Welcome to Week 2 of our newsletter! Each day, we’ll be covering 3 main topics, including the hottest AI news of the day, an AI productivity tool, and how AI is affecting culture. Get ready to level up!

In today’s newsletter:

• News - Apple Intelligence: The Missing Piece in the iPhone 16 Pro Max

• Productivity - Vimcal - The World's Fastest Calendar

• Culture - AI Protects Journalists in Venezuela Amid Government Crackdown

Apple Intelligence: The Missing Piece in the iPhone 16 Pro Max

The iPhone 16 Pro Max, launching this Friday, comes with solid updates like better battery life, a larger screen, and faster MagSafe charging. But the feature everyone’s talking about—Apple Intelligence—isn’t fully available yet. While some AI-powered tools, like smarter email summaries and improved Siri, are launching in beta next month, the full suite won’t roll out until later this year.

Apple Intelligence promises much more, including AI-powered text rewriting, enhanced Siri interactions, and automatic creation of photo memories. Although these tools could reshape how users interact with their devices, their absence at launch leaves users waiting to experience the full potential of the iPhone 16’s AI-powered future. As Apple leans into AI, many users are holding out to see if these features will truly redefine the iPhone experience.

Vimcal - The World's Fastest Calendar

Vimcal is designed for people who juggle too many meetings, offering a fast, intuitive calendar that helps you take control of your time. With features like instant booking, time zone conversion, and lightning-fast scheduling powered by AI, Vimcal streamlines your calendar management. You can quickly find mutual availabilities for large groups and even get AI-powered dossiers on meeting participants to go in fully prepared.

Built for speed and ease, Vimcal’s natural language processing (NLP) lets you create events seamlessly, while its "Do Not Disturb" mode helps you focus with a pomodoro timer and ambient sounds. It also syncs your personal and work calendars into one unified view, so you’ll never book on the wrong account again. Perfect for busy professionals, Vimcal is praised for making calendar management hassle-free

AI Protects Journalists in Venezuela Amid Government Crackdown

In Venezuela, where government crackdowns have made journalism a dangerous profession, a new AI initiative is providing a shield for reporters. The AI news show, Venezuela Retweets, uses virtual anchors—The Girl and The Dude—to present the news, protecting real journalists from potential government retaliation. Created by media organizations in response to threats from Nicolás Maduro’s regime, the AI avatars allow news to be shared without risking reporters' lives.

Unlike many regions where AI threatens journalism jobs, in Venezuela, it's a crucial tool for safety. Designed for social media, the AI-presented news is widely distributed on platforms like WhatsApp, allowing journalists to report without exposing themselves. While some question its long-term effectiveness, the initiative shows how AI can be used to protect freedom of speech in authoritarian environments.

Job Opportunities

• Meta: Engineering Manager, PyTorch - AI Acceleration

• Meta: AI Research Scientist, Computer Vision - XR Tech

• Open AI: Field Operations Leader

• Databricks: Solutions Architect - Emerging Digital

• Deepmind: Data Scientist, Responsible Development and Innovation

VC Fundraising Rounds

• Intezer, a cybersecurity platform that automates alert triage, incident response, and threat hunting, has raised $33 million in Series C funding. (9/17/24)

• PictorLabs, a platform that offers virtual staining technology using proprietary models powered by artificial intelligence, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. (9/18/24)

• Ferrum Health, a developer of an enterprise IT and AI patient safety platform for health systems, has raised $16 million in Series A funding. (9/19/24)

• Attention, an AI sales assistant helping businesses achieve their full potential, has just secured $13.8 million in a Venture funding round. (9/17/24)

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