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Relyance lands $32M to help companies comply with data regulations

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As the demand for AI surges, AI vendors are devoting greater bandwidth to data security issues. Not only are they being compelled to comply with emerging data privacy regulations (e.g. the EU Data Act), but they’re finding themselves under the microscope of clients skeptical about how their data is being used and processed.

The trouble is, where it concerns tightening data security practices around AI, many orgs aren’t in a position to execute well. According to a survey from BigID, a data control platform, half of organizations rank data security as their top barrier to implementing AI.

Hailing from the app engineering and legal sectors, Abhi Sharma and Leila Golchehreh were well-versed in the challenges at play here. Confident they could build something to address the data security conundrum, the pair launched Relyance AI, a platform that checks if a company’s data usage is aligned with governance policies.

“The concept of how we would build Relyance came to us one evening when we were catching up over pizza in San Francisco,” Sharma told TechCrunch. “Although we came from two very different backgrounds, together, we realized that more could be done to ensure visibility in an organization’s data processing.”

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Golchehreh is an attorney by trade, having previously served as senior counsel at Workday and autonomous car startup Cruise. Sharma, a software dev, was a platform engineer at AppDynamics before helping to found FogHorn, an edge AI platform that Johnson Controls acquired in 2022.

Sharma says that most companies face three main hurdles to AI adoption: a lack of visibility to data in AI, the complexity of how data is handled, and the rapid pace of innovation. All these contribute to reputational risk, Sharma says — and open companies to legal threats.

Relyance’s solution is an engine that scans an org’s data sources — such as third-party apps, cloud environments, AI models, and code repositories — and checks to see if they’re in agreement with policies. Relyance creates a “data inventory” and ‘data map,” which it syncs with customer agreements, global privacy regulations, and compliance frameworks.

“Relyance enables organizations to monitor external vendor risks,” Sharma said, “while its data lineage feature tracks data flows across applications to identify potential risks proactively.”

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Relyance
An example of a Relyance-generated data map. Image Credits:Relyance

Now, Relyance isn’t executing on a totally novel concept. Sharma admits that OneTrust, Transcend, Datagrail, and Securiti AI are among the vendors that compete with it in some way. For example, Datagrail offers automated risk monitoring tools that help companies build third-party app risk assessments quickly.

But Relyance appears to be holding its own. Sharma claims that the business is on track to double annual recurring revenue this year, and that Relyance’s customer base — which includes Coinbase, Snowflake, MyFitnessPal, and Plaid — grew 30% in H1.

Setting the stage for further growth, Relyance this month closed a $32 million Series B round led by Thomvest with participation from M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), Cheyenne Ventures, Menlo Ventures, and Unusual Ventures. Bringing the startup’s total raised to $59 million, the new funds will be put toward growing Relyance’s team to 90 employees by the end of the year.

“We decided to raise funds because the demand for AI continues to grow and new privacy and AI regulations are being put into place globally,” Sharma said. “Our hiring efforts will primarily focus on expanding our engineering team and increasing our go-to-market capacity to support our product development and growth momentum.”

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NVIDIA, price of 1 chip? price of 1 server rack? #ai #nvidia #nvda

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NVIDIA, price of 1 chip? price of 1 server rack? #ai #nvidia #nvda



@FinanceAndBagels FULL VIDEO HERE .

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Submerged is everything impressive and isolating about the Vision Pro

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Submerged is everything impressive and isolating about the Vision Pro

I don’t like submarines. The idea of being trapped, several hundred feet underwater, in a narrow, creaking death trap? No thanks. I already knew that going into a screening of Submerged, the first scripted short film shot in Apple Immersive Video for the Vision Pro. Now that I’ve seen it, I’m triply sure.

Written and directed by Oscar winner Edward Berger, Submerged takes place inside a WWII submarine that’s under attack. It follows the crew as they try to escape a sinking submarine. I, however, was seated comfortably in 2024 on a couch at Apple’s demo space in Manhattan. There weren’t any other theatergoers because I was going to strap the theater to my face. It was a little weird. At least, until the film got going. Then, I, too, was inside a WWII submarine.

Watching an immersive film inside the Vision Pro is an odd thing. On the one hand, it’s hard to forget you’re in a headset. But, unlike a regular film, I have a ghostly sort of agency inside the narrative. The action can be happening with the main characters, but I’m not obligated to watch them. You can instead focus on the extras in the background. I can — and did — occasionally choose to turn my head to stare at the rivets in the submarine’s metal walls or beads of condensation in a torpedo tube (also, rudely, a roach skittering across the floor). Sometimes, I’d turn around to see if this Submerged world had 360 degrees like the real one. Spoiler: it doesn’t. This fictional world spans 180 degrees, and once you reach the border, it fades to black.

The experience feels like a cross between playing a video game and viewing Sleep No More, an immersive version of Macbeth where the audience traipses through a creepy hotel as the play unfolds around them. Scenes move slower, as if you’re being invited to gawp at your surroundings. At the same time, you’re not fully free to explore. There’s still a story that Berger is trying to tell — you’re just along for the ride.

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All of that is a natural part of adapting traditional filmmaking to a more immersive 180-degree field of view. “That frame is very large and you need to fill that frame with things that happen, things that could be of interest to the audience,” Berger says. “Every extra counts in this, every piece of equipment, every piece of bursting pipe or element in the frame counts. You can’t really cheat.”

That wide field of view comes with its own obstacles. Mics and lighting have to be built into the scenery. Berger says he had to storyboard everything, create a short animated film based on that, and then watch it in the Vision Pro to get a sense for how the camera would move. Berger also wore the headset when filming started to figure out how shots would look.

The 180-degree view created technical challenges for the film.
Image: Apple

The result is impressive. As water rushed into this fictional submarine, I could taste the faint memory of salt water on my tongue. When characters walked down narrow submarine corridors, I felt claustrophobic. During a scene where sailors shoved a torpedo into its launch tube, I instinctively stretched my hands out. For a split second, I thought they were loading it straight into my chest.

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“My main agenda is to make you feel what the main character is feeling, to sort of have you go through what they’re doing,” Berger says. On that front, Submerged is incredibly successful. It’s when you remember you’re in a headset that the rest of the world comes rushing back in.

Watching the film, you become very aware there’s no one else experiencing this with you. There’s no one else gasping at harrowing moments. There’s no one to lock eyes with, as if to say “Whoa, did you see that, too?” If you were to SharePlay this, you’d just see the ghostly Persona of a friend who isn’t actually there. And then you’d miss out on the whole immersive aspect. When you think about it that way, Submerged is something you have to experience alone.

Watching the film, you become very aware there’s no one else experiencing this with you

Owning (or borrowing) a Vision Pro is also the only way to see Submerged. That’s inherently lonely. The only people I’ve really been able to chat about this experience with were Apple employees and Berger himself. Now that the film is available, I’ll have to wait for the two people I know in real life with a Vision Pro to carve out time in their schedule to see it. When I try to explain it to my spouse, they are unmoved. 

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Ostensibly, Apple wants these immersive films to serve as a selling point for the Vision Pro. Come, spend $3,500, and see for yourself what the magic is all about. There’s a logic to it. Submerged is truly a technologically impressive proof-of-concept for high-quality immersive content. It’s just also a hard experience to share. I can’t say with a straight face that this is the killer reason anyone should buy one of these things, especially since this was only a roughly 17-minute film. That’s long enough for things to feel snappy and fresh. I’m not sure how well the immersive aspect would hold up over a two-hour feature. 

“Not every movie is going to be made on these headsets. It’s not necessary. It would be a waste of resources and waste of time,” Berger acknowledges. Instead, he sees the Vision Pro as another tool in the belt. “Not every movie is supposed to be for every medium. But if I have the right story, I think, ‘I’m excited about telling this and about pushing the medium forward.’” 

That’s sort of the quagmire all mixed reality tech is stuck in. It can be magical. When you try it, you can see why some people are inspired and excited. And then, when you inevitably take the headsets off, it’s hard to explain to anyone why the world inside the headset is better than the one outside it. “Pushing boundaries” isn’t all that convincing of a reason. Watching Submerged is like this, too. For all the artistry and technological prowess that went into making this film, I’ve never needed the Vision Pro to imagine how terrifying a sinking submarine could be. It’s just not necessary for immersing yourself in a good story.

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Submerged is Vision Pro’s claustrophobic thrill ride that’s short on depth but long on immersion

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Apple Vision Pro Immersive Video

Claustrophobia and barely contained panic were my two overriding emotions as I experienced Apple’s first-ever immersive narrative short film on its Vision Pro mixed reality headset.

The aptly titled Submerged, which arrives on Vision Pro headsets around the world today, tells the harrowing 17-minute tale of a World War II submarine tasked with tracking ships in enemy waters.

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Network Rack 42U #networking #compterinformation

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Network Rack 42U #networking #compterinformation

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US and UK announce online child safety partnership

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US and UK announce online child safety partnership
Getty Images A stock image of a young child holding a pale blue smartphoneGetty Images

The US and the UK have announced what they say is their first joint agreement aimed at keeping children safer online.

It will see the setting up of a joint online safety working group to share evidence and expertise, and study the impact social media has on children.

UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said the agreement would turn the two countries’ “historic partnership” towards “delivering a safer online world for our next generation.”

But campaign group Smartphone Free Childhood said it was insufficient and parents “don’t have time to wait and see whether this UK-US agreement makes any difference when their children’s futures are at stake.”

However, others argue more evidence does need to be gathered in relation to online harms to guide any future policies.

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“Policies and guidelines to support young people in navigating their digital world need to be based on robust evidence, but to date we haven’t had much success in establishing cause and effect when it comes to impacts on wellbeing,” said Prof Pete Etchells of Bath Spa University

Announcing the agreement, the UK government acknowledged there was “limited research and evidence on the causal impact that social media has on children and young people”.

It committed to consider ways access to more data held by big tech firms could be given to researchers.

‘Further and faster’

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The agreement was announced in a joint statement between the two countries.

At its heart is the joint working group which will work on areas including “promoting better transparency from platforms” and “better understanding the impacts and risks of the digital world on young people, including new technologies like generative AI.”

They also said they expected tech platforms to go “further and faster” to protect children.

“As more children across the U.S. and around the globe have access to online platforms for online learning and social media, there is also increased risk to this exposure,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

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“That is why we are taking the necessary steps in the United States, and with our UK partners, to protect children’s privacy, safety, and mental health,” she added.

However, Smartphone Free Childhood said action was needed sooner, so it has launched a campaign calling on the UK government to ensure that children don’t have access to their mobile phones at school.

The campaign group argues that “further delay” from the government would make the UK looking “increasingly behind” other European countries who have strengthened restrictions.

Currently government guidance says that: “All schools should prohibit the use of mobile phones throughout the school day – not only during lessons but break and lunchtimes as well”.

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However, the government so far says it has no plans to ban smartphone use for the under-16’s.

The UK’s Online Safety Act does place duties on online platforms to protect children’s safety and put in place measures to mitigate risks.

But this is not yet fully in force. Guidance for firms on how to comply with the new legislation is still being produced by the communications regulator Ofcom.

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Home Lab Server Rack Review

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Home Lab Server Rack Review



Let’s talk about server racks for a minute.

This is a review on StarTech.com 25U Open Frame Server Rack – 4 Post Adjustable Depth (23″ to 41″) Network Equipment Rack w/ Casters/ Levelers/ Cable Management (4POSTRACK25U)



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