Synthesis AI, a San Francisco-based startup that specializes in synthetic data technologies, announced that it has developed a new way to create realistic 3D digital humans from text prompts.

Synthesis AI debuts high-resolution text-to-3D capabilities with synthesis labs. Through text-to-3D digital human synthesis, the company devised an innovative approach, developing in-house models leveraging diffusion-based generative AI architectures to generate a diverse array of meshes that are governed by critical parameters such as gender, age, ethnicity and more.

VentureBeat

Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced Wednesday that users on the chat app with personal accounts can now convert them into business accounts by paying a monthly fee. This gives users the ability to list information such as location and opening hours, which might be helpful for small cafes and shop owners.Some of the other features for business accounts involve organizing chats with color labels, using automatic greetings or away messages, and shortcuts for quick replies. On his channel, Durov said that Telegram plans to launch more business features this month including a way to integrate AI-powered chatbots for customer service.“Telegram Business accounts will be able to seamlessly add chatbots as their invisible secretaries to respond to all or certain chats. With AI, these chatbots can bring customer service automation to an entirely new level,” he said.Telegram is trying to compete with WhatsApp Business, which crossed the mark of 200 million monthly active users last year, with these new features. However, a major differentiation is that Telegram is charging a subscription fee to use business features, while WhatsApp relies on the type of conversations and frequency of chats to generate revenue.Meta-owned WhatsApp introduced many business-facing features last year including personalized customer messages and flows to complete e-commerce transactions without leaving the app.Over the last two years, Telegram has focused on increasing its business through premium subscriptions, self-custodial crypto wallet, and auction of premium usernames. The chat app, which has more than 800 million users across the globe, is also planning to launch its ad platform this month with a revenue-sharing program for channels.

Telegram now lets users to convert personal accounts to business accounts | TechCrunch. Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced Wednesday that users on the chat app with personal accounts can now convert them into business accounts by paying a monthly fee.

TechCrunch

Telegram now lets users to convert personal accounts to business accounts

Threat actors have been leveraging fake websites advertising popular video conferencing software such as Google Meet, Skype, and Zoom to deliver a variety of malware targeting both Android and Windows users since December 2023."The threat actor is distributing Remote Access Trojans (RATs) including SpyNote RAT for Android platforms, and NjRAT and DCRat for Windows systems," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers said.The spoofed sites are in Russian and are hosted on domains that closely resemble their legitimate counterparts, indicating that the attackers are using typosquatting tricks to lure prospective victims into downloading the malware.They also come with options to download the app for Android, iOS, and Windows platforms. While clicking on the button for Android downloads an APK file, clicking on the Windows app button triggers the download of a batch script.The malicious batch script is responsible for executing a PowerShell script, which, in turn, downloads and executes the remote access trojan.Currently, there is no evidence that the threat actor is targeting iOS users, given that clicking on the button for the iOS app takes the user to the legitimate Apple App Store listing for Skype."A threat actor is using these lures to distribute RATs for Android and Windows, which can steal confidential information, log keystrokes, and steal files," the researchers said.The development comes as the AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC) revealed that a new malware dubbed WogRAT targeting both Windows and Linux is abusing a free online notepad platform called aNotepad as a covert vector for hosting and retrieving malicious code.It's said to be active from at least late 2022, targeting Asian countries like China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore, among others. That said, it's currently not known how the malware is distributed in the wild."When WogRAT is run for the first time, it collects basic information of the infected system and sends them to the C&C server," ASEC said. "The malware then supports commands such as executing commands, sending results, downloading files, and uploading these files."It also coincides with high-volume phishing campaigns orchestrated by a financially motivated cybercriminal actor known as TA4903 to steal corporate credentials and likely follow them with business email compromise (BEC) attacks. The adversary has been active since at least 2019, with the activities intensifying post mid-2023."TA4903 routinely conducts campaigns spoofing various U.S. government entities to steal corporate credentials," Proofpoint said. "The actor also spoofs organizations in various sectors including construction, finance, healthcare, food and beverage, and others."Attack chains involve the use of QR codes (aka quishing) for credential phishing as well as relying on the EvilProxy adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing kit to bypass two-factor authentication (2FA) protections.Once a target mailbox is compromised, the threat actor has been observed searching for information relevant to payments, invoices, and bank information, with the ultimate goal of hijacking existing email threads and performing invoice fraud.Phishing campaigns have also functioned as a conduit for other malware families like DarkGate, Agent Tesla, and Remcos RAT, the last of which leverages steganographic decoys to drop the malware on compromised hosts.State of AI in the Cloud 2024Find out what 150,000+ cloud accounts revealed about the AI surge.Goodbye, Atlassian Server. Goodbye… Backups?Protect your data on Atlassian Cloud from disaster with daily backups and on-demand restores.Take Action Fast with Censys Search for Security TeamsStay ahead of advanced threat actors with best-in-class threat intelligence from Censys Search.Find out what 150,000+ cloud accounts revealed about the AI surge.From Humans to Bots: Every Identity in Your SaaS App Could Be a Backdoor for Cybercriminals.Learn how to protect your innovations from emerging security threats with expert advice.Sign up for free and start receiving your daily dose of cybersecurity news, insights and tips.

Watch Out for Spoofed Zoom, Skype, Google Meet Sites Delivering Malware. Once a target mailbox is compromised, the threat actor has been observed searching for information relevant to payments, invoices, and bank information, with the ultimate goal of hijacking existing email threads and performing invoice fraud

The Hacker News

Watch Out for Spoofed Zoom, Skype, Google Meet Sites Delivering Malware

The Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart is planning to enter the quick-commerce business, aimed at providing customers with the convenience of receiving their orders instantly after making their purchases, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.The firm, majorly owned by Walmart, plans to make the instant-delivery service available in select locations as early as May this year, the source said, requesting anonymity as the matter is private. The deliberations are ongoing and the timeline may slightly change, the source cautioned.A Flipkart spokesperson said the Bengaluru-headquartered e-commerce firm is “committed to meeting evolving customer expectations and delivering excellence in value, selection and speed, with more initiatives expected on this front in the coming months.”Flipkart, valued at over $30 billion, has been steadily laying the groundwork to improve its delivery time for quite some time. It has heavily invested in its supply chain infrastructure over the years, with a particular focus on reducing delivery times for grocery items. These efforts have allowed Flipkart to offer same-day and next-day delivery options.The new foray comes at a time when Flipkart is also engaging to explore acquiring the instant-delivery startup Dunzo, TechCrunch reported last month. The overarching ownership of Reliance on Dunzo has complicated the conversations, however, the report added.Flipkart’s interest in quick-commerce coincides with the ambitious expansion plans of instant-commerce players such as Swiggy, Zepto, and Zomato’s BlinkIt. These companies are aggressively widening their product offerings, venturing beyond grocery delivery to include a diverse range of items, from daily essentials to electronic gadgets, in a bid to capture a larger slice of India’s burgeoning e-commerce pie.Quick-commerce has shifted from an “adjacent offering” to becoming a “core offering” for food delivery players, Bernstein analysts wrote in a recent note. Quick-commerce accounts for about 40% of the online grocery delivery category, the analysts said.“Quick commerce with a potential TAM of ~$45 billion (~7% of the grocery market of $620 billion),” they wrote. “Serviceable market is metros/Tier1 cities (~17%). Mid-to-high income households (~60%) and top-up orders (~70%). We estimate quick-commerce GMV to grow to $6.2 billion by 2025.”Indian news outlet Entrackr first reported some of the details of Flipkart’s instant commerce play Thursday.“At Flipkart, customer-centricity is at the core of everything we do. We constantly work towards delivering a wide range of products to customers with speed,” a Flipkart spokesperson said. “Over the past few months, we have made several investments to enhance our delivery capabilities, including adding same-day delivery in 20 cities. This covers mobiles, essential items, electronics, home appliances, fashion, books and lifestyle products.”

India's Flipkart readies quick-commerce play | TechCrunch. The Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart is planning to enter the quick-commerce business, aimed at providing customers with the convenience of receiving their orders instantly after making their purchases, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch

India’s Flipkart readies quick-commerce play

While many entrepreneurs are currently facing the harsh reality of a VC funding crunch, Qonto isn’t one of them. The Paris-based business banking startup still has hundreds of millions of cash on hand. And it is using an undisclosed portion of its cash reserve to acquire Regate, an accounting and financial automation platform.Qonto originally started with online business accounts with debit cards specifically tailored for small and medium businesses. Over time, the company expanded its product offering to include invoicing tools, features to manage expenses and plenty of integrations with the fintech ecosystem to facilitate bookkeeping, payment reconciliation, etc.And that modern take on business banking has worked surprisingly well as more than 450,000 companies now have a Qonto account. While France remains Qonto’s main market, the company also acquired its German competitor Penta — and moved Penta’s customers to its own platform — and is also available in Italy and Spain.In 2022, near the peak of the funding frenzy of 2021 and 2022, the company raised a massive €486 million Series D funding round (that’s $529 million at today’s exchange rate). Now, Qonto wants to deliver on its original vision of building an all-in-one finance solution for small and medium businesses.As part of this vision, Qonto is acquiring Regate, a French startup we covered after it raised a €20 million Series A round ($22 million at today’s exchange rate). Regate is an accounting automation software-as-a-service startup.It integrates directly with existing accounting software platforms like Sage, Cegid and ACD so that Regate can focus on financial automation. Regate customers can easily track incoming payments, schedule payments to suppliers, sort through invoices and receipts, and even access their bank accounts from Regate’s interface.Since 2020, Regate managed to attract 10,000 clients — 6,000 of them are already Qonto customers. The company also sells its product to accounting firms directly with 500 firms using Regate.It’s a different go-to-market strategy and product philosophy compared to Pennylane, a newly minted French unicorn that wants to replace legacy accounting software entirely. Pennylane itself now also provides business bank accounts and moving into Qonto’s main product territory.“We have grown our revenue by 3x in 2023,” Regate co-founder Laura Pallier told TechCrunch. But when Qonto approached Regate, they decided to sell the company to reach the next level. “We had a rather intense discussion on the subject . . . We’re convinced that the cockpit approach — with a tool that works for both SMEs and their accountants — makes a lot more sense than multiple products.”With today’s acquisition, Regate’s team of 100 employees will all join Qonto’s current 1,400-people staff under a new business unit focused on financial tools for accountants. At first, there will be new integrations between both platforms.After a while, Regate will be integrated in Qonto directly to improve several accounting automation features of Qonto, such as invoicing, accounts payables, accounts receivables, etc. As for accounting firms, they’ll also act as a new sales channel for Qonto.“The idea is that these two platforms will gradually become one. But it’s going to be a gradual process, and we’ll always be very careful to maintain the customer experience for both corporate clients and accounting firms,” Pallier said.While Regate’s acquisition is only the second acquisition in Qonto’s history, it’s most likely not the last one. In part because its executives are happy with how Penta’s integration went, but also because of its current opportunity window.“We happen to have a planetary alignment. It would be a professional mistake not to look [at potential acquisitions]. We’re not the best at everything. So we should also stay humble and work with experts in their respective fields,” Qonto co-founder and president Steve Anavi told TechCrunch at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week.“We have an in-house team that looks at opportunities. In the best-case scenario, we sign a deal. But even in the worst-case scenario, we can become partners because we’ve learned to know each other a little bit better over a very short process,” he added.Qonto finds itself in a different position from Payfit, another French unicorn (or former unicorn) that provides a software-as-a-service tool focused on payroll. Yesterday, Les Échos reported that Payfit plans to lay off 14% of the company, or 110 employees.Why are things looking better for Qonto? “We have a healthy business model. It means that when we acquire a customer, after a few months it’s a profitable customer. This is mainly because they pay — we don’t have any free offering. So, compared to a lot of fintech companies or startups in general that have a free offering and then try to upsell customers, we haven’t made that choice,” Qonto co-founder and CEO Alexandre Prot told TechCrunch.“The second element is that we raised a very large amount of money two years ago. And we were a bit lucky because the timing was right,” he added. Finally, rising interest rates have also created a new revenue stream for the company. And given Qonto’s scale, the company is handling very large sums of money on behalf of its customers.For these reasons, Qonto has plenty of cash to spend on acquisitions. As many fintech startups are struggling to raise a new funding round, Qonto could become a consolidator in the space. And we might be at the beginning of this consolidation phase.

Flush with cash, French fintech unicorn Qonto acquires Regate | TechCrunch. While France remains Qonto’s main market, the company also acquired its German competitor Penta — and moved Penta’s customers to its own platform — and is also available in Italy and Spain

Flush with cash, French fintech unicorn Qonto acquires Regate

Sed ut perspiciatis unde. The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has announced £3.4 billion of new investment in NHS digitisation in the Spring Budget.The NHS in England, which had been facing real-term cuts due to inflation, will also receive a £2.5 billion day-to-day funding boost for 2024/25.The digital investment will come as part of a £3.4 billion in capital investment over the forecast period “to help unlock £35 billion in productivity savings over the next Parliament by harnessing new technology like AI and cutting admin workloads”, as part of new Public Sector Productivity Plan with the Treasury to deliver better public services.According to the government The NHS will receive £3.4 billion as part of this over the forecast period – the three years to 2028/29 – doubling investment in digital transformation.Commenting on the Spring Budget statement, Sarah Woolnough, Chief Executive of The King’s Fund, said: “The government is right to acknowledge that outdated IT and technology is one of the barriers to NHS productivity. The announcement of £3.4 billion capital investment over three years is a welcome first step to increasing efficiency.”As Digital Health exclusively reported in November 2023 national funds for frontline digitisation were slashed earlier this year as NHS England was told to claw back £1 billion pounds of costs of strike action.The new investment will, it is claimed, “reduce the 13 million hours lost by doctors every year because of old IT” and help “deliver test results faster for 130,000 patients a year thanks to AI-fitted MRI scanners that help doctors read results more quickly and accurately”.Speaking in the House of Commons on Wednesday Hunt said the investment would unlock £35 billion in productivity savings across the NHS over the course of the next parliament.“As a result of this funding, all hospitals will use electronic patient records, making the NHS the largest digitally integrated healthcare system in the world,” said Hunt.In his Budget response Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer, however, reminded Hunt that as Secretary of State for Health ten years ago, he’d promised to make the NHS paperless by 2018, a target that had come and gone unmet.More recently Sajid Javid promised to ensure all NHS hospital trusts have electronic patient records by the end of 2025.  The target was declared unachievable by the Government’s Infrastructure and Projects Authority in July 2023.Hunt said that under a new agreement the Treasury will prioritise digital projects, with a “ground-breaking” agreement with the NHS for digitisation to make services “more efficient”.As a result of the agreement the Treasury will prioritise proposals that “deliver annual savings within five years equivalent to the total cost of the investment”. Source link  Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data. * Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() );Tech dedicated news site to equip you with all tech related stuff.I agree that my submitted data is being collected and stored.✉️ Send us an emailTechToday © 2024. All Rights Reserved.TechToday.co is a technology blog and review site specializing in providing in-depth insights into the latest news and trends in the technology sector.TechToday © 2024. All Rights Reserved.Be the first to know the latest updatesI agree that my submitted data is being collected and stored.

Spring Budget includes £3.4billion extra investment in NHS digitisation. The digital investment will come as part of a £3.4 billion in capital investment over the forecast period “to help unlock £35 billion in productivity savings over the next Parliament by harnessing new technology like AI and cutting admin workloads”, as part of new Public Sector Productivity Plan with the Treasury to deliver better public services. Be the first to know the latest updatesI agree that my submitted data is being collected and stored.

Synthesis AI debuts text-to-3D technology for cinematic-quality digital human synthesis