life. So I just set a policy where, within the bounds of this class, it’s discouraged to use the generators,” Song told Motherboard. “I really didn’t ever imagine that it would get to this point where people would be, like, trying to legitimize it as a craft.”

“Teaching is hard. It’s so much work and it’s not well compensated,” Rosman said. “It’s not fair that a small demographic of people in Silicon Valley can just throw this thing out into the world, and we’ve got to just run around picking up the pieces.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgpzz3/ai-art-in-schools

Strava acquires Fatmap, a 3D mapping platform for the great outdoors

Image Credits: Fatmap

Strava, the activity tracking and social community platform used by more than 100 million people globally, has acquired Fatmap, a European company that’s building a high-resolution 3D global map platform for the great outdoors. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The ultimate long-term goal for Strava is to integrate Fatmap’s core platform into Strava itself, but that will be a resource-intensive endeavor that won’t happen overnight. And that is why Strava is working to create a single sign-on (SSO) integration in the near-term, meaning that subscribers will be able to access the full Fatmap feature-set by logging into the Fatmap app with their Strava credentials.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/24/strava-acquires-fatmap-a-3d-map-platform-for-the-great-outdoors/

Microsoft announces new multibillion-dollar investment in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI

SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Microsoft on Monday announced a new multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

The deal marks the third phase of the partnership between the two companies, following Microsoft’s previous investments in 2019 and 2021. Microsoft said the renewed partnership will accelerate breakthroughs in AI and help both companies commercialize advanced technologies in the future.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/23/microsoft-announces-multibillion-dollar-investment-in-chatgpt-maker-openai.html