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Google is shipping Gemini models faster than its AI safety reports

More than two years after Google was caught flat-footed by the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the company has dramatically picked up the pace. In late March, Google launched an AI reasoning model, Gemini 2.5 Pro, that leads the industry on several benchmarks measuring coding and math capabilities....

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Truecaller now has over 450M monthly active users

The caller identity app Truecaller said that it crossed the 450 million user mark earlier this week. The company said that it added 50 million users in the past 10 months and 15.5 million users since the beginning of 2025. India is the company’s biggest user base. So it wasn’t surprising when...

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Fuse raises $ 6.6M to fix a payment problem for companies expanding to MENA

Expanding into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) remains a costly and complex challenge for global businesses, thanks to fragmented regulations and banking systems. Dubai-based fintech Fuse aims to simplify that with a cross-border payments API and has raised $ 6.6 million in seed funding to...

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Y Combinator neobank Djamo raises $ 17M with 1M users across Francophone Africa

Djamo is one of several digital banking startups targeting Africa’s underbanked. But unlike many that focus on large markets like Nigeria, Egypt, or South Africa, Djamo has carved out a niche in Francophone West Africa, specifically the Ivory Coast and, more recently, Senegal. It now serves over...

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Microsoft reportedly pulls back on its data center plans

Microsoft has pulled back on data center projects around the world, Bloomberg reports, suggesting that the company is wary of expanding its cloud computing infrastructure too rapidly. Microsoft has halted talks for or delayed development sites of data centers in the U.K., Australia, North Dakota,...

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Spotify debuts Gen AI ads, programmatic ad buying

Spotify announced Gen AI ads, among other changes to its advertising business, at an event in New York City on Thursday. Notably, the company introduced a new programmatic offering, the Spotify Ad Exchange (SAX), which allows advertisers to reach Spotify’s logged-in users via real- time...

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Runway, best known for its video-generating AI models, raises $ 308M

Runway, a startup developing a range of generative AI models for media production, including video-generating models, has raised $ 308 million in a Series D funding round. General Atlantic led the round, which had participation from Fidelity Management & Research Company, Baillie Gifford, Nvidia,...

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Startup Battlefield winner Salva Health is changing the game in breast cancer detection

Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Six years ago, while researching for a college entrepreneurship competition, Valentina Agudelo identified a troubling gap in breast cancer survival rates between Latin America and the developed world: women in her native Colombia and the rest of South...

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AI crawlers cause Wikimedia Commons bandwidth demands to surge 50%

The Wikimedia Foundation, the umbrella organization of Wikipedia and a dozen or so other crowdsourced knowledge projects, said on Wednesday that bandwidth consumption for mul time dia downloads from Wikimedia Commons has surged by 50% since January 2024. The reason, the outfit wrote in a blog post...

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Epic Games CEO calls Apple and Google ‘gangster-style’ businesses in need of competition

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose company makes Fortnite and tools for other developers, including Unreal Engine, called out Apple and Google as “gangster-style businesses” engaged in illegal practices while speaking at a Y Combinator event on Wednesday. The executive also emphasized how the big...

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OpenAI seeks to convene group to advise its nonprofit goals

As it prepares to transition from a nonprofit corporation to a for-profit, OpenAI says it’s convening a group of experts to “help OpenAI’s philanthropy understand the most urgent and intractable problems nonprofits face today.” This group, which OpenAI says will incorporate feedback from “leaders...

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OpenAI’s o3 model might be costlier to run than originally estimated

When OpenAI unveiled its o3 “reasoning” AI model in December, the company partnered with the creators of ARC-AGI, a benchmark designed to test highly capable AI, to showcase o3’s capabilities. Months later, the results have been revised, and they now look slightly less impressive than they did...

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Ente wants to take on Google Photos with its privacy-first photo storage service

Despite Google’s intentions for its default image viewing and editing app for Android, the Photos app has, over the years, become one of the most popular photo backup services around. In fact, it was one of the most attractive offerings for years until it stopped offering unlimited storage in...

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Khosla’s Keith Rabois leads $ 11.5M Series A for startup Roam, calls it ‘the future of the housing market’

During the COVID-19 pandemic, mortgage interest rates dropped to historic lows — as low as 2.5%. Fast-forward a few years and rates soared — to highs nearing 8% in 2023, with the national average 30-year fixed mortgage APR as of April 1 still at 6.84%. The whiplash has left many people seeking to buy...

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Peter Diamandis answers the question: Is longevity only for the wealthy?

In this week’s episode of StrictlyVC Download, TechCrunch Editor in Chief Connie Loizos and StrictlyVC’s Alex Gove are joined by entrepreneur, futurist, and bestselling author Peter Diamandis. He’s the founder of XPRIZE Foundation and the co-founder of Singularity University. In this conversation,...

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Anthropic launches an AI chatbot plan for colleges and universities

Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it’s launching a new Claude for Education tier, an answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Edu plan. The new tier is aimed at higher education, and gives students, faculty, and other staff access to Anthropic’s AI chatbot, Claude, with a few additional capabilities. One...

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Researchers suggest OpenAI trained AI models on paywalled O’Reilly books

OpenAI has been accused by many parties of training its AI on copyrighted content sans permission. Now a new paper by an AI watchdog organization makes the serious accusation that the company increasingly relied on non-public books it didn’t license to train more sophisticated AI models. AI models...

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Patreon signs podcast partnerships with Sony and Wondery

Patreon, a subscription platform for online creators, is ge has signed podcasting partnerships with Sony Music Entertainment and Amazon’s Wondery, the company announced on Wednesday. Patreon says the partnerships are designed to make the site a home to fan engagement and exclusive perks for shows...

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Zelle is shutting down its app, but you probably don’t need to worry

Zelle is shutting down its stand-alone app on Tuesday, according to a company blog post. This news might be alarming if you’re one of the over 150 million customers in the U.S. who use Zelle for person-to-person payments. But only about 2% of transactions take place via Zelle’s app, which is why the...

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Epic Games acquires Loci to introduce automated 3D tagging

Epic Games announced on Wednesday the acquisition of Loci, an AI platform for automated tagging 3D assets. The deal will help creators with the labor-intensive process of tagging as well as to help detect potential intellectual property (IP) violations. Loci, which uses computer vision models to...

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Andreessen Horowitz is trying to nab a piece of TikTok with Oracle, report says

The venture capital firm is reportedly in talks to invest in TikTok as part of a bid led by Oracle and other American investors looking to buy out TikTok from ByteDance, according to the Financial time s. TikTok is once again slated to be banned in the U.S. on April 5 unless its Chinese-based owner...

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DeepMind’s 145-page paper on AGI safety may not convince skeptics

Google DeepMind on Wednesday published an exhaustive paper on its safety approach to AGI, roughly defined as AI that can accomplish any task a human can. AGI is a bit of a controversial subject in the AI field, with naysayers suggesting that it’s little more than a pipe dream. Others, including...

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The Nintendo Switch 2 release date is June 5

Nintendo unveiled new details on Wednesday about its hugely anticipated Nintendo Switch 2 gaming console, which will be the company’s first new console since the Nintendo Switch was introduced in 2017. The Nintendo Switch 2 will be released on June 5. The company did not reveal pricing details. At...

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A new security fund opens up to help protect the fediverse

The fediverse, also known as the open social web that includes Mastodon, Meta’s Threads, Pixelfed, and other apps, is ramping up its security. On Wednesday, a nonprofit focused on bringing governance to open source projects, the Nivenly Foundation, announced the launch of a new security fund that...

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Rivian starts a challenging year with a big slip in deliveries

Rivian delivered just 8,640 vehicles in the first three months of 2024, the company’s worst quarterly mark since the end of 2022. But the company says the slow start won’t impact its overall guidance for the year — it still expects to deliver between 46,000 and 51,000 EVs by the end of 2025. The...

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Meta’s head of AI research plans to leave the company

Meta’s VP of AI research, Joelle Pineau, is planning to leave the company, she announced in a post on Facebook Tuesday. Pineau said she’s leaving in May after more than two years overseeing FAIR, Meta’s internal AI research lab led by Yann LeCun. Pineau’s exit comes as Meta ramps up its AI efforts,...

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Parasail says its fleet of on-demand GPUs is larger than Oracle’s entire cloud

Cloud infrastructure is dominated by several large industry players: AWS, Microsoft’s Azure, and Google Cloud. While to some it may look like AI is headed in a similar direction, the founders of Parasail think AI infrastructure will look very different — and are betting their company’s fate on...

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Who are climate-conscious consumers? Not who you’d expect, says Northwind Climate

Some time s, surprises are lurking in everyday data. Take a category of consumers that Doug Rubin’s startup, Northwind Climate, calls “climate doers.” They’re concerned about climate change and tend to prioritize climate-friendly purchases, the sort of identifiers who might be stereotypically...

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Mark Cuban backs Skylight, a TikTok alternative built on Bluesky’s underlying technology

Skylight, a startup taking on TikTok with a more open alternative, is launching its mobile app to the public on Tuesday after just 10 weeks of active development. The app, which is backed by Mark Cuban and others, is now one of many to build on top of the AT Protocol — the same technology that...

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Genetic sharing site openSNP to shut down, citing concerns of data privacy and ‘rise in authoritarian governments’

OpenSNP, a large open source repository for user-uploaded genetic data, will shut down and delete all of its data at the end of April, co-founder Bastian Greshake Tzovaras has confirmed. In a blog post, openSNP’s Greshake Tzovaras attributed the decision to shutter the site due to concerns of data...

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Epic Games introduces automated 3D tagging to help detect IP violations in Fortnite

Epic Games announced on Wednesday the launch of a Loci integration to assist creators with the labor-intensive process of tagging 3D assets as well as to help detect potential intellectual property (IP) violations. Loci, which uses computer vision models to understand 3D content, automatically tags...

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CaaStle board confirms financial distress, furloughing employees

CaaStle, a startup that launched in 2011 as a plus-sized clothing subscription service and later became an inventory monetization platform for clothing retailers, is facing financial difficulties, the company confirmed to TechCrunch following a report by Axios. Citing a letter from the board, Axios...

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An accounting startup has turned tax preparations into a Pokémon Showdown game

Accounting software company Open Ledger has launched a new product in time for tax day. Meet PokéTax, a game that helps make tax filing quite fun. Instead of tax forms, users take on Tax Trainers — gym leaders — representing different parts of a tax form, such as income, deductions, and credits....

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The Nintendo Switch 2 releases on June 5 and costs $ 450

Nintendo unveiled new details on Wednesday about its hugely anticipated Nintendo Switch 2 gaming console, which will be the company’s first new console since the Nintendo Switch was introduced in 2017. The Nintendo Switch 2 will be released on June 5 and cost $ 450. At launch, the console will arrive...

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Fourier is making hydrogen electrolyzers inspired by data centers

Despite being the most abundant element in the universe, making cheap, clean hydrogen here on Earth has been a surprisingly tough nut to crack. “Hydrogen has always been plagued with a couple problems, One is, how do you make it efficiently? Another one is, how do you distribute it efficiently?”...

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Tesla records worst deliveries in two years amid Elon Musk backlash

Tesla recorded 336,681 deliveries, its worst quarterly performance in more than two years as the brand suffers a backlash to CEO Elon Musk’s political maneuverings. The dip in sales comes as Musk continues leading DOGE, the “advisory body” that has laid off thousands of federal employees and...

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Actively AI raises $ 22.5M to offer sales ‘superintelligence,’ says AI SDRs failed

AI sales rep startups are a very crowded market these days. If you’re driving into San Francisco from the airport, you’ll probably spot billboards promising that you can “Stop Hiring Humans” (Artisan) or urging you to “Hire Piper, the AI SDR” (Qualified). While some of these startups are certainly...

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Amazon reportedly submits last-minute bid to acquire TikTok

Amazon has submitted a bid to acquire all of TikTok, according to a new report from The New York time s. The last-minute bid comes as TikTok faces an April 5 deadline to shed its Chinese ownership or face a ban in the U.S. However, the parties involved in the deal talks do not appear to be taking...

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Roblox enables parents to block experiences and friends

Roblox, the popular gaming platform geared toward preteens, has made substantial updates to its safety policy in the last year following accusations of insufficient safety measures for children, which could expose them to risks like grooming, explicit content, and violent material. The company...

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Roblox partners with Google on ads

Google on Tuesday announced a new partnership with gaming company Roblox, which will allow advertisers to purchase and scale Roblox’s Rewarded Video and other immersive ad formats. That means marketers who want to reach the younger Gen Z audience that dominates the platform will be able to use...

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Meet Ponte Labor, a startup matching Hispanic immigrants to jobs using WhatsApp

While working on their MBAs at Harvard Business School, Colombian immigrants Stephanie Murra and Lorenza Vélez noticed that most of the workers in the cafeteria were Hispanic. In conversations with them, a common theme kept coming up: how difficult it was for people who legally moved to the U.S....

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NaNoWriMo shut down after AI, content moderation scandals

NaNoWriMo, a 25-year-old online writing community-turned-nonprofit, announced on Monday evening that it is shutting down. NaNoWriMo — an abbreviation of National Novel Writing Month — is an annual challenge for writers to complete a rough draft of a novel during the month of November. After starting...

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Spark, Mayfield, and Kleiner Perkins pour another $ 75M into AI data center chipmaker Retym

Retym, a U.S. chipmaker with Israeli roots, has raised a fresh $ 75 million series D led by James Kuklinski of Spark Capital. Existing investors — Mayfield’s Navin Chaddha and Kleiner Perkins’ Mamoon Hamid — also participated, bringing its total raised to $ 180 million, it says. The chipmaker is...

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Qualcomm acquires generative AI division of Vietnamese startup VinAI

Qualcomm has acquired the generative AI division of VinAI, an AI research company headquartered in Hanoi, for an undisclosed amount, the companies announced on Monday. The move marks Qualcomm’s continued expansion into the AI tooling sector. VinAI, which was founded by former DeepMind research...

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Blue Origin prepping second New Glenn launch in ‘late spring’

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is preparing for a second launch of its New Glenn mega-rocket in “late spring,” the company announced Monday. The company also believes it has determined why the booster stage failed during an attempted landing on an ocean platform during the inaugural flight...

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Sam Altman says that OpenAI’s capacity issues will cause product delays

In a series of posts on X on Monday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the popularity of the company’s new image-generation tool in ChatGPT will cause unspecified product delays. “We are getting things under control, but you should expect new releases from OpenAI to be delayed, stuff to break, and for...

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Apple rolls out Priority Notifications as Apple Intelligence expands to EU

Apple Intelligence, the iPhone maker’s suite of AI-powered tools and features, is gaining new features. Most notably, the company on Monday announced that Apple device owners will now be able to take advantage of Priority Notifications, which allows Apple’s AI to highlight your most time -sensitive...

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Lip-Bu Tan says Intel will spin off noncore units

Intel’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan wasted no time laying out his plans for the semiconductor giant. Speaking at the Intel Vision conference this week, Tan told attendees that the company will spin off assets that aren’t core to its mission, Bloomberg reported. Tan didn’t specify what was classified as core...

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Alphabet’s AI drug discovery platform Isomorphic Labs raises $ 600M from Thrive

Isomorphic Labs, the AI drug-discovery platform that was spun out of Google’s DeepMind in 2021, has raised external capital for the first time . The $ 600 million round was led by Thrive Capital, with participation from GV and existing investor Alphabet, Google’s parent, it said. The funding will...

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ChatGPT isn’t the only chatbot that’s gaining users

OpenAI’s ChatGPT may be the world’s most popular chatbot app. But rival services are gaining, according to data from analytics firms Similarweb and Sensor Tower. Similarweb, which estimates traffic to websites, including chatbot web apps, has recorded healthy recent upticks in usage across bots like...

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Some Alexa+ features reportedly won’t arrive for months

Amazon has delivered on its promise to launch an upgraded Alexa experience, Alexa+, by the end of March. But the service reportedly lacks many of the features Amazon demoed at a press event in late February. Alexa+ can’t yet perform certain “agentic” AI tasks showcased in the company’s marketing,...

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Tinder’s new AI-powered game assesses your flirting skills

You know the online dating scene is bad when dating giants like Tinder are now introducing AI personas for users to flirt with. On Tuesday, the company announced a new game powered by OpenAI, allowing users to interact with an AI bot to practice flirting, reenact meet-cute scenarios, and receive...

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OpenAI disables video gen for certain Sora users as capacity challenges continue

OpenAI is still struggling to overcome the capacity issues brought on by the viral image generation feature the company launched last week. On Monday, OpenAI disabled video generation for new users of Sora, the company’s suite of generative AI media tools. “We’re currently experiencing heavy traffic...

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OpenAI raises $ 40B at $ 300B post-money valuation

OpenAI on Monday announced that it closed one of the largest private funding rounds in history. According to a blog post on the company’s website, OpenAI raised $ 40 billion in a round that values the company at $ 300 billion post-money. SoftBank led the financing, CNBC reported. Other participants...

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Someone is trying to recruit security researchers in bizarre hacking campaign

Are you willing to hack and take control of Chinese websites for a random person for up to $ 100,000 a month? Someone is making precisely that tantalizing, bizarre, and clearly sketchy job offer. The person is using what looks like a series of fake accounts with avatars displaying photos of...

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Construct Capital raises $ 300M fund for defense and manufacturing tech

Construct Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in startups applying technology to sectors like manufacturing, transportation, and defense, has closed its third fund with $ 300 million in capital commitments. The Washington, D.C.-based firm previously raised a $ 225 million second...

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Beagle has a new long-range drone with more than one application

When there are damages to energy infrastructure, such as electricity pylons or gas pipelines, expensive helicopters are frequently used to inspect them. Drones have begun to replace some of those inspections, but the flight- time for these can be limited. Now a new company has produced a drone with...

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Fashion startup CaaStle appears to be in trouble

CaaStle, a startup that launched in 2011 as a plus-sized clothing subscription service and in 2018 became an inventory monetization platform for clothing retailers, is facing financial difficulties, reports Axios. The company is almost out of money, CEO Christine Hunsicker has resigned, and law...

3d ago | Share | Like

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ChatGPT’s new image generator is really good at faking receipts

This month, ChatGPT unveiled a new image generator as part of its 4o model that is a lot better at generating text inside images. People are already using it to generate fake restaurant receipts, potentially adding another tool to the already-extensive toolkit of AI deepfakes used by...

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Hillary Clinton joins Bluesky

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has joined Bluesky, following in the footsteps of former president Barack Obama, who made his first post on the platform last week. Clinton confirmed her Bluesky account’s legitimacy in an Instagram story and a post on X. In her introductory post, Clinton...

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Apple brings Apple Intelligence to the Vision Pro

Apple announced on Monday that it’s rolling out visionOS 2.4, bringing Apple Intelligence-powered AI features to the Apple Vision Pro. The update also introduces new spatial experiences and the Apple Vision Pro app for iPhone. With Apple Intelligence on the Apple Vision Pro, users will get access to...

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API testing firm APIsec exposed customer data during security lapse

API testing firm APIsec has confirmed it secured an exposed internal database containing customer data, which was connected to the internet for several days without a password. The exposed APIsec database stored records dating back to 2018, including names and email addresses of its customers’...

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OpenAI plans to release a new ‘open’ AI language model in the coming months

OpenAI says that it intends to release its first “open” language model since GPT‑2 “in the coming months.” That’s according to a feedback form the company published on its website Monday. The form, which OpenAI is inviting “developers, researchers, and [members of] the broader community” to fill...

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Oracle under fire for its handling of separate security incidents

Tech giant Oracle is facing criticism for how it’s handling two seemingly separate data breaches. At least one of the incidents appears to still be unfolding, despite Oracle reportedly denying a breach at all. The other relates to a breach of patient data under the tech giant’s healthcare...

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OpenAI’s new image generator is now available to all users

OpenAI’s new image generator, powered by its GPT-4o model, is now available to all users, CEO Sam Altman said in a post on X. The feature was until now available only to paying users of ChatGPT. While it is not clear how many images users on the free tier can generate, Altman last week had mentioned...

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Less than 24 hours to save $ 300+ on founder and investor passes for TechCrunch All Stage

Last chance! Less than 24 hours left to grab your $ 300+ discount on TechCrunch All Stage founder and investor passes. Planning to bring more than just you? Bundle tickets for even greater savings! Don’t wait — prices rise at 11:59 p.m. PT tonight. TC All Stage is the ultimate event where founders...

4d ago | Share | Like

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Temporal lands $ 146 million at a flat valuation, eyes agentic AI expansion

Seattle- based Temporal has made its name over the last several years in the world of microservices — specifically providing a platform to orchestrate the messy business of building and operating integrations and updates across disparate services and apps in the cloud. But the AI boom has come at...

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Runway releases an impressive new video-generating AI model

AI startup Runway on Monday released what it claims is one of the highest-fidelity AI-powered video generators yet. Called Gen-4, the model is rolling out to the company’s individual and enterprise customers. Runway claims that it can generate consistent characters, locations, and objects across...

4d ago | Share | Like

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ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big...

4d ago | Share | Like

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EV truck maker Harbinger accuses Canoo of hiding assets in bankruptcy sale

Electric trucking company Harbinger has filed an objection to the sale of Canoo’s assets to its CEO, potentially throwing a wrench into the two-month-old bankruptcy case. Harbinger’s objection, filed late Friday, accuses Canoo of hiding certain assets from the sale process, including what the...

4d ago | Share | Like

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Perplexity CEO denies having financial issues, says no IPO before 2028

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas recently took to Reddit to address users’ product complaints and reassure them that the company is not under serious financial pressure. Srinivas seemed to be responding, in part, to a user theory that the company is “doing horribly financially” and “making lots of...

4d ago | Share | Like

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Apple reportedly revamping Health app to add an AI coach

Apple is developing a new version of its Health app that includes an AI coach that can advise users on how to get healthier, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Gurman first reported that something like this was in the works back in 2023, but now he says development is moving ahead, with the new...

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The hottest AI models, what they do, and how to use them

AI models are being cranked out at a dizzying pace, by everyone from Big Tech companies like Google to startups like OpenAI and Anthropic. Keeping track of the latest ones can be overwhelming. Adding to the confusion is that AI models are often promoted based on industry benchmarks. But these...

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IPO-bound Chime hopes to boost growth by offering higher interest rates

As it gears up to go public, Chime is going all in on new features in an effort to attract more customers. The digital bank is offering customers who agree to have their paychecks directly deposited into a Chime savings or checking account an APY of 3.75%, it tells TechCrunch exclusively. For those...

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Amazon unveils Nova Act, an AI agent that can control a web browser

Amazon on Monday unveiled Nova Act, a general-purpose AI agent that can take control of a web browser and independently perform some simple actions. Alongside the new agentic AI model, Amazon is releasing the Nova Act SDK, a toolkit that allows developers to build agent prototypes with Nova...

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Manus launches paid subscription plans and a mobile app

Manus AI, the viral AI agent platform out of China, on Monday morning launched two subscription plans starting at $ 39 per month. Manus, which is still in beta, is an AI-powered agentic tool that can be used to complete tasks ranging from creating a web page for a wedding invitation to crafting a...

4d ago | Share | Like

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Substack is rolling out a TikTok-like video feed in its app

Substack continues to double down on video amid TikTok’s uncertain future in the U.S. The company announced on Monday that it’s rolling out a scrollable video feed in its app, making it the latest platform to introduce a TikTok-like feed. Given the timing of the launch, Substack is likely aiming to...

4d ago | Share | Like

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“This isn’t ‘The Matrix’”

Last weekend, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, found himself at the center of a digital fiasco when he was unexpectedly added to a Signal group chat with 17 U.S. government officials who were discussing imminent airstrikes in Yemen. For some, the incident has raised questions...

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Streaming service Plex rolls out a revamped mobile app

Media software maker and streaming app Plex on Monday released an updated version of its mobile app. The redesign features a new user experience, reorganized navigation that includes giving its Watchlist a dedicated spot, and other changes that aim to make it easier to access power-user features...

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China Miéville says we shouldn’t blame science fiction for its bad readers

It’s been 25 years since China Miéville stepped into the literary spotlight with his novel “Perdido Street Station.” Combining elements of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, the novel introduced readers to the fantastically complex city of New Crobuzon, filled with insect-headed khepri,...

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Beyond Bluesky: These are the apps building social experiences on the AT Protocol

A year ago, Bluesky was opening up to the public and was known as one of the many X competitors that emerged after Elon Musk acquired the network formerly known as Twitter. Today, Bluesky’s social network has grown to over 33 million users, while the technology it’s built upon — the AT Protocol (or...

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Amazon shakes up streaming leadership team

Amazon announced this week that Jennifer Salke is stepping down as the head of Amazon MGM Studios — a move that could indicate high-level dissatisfaction with the company’s streaming strategy over the past few years. To be clear, Salke’s boss Mike Hopkins (the head of Amazon MGM Studios and Prime...

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Sam Altman firing drama detailed in new book excerpt

An excerpt from the upcoming book “The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future” offers new details about why OpenAI’s board briefly fired CEO Sam Altman back in 2023. Written by Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey, the book claims the nonprofit’s board members became...

5d ago | Share | Like

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Google Search, Play Store falling foul of Digital Markets Act rules, says EU

Google Search and its Play Store app marketplace are suspected of breaching the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), per preliminary findings announced Wednesday by EU Commission enforcers of the bloc’s flagship market contestability law, who have been investigating the company for...

5d ago | Share | Like

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‘Tesla Takedown’ protesters are planning a global day of action on March 29, and things might get ugly

“Tesla Takedown” organizers have promised their biggest day of global action today, encouraging thousands to protest outside Tesla showrooms, dealerships, and even charging stations to peacefully object to Elon Musk’s role in slashing government spending. As Tesla protests have spread, so has the...

5d ago | Share | Like

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Just 2 days to secure your founder or investor pass with $ 300+ off for TechCrunch All Stage

time is running out! Less than 48 hours left to lock in your $ 300+ discount for TechCrunch All Stage founder and investor passes. More than just you? Save even more with bundle tickets. Rates increase on March 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT. TC All Stage is where founders accelerate their growth and investors...

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Fintech VC powerhouse Frank Rotman stepping down from QED Investors to found his own startups

Prolific fintech investor and QED Investors co-founder Frank Rotman said Friday that he will transition to a partner emeritus role by year’s end to focus on founding his own startups. But those startups won’t necessarily be financial technology companies. In a post on X, Rotman — who helped start...

6d ago | Share | Like

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Breast pump startup Willow acquires assets of Elvie as UK women’s health pioneer moves into administration

Women’s health and its startups building connected breast pumps, period trackers, and other apps and hardware designed for women have collectively pulled in more than $ 5 billion in funding in the last five years, but the market is tight, and now, two of the trailblazers in the space are coming...

6d ago | Share | Like

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Startups Weekly: Mercury more than doubled its valuation, and other news

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week reminded us that creative accounting doesn’t only happen in Hollywood. Some hopes were dashed, but startups are delivering on all sorts...

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CoreWeave co-founder explains how a closet of crypto-mining GPUs led to a $ 1.5B IPO

CoreWeave began trading on Friday with more of a shrug than a war cry. The company priced at $ 40 on Thursday, below the $ 47- $ 50 price range announced. It also trimmed the number of shares offered. All told, CoreWeave raised $ 1.5 billion and nabbed a $ 14 billion market cap on Day 1, instead of a...

6d ago | Share | Like

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Only 3 days left to save $ 300+ on investor and founder tickets for TechCrunch All Stage

The final countdown is here! This is your last weekend to lock in Early Bird pricing for TechCrunch All Stage founder and investor tickets. Save up to $ 320 before the clock strikes 11:59 p.m. PT on March 31. Founders, charge ahead. Investors, power the mission! On July 15 at SoWa Power Station in...

6d ago | Share | Like

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Nintendo used its new app to announce the ‘Legend of Zelda’ movie release date

Nintendo announced on Friday that its live-action “The Legend of Zelda” movie will premiere on March 26, 2027. It’s a little weird to announce this the day after a Nintendo Direct livestream, where the gaming company usually unloads all of its recent news. But that was intentional. The company wants...

6d ago | Share | Like

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Here are Africa’s biggest startups based on valuation

Last year, funding into African startups edged past $ 2 billion, returning to pre-pandemic levels and presenting a mixed bag as expected. Signs suggest 2025 will follow the cautious trends of the past two years. A sharp decline in mega-deals, mirroring global venture capital tightening since the boom...

6d ago | Share | Like

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Google rolls out user choice billing on Google Play in the UK

Google said today that it will start offering user choice billing in the U.K., giving Google Play developers the ability to use other billing options instead of Google’s own system. The change kicks in on March 29, initially only to non-game developers. If developers opt for it, they cannot replace...

6d ago | Share | Like

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‘Tesla Takedown’ protesters are planning a global day of action on March 29, and things might get ugly

“Tesla Takedown” organizers have promised their biggest day of global action today, encouraging thousands to protest outside Tesla showrooms, dealerships, and even charging stations to peacefully object to Elon Musk’s role in slashing government spending. As Tesla protests have spread, so has the...

6d ago | Share | Like

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Breast pump startup Willow acquires assets of Elvie as UK women’s health pioneer moves into administration

Women’s health and its startups building connected breast pumps, period trackers, and other apps and hardware designed for women have collectively pulled in more than $ 5 billion in funding in the last five years, but the market is tight, and now, two of the trailblazers in the space are coming...

6d ago | Share | Like

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A look at Intel Capital before the 34-year-old firm strikes out on its own

When Intel Capital announced its plans to spin out from semiconductor giant Intel in January, it came as a bit of a shock considering the firm has been operating as Intel’s venture investment arm since 1991. In many ways this decision marks the end of an era for what’s considered by some to be the...

6d ago | Share | Like

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Javice found guilty of defrauding JPMorgan in $ 175M startup purchase

Charlie Javice, the founder of student loan application startup Frank that was purchased by JPMorgan for $ 175 million, was found guilty on Friday of defrauding the bank by greatly inflating the customer count. After a five-week trial, the jury found Javice guilty, agreeing with prosecutors’ claims...

6d ago | Share | Like

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‘It was weird, man’: Zuckerberg took Facebook employees to see ‘The Social Network’ when it came out

Mark Zuckerberg may not be the most likable figure in Silicon Valley, but we can empathize with him on this: It would feel really weird if someone made a movie about your life. On the YouTube podcast Colin and Samir, Zuckerberg spoke about the one and only time he saw “The Social Network.” “It was...

7d ago | Share | Like

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Open source devs are fighting AI crawlers with cleverness and vengeance

AI web-crawling bots are the cockroaches of the internet, many software developers believe. Some devs have started fighting back in ingenuous, often humorous ways. While any website might be targeted by bad crawler behavior — some time s taking down the site — open source developers are...

7d ago | Share | Like

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Google rolls out new vacation-planning features to Search, Maps, and Gemini

Google is rolling out a slew of new features — some powered by AI — across Search, Maps, and Gemini that are designed to help people plan their summer vacations. The new features arrive as users have been turning to tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT for help with planning trips. Google Search’s AI...

7d ago | Share | Like

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ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big...

7d ago | Share | Like

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4 days left to lock in $ 300+ savings for investor and founder tickets for TechCrunch All Stage

time ’s running out — 4 days left to save over $ 300 on Founder and Investor Passes for TechCrunch All Stage! Founders, accelerate your journey. Investors, fuel their success. Join us on July 15 at SoWa Power Station in Boston, Massachusetts, for TC All Stage, where 1,200 founders and VCs come together...

7d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI is aiming for AGI but landing on Studio Ghibli

OpenAI is reportedly nearing completion of a massive $ 40 billion funding round, with SoftBank leading the way. But this week, it wasn’t just the company funding news making headlines — its new image generator went live in ChatGPT, with capabilities including the ability to turn ordinary images into...

7d ago | Share | Like

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Lucid to ramp customer deliveries for Gravity SUV by end of April

Lucid Motors plans to resume customer deliveries for its new all-electric Gravity SUV at the end of April. Getting the Gravity into customer hands is a big milestone for Lucid, whose success will hinge on being able to offer vehicle types popular with American drivers. The Gravity is Lucid’s second...

7d ago | Share | Like

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Why HoneyBook’s $ 140M in ARR may finally justify its $ 2.4B ZIRP-era valuation

HoneyBook, a startup last valued in late 2021 at $ 2.4 billion, told TechCrunch that it hit $ 140 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR). This makes HoneyBook one of the few startups with peak-VC-era valuations to report their financials after the market cooled. Many startups that raised in 2021...

7d ago | Share | Like

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WhatsApp users can now add songs to their Status updates

WhatsApp launched a new feature on Friday, where users can include brief music clips in their Status updates, reminiscent of the Myspace era. Status resembles Instagram Stories and allows users to share photos, videos, and text that disappear after 24 hours. When creating a new Status, users can tap...

7d ago | Share | Like

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Again and again, NSO Group’s customers keep getting their spyware operations caught

On Thursday, Amnesty International published a new report detailing attempted hacks against two Serbian journalists, allegedly carried out with NSO Group’s spyware Pegasus. The two journalists, who work for the Serbia-based Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), received suspicious text...

7d ago | Share | Like

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Mozilla patches Firefox bug ‘exploited in the wild,’ similar to bug attacking Chrome

Mozilla has fixed a security bug in its Firefox for Windows browser that was “being exploited in the wild.” In a brief update, Mozilla said it updated the browser to Firefox version 136.0.4 after identifying and fixing the new bug, tracked as CVE-2025-2857, which presents a “similar pattern” to a...

7d ago | Share | Like

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YC-backed Taxo raises $ 5M to slash healthcare admin with its AI ‘reasoning engine’

When British doctor Ahmed Kerwan began working as a physician, the paperwork burden shocked him. On some days, he would spend only three hours actually caring for patients, with the rest of his workday spent on things like dealing with insurance claims. There are already dozens, perhaps hundreds, of...

7d ago | Share | Like

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Krafton acquires controlling stake in Indian gaming studio Nautilus Mobile for $ 14M

Krafton, South Korea’s gaming giant known for titles including PUBG: Battlegrounds and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), has acquired a controlling stake in 12-year-old Indian gaming studio Nautilus Mobile for $ 14 million in an all-cash deal. On Friday, the South Korean gaming company confirmed to...

7d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI peels back ChatGPT’s safeguards around image creation

This week, OpenAI launched a new image generator in ChatGPT, which quickly went viral for its ability to create Studio Ghibli-style images. Beyond the pastel illustrations, GPT-4o’s native image generator significantly upgrades ChatGPT’s capabilities, improving picture editing, text rendering, and...

7d ago | Share | Like

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Facebook debuts a revamped Friends tab as part of its return to ‘OG’ Facebook

After teasing a return to “OG Facebook” earlier this year, the social network on Thursday announced an update that will give users a simple way to connect with friends. The company is introducing a new Facebook Friends tab that will only showcase updates from friends, without any other recommended...

8d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI adopts rival Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to data

OpenAI is embracing rival Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data resides. In a post on X on Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that OpenAI will add support for Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol, or MCP, across its products, including the desktop app for...

8d ago | Share | Like

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4 days left to lock in $ 300+ savings for investor and founder tickets for TechCrunch All Stage

time ’s running out — 4 days left to save over $ 300 on Founder and Investor Passes for TechCrunch All Stage! Founders, accelerate your journey. Investors, fuel their success. Join us on July 15 at SoWa Power Station in Boston, Massachusetts, for TC All Stage, where 1,200 founders and VCs come together...

8d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI’s viral Studio Ghibli moment highlights AI copyright concerns

It’s only been a day since ChatGPT’s new AI image generator went live, and social media feeds are already flooded with AI-generated memes in the style of Studio Ghibli, the cult-favorite Japanese animation studio behind blockbuster films such as “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Spirited Away.” In the last...

8d ago | Share | Like

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eBay backs WunderGraph to build an open source GraphQL federation

A fledgling open source startup that’s setting out to tackle API sprawl in the GraphQL ecosystem has secured the backing of e-commerce giant eBay. WunderGraph, as the company is called, today said it has raised $ 7.5 million in a Series A round of funding to “scale its open source GraphQL federation.”...

8d ago | Share | Like

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time s Internet spin-out Abound raises $ 14M to let more Indian Americans send money home

Abound, a remittance app that was spun off by time s Internet in 2023, has raised $ 14 million in its first external funding round as it aims to reach more Indian expats in the U.S. Remittance flows to India are rising as the Indian diaspora spreads worldwide. In 2024, the South Asian country recorded...

8d ago | Share | Like

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YC alum Mendel, a ‘Ramp for LatAm enterprises,’ raises $ 35M Series B

Mexico City-based Mendel has raised $ 35 million in a Series B round of funding, it tells TechCrunch exclusively. Corporate spend management platform Mendel last raised in December 2021 — a $ 15 million Series A round and $ 20 million in debt — after participating in Y Combinator’s Winter 2021 cohort....

8d ago | Share | Like

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NHS vendor Advanced to pay £3M fine following 2022 ransomware attack

NHS vendor Advanced will pay just over £3 million ( $ 3.8 million) in fines for not implementing basic security measures before it suffered a ransomware attack in 2022, the U.K.’s data protection regulator has confirmed. It’s half the fine that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) had initially...

8d ago | Share | Like

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Twin’s first AI agent is an invoice-retrieval agent for Qonto customers

When Twin came out of stealth in January 2024, AI agents were more of a theoretical concept than a reality. Today, the Paris-based company is releasing an automation agent in partnership with Qonto, the fintech startup that offers business bank accounts to more than 500,000 customers across...

8d ago | Share | Like

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Researchers name six countries as likely customers of Paragon’s spyware

The governments of Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Israel, and Singapore are likely customers of Israeli spyware maker Paragon Solutions, according to a new technical report by a renowned digital security lab. On Wednesday, The Citizen Lab, a group of academics and security researchers housed at...

8d ago | Share | Like

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Nvidia is reportedly in talks to acquire Lepton AI

Nvidia is looking to get into the server rental market. The semiconductor giant is reportedly nearing a deal to acquire Lepton AI, a company that rents out servers that are powered by Nvidia’s AI chips, according to The Information. Citing unnamed sources, the outlet says the deal deal is worth...

8d ago | Share | Like

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Island lands $ 250M in funding at a $ 4.8B valuation

Enterprise browser startup Island just raised a sizable funding round — one that bumps up its valuation significantly, and less than one year after its last fundraise. Dallas-based Island raised $ 250 million in a Series E round led by Coatue that valued the company at $ 4.85 billion, the startup...

8d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI will reportedly close its SoftBank-led $ 40B round soon

While you’re busy Ghibli-fying your images with ChatGPT’s new image-generation capabilities, OpenAI is out raising a ton more cash. The company is close to finalizing a new $ 40 billion funding round led by SoftBank, according to a report from Bloomberg. The report noted that other funds, including...

8d ago | Share | Like

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Waze removes Google Assistant from iOS due to ongoing issues

Since the integration of Google Assistant for Waze on iOS in 2020, iPhone users have faced ongoing issues that the company has struggled to resolve for “over a year,” Waze wrote in a post, apologizing for the “prolonged inconvenience.” On Wednesday, the navigation app officially discontinued the...

8d ago | Share | Like

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With the Switch 2 coming, Nintendo is working on Virtual Game Cards for cross-device portability

Nintendo announced on Thursday that it is working on Virtual Game Cards, a feature that makes digitally downloaded games more portable across different devices. With the highly awaited Nintendo Switch 2 on the horizon, these Virtual Game Cards will make it easier for users to port over their...

8d ago | Share | Like

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New Utah law makes app stores responsible for age verification

Meta, X, and Snap are celebrating a new Utah law that will require Apple and Google to take responsibility for verifying users’ ages on their app stores and obtain parental consent for minors. The tech giants have been battling to determine which party should be responsible for age verification on...

8d ago | Share | Like

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Instagram now lets you speed up reels just like on TikTok

Meta- owned Instagram is copying yet another feature from TikTok. This time , it’s the ability for users to play a reel at 2x speed by long pressing on the right or left side of their screen. When TikTok first launched, videos could only be 15 seconds long. As the years passed and TikTok rose in...

8d ago | Share | Like

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TikTok to launch TikTok Shop in France, Germany, and Italy

TikTok is set to expand its TikTok Shop e-commerce platform to users in France, Germany, and Italy on Monday, Reuters reports. TikTok Shop has been available in the United Kingdom since 2021, and now the company is ready to expand farther into Europe. While TikTok Shop is also available in the...

8d ago | Share | Like

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Certification platform Certiverse nabs $ 11M Series A led by Cherryrock

Certification platform Certiverse raised an $ 11 million Series A led by Cherryrock Capital, it announced this week. The company was founded by Ruben Garcia, Pablo Meyer, and Federico Lopez in 2023. It lets organizations develop certification exams at, its founders say, far less cost than traditional...

8d ago | Share | Like

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Microsoft adds AI-powered deep research tools to Copilot

Microsoft is introducing a “deep research” AI-powered tool in Microsoft 365 Copilot, its AI chatbot app. There’s been a raft of deep research agents launched recently across chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and xAI’s Grok. Powering them are reasoning AI models, which posses the...

9d ago | Share | Like

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ChatGPT’s new AI image feature is delayed for free users

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced on Wednesday that the rollout of ChatGPT’s viral new AI image features to free users would be delayed, citing significantly higher demand than the company expected. “Images in ChatGPT are wayyyy more popular than we expected (and we had pretty high expectations),”...

9d ago | Share | Like

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How to tell if your online accounts have been hacked

This is a guide on how to check whether someone compromised your online accounts More and more hackers are targeting regular people with the goal of breaking into their bank accounts, stealing their crypto, or simply stalking them. These types of attacks are still relatively rare, so there’s no need...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Fintech Mercury lands $ 300M in Sequoia-led Series C, doubles valuation to $ 3.5B

Digital banking startup Mercury has raised $ 300 million in primary and secondary funding at a $ 3.5 billion post-money valuation, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Wednesday. The valuation is more than double the startup’s valuation when it last raised capital — a $ 120 million Series B round in...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Has GetReal cracked the code on AI deepfakes? $ 18M and an impressive client list say yes

The proliferation of scarily realistic deepfakes is one of the more pernicious by-products of the rise of AI, and falling victim to scams based on these deepfakes is already costing companies millions of dollars — not to mention the implications these could have on national security. A startup...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Read the email Jack Dorsey sent when he cut 931 of Block’s staff

Fintech Block laid off 931 people, roughly 8% of the company’s staff, on Tuesday, according to a leaked message from the company seen by TechCrunch. The news was announced to staff in an email from Block’s co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey. Dorsey told staff that on Tuesday, Block will be “making some...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Cloud veterans launch ConfigHub to fix ‘configuration hell’

A trio of cloud industry leaders have launched a new company with the mission of modernizing software configuration data management. Emerging from stealth today with $ 4 million in funding, ConfigHub is the handiwork of CEO Alexis Richardson, founder of cloud-native container management platform...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Read the email Jack Dorsey sent when he cut 931 of Block’s staff

Fintech Block laid off 931 people, roughly 8% of the company’s staff, on Tuesday, according to a leaked message from the company seen by TechCrunch. The news was announced to staff in an email from Block’s co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey. Dorsey told staff that on Tuesday, Block will be “making some...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Leaked data exposes a Chinese AI censorship machine

A complaint about poverty in rural China. A news report about a corrupt Communist Party member. A cry for help about corrupt cops shaking down entrepreneurs. These are just a few of the 133,000 examples fed into a sophisticated large language model that’s designed to automatically flag any piece of...

9d ago | Share | Like

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A new social app is fighting rage-bait

Sez Us, a social app founded by Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, is trying to build a platform without rage-bait. Rage-bait refers to any posts that are intended to stoke controversy. This might be an intentionally controversial political take, or it can be a wholly fabricated scenario designed to...

9d ago | Share | Like

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AI’s coming to the classroom: Brisk raises $ 15M after a quick start in school

It’s virtually impossible today to determine when a student’s writing has been composed using ChatGPT or another generative AI tool, and it can be a nightmare to disprove incorrect accusations. An AI edtech startup called Brisk has built a tool that could at least help teachers identify some of the...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Krisp is using AI to help Indians sound like Americans on calls

Audio startup Krisp on Wednesday said it is launching a new feature that uses AI to change a user’s accent during calls. The company is initially rolling out support for changing Indian English accents to U.S. English. The startup says the accent conversion process preserves the speaker’s voice and...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Nuclear startup Terrestrial Energy goes public via SPAC, netting $ 280M in merger

Terrestrial Energy, a small nuclear startup, merged with an acquisition company on Wednesday. The North Carolina-based company is developing small modular reactors and expects to net $ 280 million from the deal. Before the SPAC merger, Terrestrial Energy had raised $ 94 million, according to...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Bradley Tusk says he makes more money with ‘equity-for-services’ than he did as a traditional VC

Bradley Tusk, co-founder and managing partner at Tusk Venture Partners, told TechCrunch in today’s episode of Equity that VC as we know it is dead. And it has been for the last four years. “Maybe there’s some VC that I’ve never heard of that’s awash with liquidity the last couple of years, but we...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Rivian spins out a new micromobility startup called Also with $ 105M from Eclipse

Before RJ Scaringe founded Rivian in 2009, he had micromobility on his mind. More than a decade later, his musings took root in a small skunkworks program inside Rivian that set out to answer one question: Could the company’s technology be condensed down into something smaller and more affordable...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Google fixes Chrome zero-day security flaw used in hacking campaign targeting journalists

Google said it has fixed a vulnerability in its Chrome browser for Windows that malicious hackers have used to break into victims’ computers. In a brief note on Tuesday, Google said that it fixed the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-2783, that was discovered by researchers at security firm...

9d ago | Share | Like

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The Lumon Terminal Pro computer pops up on Apple’s website

The Lumon Terminal Pro — the computer used in Apple TV’s hit series “Severance” — has appeared on Apple’s retail website. When shopping Apple.com, you’ll see the new device, adorned with a red “New” label, when you click to view the available Mac computers Apple has for sale from the top-level...

9d ago | Share | Like

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YouTube is changing how YouTube Shorts views are counted

YouTube is changing how it counts views on YouTube Shorts to give creators a deeper understanding of how their short-form content is performing, the company announced on Wednesday. Shorts views will now count the number of time s a creator’s Short starts to play or replay. In the past, a view had been...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Google unveils a next-gen family of AI reasoning models

On Tuesday, Google unveiled Gemini 2.5, a new family of AI reasoning models that pauses to “think” before answering a question. To kick off the new family of models, Google is launching Gemini 2.5 Pro Experimental, a multimodal, reasoning AI model that the company claims is its most intelligent...

9d ago | Share | Like

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What’s next for ATProto, the protocol powering Bluesky and other apps

It’s getting easier to build new applications on ATProto, the protocol that powers Bluesky’s social network and a growing number of other apps. At ATmosphere, the ATProto community conference held over the weekend in Seattle, Bluesky CTO Paul Frazee offered attendees a glimpse of what’s ahead for...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Countdown: 5 days left to save up to $ 320 on TechCrunch All Stage passes

The clock is ticking — less than a week left until TechCrunch All Stage ticket prices go up! Save over $ 300 on founder and investor passes before March 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Founders, accelerate your path. Investors, empower their rise. On July 15, join 1,200 founders and VCs at SoWa Power Station in...

9d ago | Share | Like

14.42k

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Bradley Tusk says VC is dead. But the 'fixer' in him is just getting started

According to Bradley Tusk, co-founder and managing partner of Tusk Venture Partners, venture capital has been “effectively dead for the last four years.” A self-proclaimed “Fixer,” Tusk recently made the decision not to raise a fourth fund. Instead, he decided to go back to his roots and launch an...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Amazon’s Alexa Fund is now backing AI startups

Amazon started the Alexa Fund in 2015 to back early-stage voice startups. With the advent of large language models and Amazon launching Gen AI-powered Alexa+, along with a family of multimodal AI models, the fund now wants to broaden its scope and invest more in AI startups. In a blog post Amazon...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Amazon launches personalized shopping prompts as part of its generative AI push

Amazon continues to infuse AI into its shopping tools to encourage customers to make more purchases. The company announced on Wednesday a new feature called “Interests,” aimed at creating a more personalized and conversational search experience. With the new feature, customers can enter tailored...

9d ago | Share | Like

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UnitedHealth scrubs mentions of DEI from its website

UnitedHealth Group has scrubbed much of its website mentioning its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, including pulling down blog posts and removing large sections from its website, TechCrunch has learned. According to archived copies of UnitedHealth’s website, several of the company’s...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Apple announces WWDC 2025 takes place June 9-13

Apple has announced that its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will kick off on June 9 and run through June 13. The tech giant’s event is where it offers a look at its upcoming versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS, as well as new tools for its developers. As in past years,...

9d ago | Share | Like

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The TikTok ban is losing support among Americans, study says

Americans’ support for a TikTok ban is declining, according to a study from the Pew Research Center. This survey of more than 5,000 U.S. adults found that just 34% of respondents supported banning the short form video app. When Pew ran a similar study in 2023, 50% of adults supported the TikTok...

9d ago | Share | Like

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Outreach founder Manny Medina has a new startup that helps AI agents get paid

As the year of the AI agent takes shape, a new trend is emerging: startups offering the picks and shovels that help employers build a workforce of bots. Manny Medina, best known as the founder and former CEO of the $ 4.4 billion valued sales automation company Outreach, just launched one such startup...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Less than a week to save $ 300+ on TechCrunch All Stage passes

The premiere founder conference brought to you by TechCrunch is heading back to Boston on July 15. TC All Stage 2025 (formerly known as Early Stage) is our tentpole East Coast event that promises an agenda full of founder knowledge — for all stages — that will be passed along to you. What’s more, if...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Plural’s platform allows enterprises to manage their Kubernetes clusters in one place

When Sam Weaver was vice president of product management at Unqork, he realized that the company needed a better way to manage its sprawling network of Kubernetes clusters — which are groups of computing nodes. When Unqork couldn’t find anything off the shelf, it assembled a 15-person team to build...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Discord made its streaming overlay a lot more user-friendly

Discord announced on Tuesday that it rebuilt its Overlay feature from the ground up. The new Overlay makes streaming games on Discord more user-friendly on the streamer’s end. In its legacy form, streamers could toggle the Overlay display to use Discord while playing games, but this would bring up...

10d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI says its AI voice assistant is now better to chat with

OpenAI released updates Monday for Advanced Voice Mode, its AI voice feature that enables real- time conversations in ChatGPT, to make the AI assistant more personable and interrupt users less frequently. Manuka Stratta, an OpenAI post-training researcher, announced the changes in a video posted...

10d ago | Share | Like

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A world without Caesars: How the ATProto community is rebuilding the web to return power to the people

Don’t call it a Bluesky conference. Over the weekend, the first in-person gathering devoted to those building with the AT Protocol, or ATProto — the technology that powers Bluesky’s growing social network of 33 million-plus users — was held in Seattle. At the event, developers, engineers, founders,...

10d ago | Share | Like

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A new, challenging AGI test stumps most AI models

The Arc Prize Foundation, a nonprofit co-founded by prominent AI researcher François Chollet, announced in a blog post on Monday that it has created a new, challenging test to measure the general intelligence of leading AI models. So far, the new test, called ARC-AGI-2, has stumped most...

10d ago | Share | Like

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ChatGPT’s image-generation feature gets an upgrade

During a livestream on Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the first major upgrade to ChatGPT’s image-generation capabilities in over a year. ChatGPT can now leverage the company’s GPT-4o model to natively create and modify images and photos. GPT-4o has long underpinned the AI-powered chatbot...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Vertical farming company Plenty files for bankruptcy after raising nearly $ 1B

Vertical farming company Plenty has filed for bankruptcy, the company said in a press release on Monday. In its statement, Plenty said it has received a commitment for $ 20.7 million in debtor-in-possession financing as part of a proposed restructuring plan. It plans to continue to operate a...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Instagram partners with schools to prioritize reports of online bullying and student safety

Instagram on Tuesday announced a new school partnership program aimed at expediting the handling of moderation reports submitted by verified school accounts. The program is currently available to all middle and high schools in the U.S. It allows schools to report posts or student accounts that may...

10d ago | Share | Like

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DNA testing company 23andMe files for bankruptcy protection, CEO resigns

Genetics testing company 23andMe has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. to initiate the sale of its assets. Alongside the announcement, the company’s co-founder and CEO, Anne Wojcicki, separately said she is leaving to become an independent bidder for 23andMe. “After a thorough...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Daphni secures $ 215M for its third fund

French VC firm Daphni is announcing the first closing of its new fund, Daphni Blue. The firm has raised €200 million (around $ 215 million at current exchange rates). It expects to raise as much as €250 million ( $ 270 million) by the end of the year. Some of Daphni’s most remarkable past investments...

10d ago | Share | Like

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A Chinese tech giant says it slashed AI costs using only Chinese chips

Earlier this year, DeepSeek briefly crashed Nvidia’s stock because of speculation that its models require far fewer chips. Now, Chinese fintech giant Ant Group, which is backed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, is claiming a major AI breakthrough. Ant was able to use Chinese chips made by Alibaba and...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Tesla Superchargers: GM, Ford, Rivian, and other EV brands with access

Hyundai is the latest automaker to join the list In May 2023, Ford triggered a transformation when the U.S. automaker locked in a deal to give owners of its EVs access to the Tesla Supercharger network. In a stunning shift, automaker after automaker — from GM and Hyundai to Rivian and Mercedes —...

10d ago | Share | Like

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AI chip startup FuriosaAI reportedly turns down $ 800M acquisition offer from Meta

FuriosaAI, a South Korean startup that makes chips for AI applications, has rejected an $ 800 million acquisition offer from Meta, opting instead to focus on developing and producing its AI chips, according to a local media report. Disagreements over post-acquisition business strategy and...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Apple Music is integrating with music tools to allow DJs to create mixes using its catalog

Apple said today it is opening its catalog to let users build mix sets by integrating the platform with a number of tools. These tools include Algoriddim’s djay Pro software, hardware platforms AlphaTheta, Serato, inMusic’s Engine DJ, Denon DJ, Numark, and RANE DJ. This will possibly attract DJs to...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Earth AI’s algorithms found critical minerals in places everyone else ignored

Last summer, mining startup KoBold made a splash when it said it had discovered in Zambia one of the world’s largest copper deposits in more than a decade. Now, another startup, Earth AI, exclusively told TechCrunch about its own discovery: promising deposits of critical minerals in parts of...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Waymo to launch robotaxi service in Washington, D.C., in 2026

Waymo said Tuesday it will begin offering robotaxi rides via the Waymo One app in Washington, D.C., in 2026. Before it can launch commercially, the company will have to up its lobbying game in the capital, where autonomous vehicle permits still require a human behind the wheel. The news from Waymo...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Emergence Capital closes on $ 1B fund to back B2B companies

Emergence Capital has closed its $ 1 billion seventh fund, it reported on Tuesday It’s the firm’s first raise in nearly four years. In May 2021, the San Mateo, California-based venture firm rounded up nearly a billion dollars in capital commitments across two funds. At that time , it closed its sixth...

10d ago | Share | Like

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23andMe files for bankruptcy: How to delete your data

DNA testing service 23andMe filed for bankruptcy protection on March 16, sparking concerns about what could happen to the genetic data of the company’s 15 million customers. The company has said that “data privacy will be an important consideration in any potential transaction.” However, security...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Quora’s Poe launches its most affordable subscription plan for $ 5/month

Poe, Quora’s chatbot app, launched one of its most affordable subscription options on Tuesday, priced at just $ 5 per month. In addition, the company introduced its highest-priced plan at $ 250 per month, designed for users who need to send a large volume of messages on Poe. Poe allows users to utilize...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Bill Gates-backed Commonwealth Fusion Systems hits key reactor construction milestone

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) marked a major milestone Tuesday morning, announcing the installation of a key component of its SPARC demonstration reactor. The new part is a 24-foot wide, 75-ton stainless steel circle that forms the foundation of the tokamak, the doughnut-shaped heart of a fusion...

10d ago | Share | Like

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a16z- and Benchmark-backed 11x has been claiming customers it doesn’t have

Last year, AI-powered sales automation startup 11x appeared to be on an explosive growth trajectory. However, nearly two dozen sources — including investors and current and former employees — told TechCrunch that the company has experienced financial struggles, largely of its own making. Numerous...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Character AI is adding parental supervision tools to improve teen safety

Following a string of lawsuits and criticism for allegedly failing to protect its underage users from harm, Character AI, the startup that lets users create different AI characters and talk to them over calls and texts, said on Tuesday that it is rolling out a new set of parental supervision tools...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Apple announces WWDC 2025 takes place June 9-13

Apple has announced that its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will kick off on June 9 and run through June 13. The tech giant’s event is where it offers a look at its upcoming versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS, as well as new tools for its developers. As in past years,...

10d ago | Share | Like

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Step into the spotlight: Apply to speak at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

Calling all tech innovators, startup fanatics, marketing gurus, and emerging VCs — this is your moment! You’ve waited long enough, and now the time has come to step into the spotlight at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27–29 in San Francisco. Share your expertise with over 10,000 eager...

11d ago | Share | Like

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Revel opens first EV fast-charging hub in San Francisco

Brooklyn- based electric vehicle charging infrastructure startup Revel on Monday launched its first fast-charging station in San Francisco, kicking off its plans to expand across the Bay Area over the next year. “For years, Revel has operated the largest, fastest, and most reliable fast-charging...

11d ago | Share | Like

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Former Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt’s new robotics startup reportedly raises another $ 150M

The Bot Company, the robotics startup founded by former Cruise co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt, has raised $ 150 million in a round led by Greenoaks, according to Reuters, citing unnamed sources. Vogt founded the startup with Paril Jain, who led the AI tech team at Tesla, and former Cruise software...

11d ago | Share | Like

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Ex-Network International execs raise $ 6.75M for Enza, an African fintech serving banks

Over the past decade, Dubai-based Network International has become one of the dominant payment processors across the Middle East and Africa, thanks in part to a pair of acquisitions. However, many large incumbents can fall prey to slower innovation, opening the door for smaller, faster-moving...

11d ago | Share | Like

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The Cadillac Optiq EV and Cadillac Escalade IQ go big on tech, luxury, and price

Cadillac’s new IQ portfolio of all-electric vehicles — notably the compact Optiq SUV and grandaddy full-size Escalade IQ — has put the company on a techier, more advanced, and luxurious plane. And the shift couldn’t have come soon enough. The slate of traditional internal combustion engine vehicles...

11d ago | Share | Like

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Apple is bringing lossless audio and low-latency audio to AirPods Max

Apple announced on Monday that it’s bringing lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio to AirPods Max headphones when using the included USB-C cable. With this upcoming update, AirPods Max headphones will unlock 24-bit, 48 kHz lossless audio to maintain the quality of original recordings. Lossless...

11d ago | Share | Like

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AI creation platform Arcade expands from jewelry to home goods

Arcade, a generative AI marketplace for designing jewelry, is expanding its offerings to include home goods, starting with rugs. The company on Monday also introduced a new feature called “Match My Room,” which allows users to upload a photo of their room so their design complements the existing...

11d ago | Share | Like

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Y Combinator’s police surveillance darling Flock Safety raises $ 275M at $ 7.5B valuation

Flock Safety and one of its long- time VCs, Bedrock Capital, announced Thursday that the startup raised a fresh $ 275 million at a $ 7.5 billion valuation. Flock makes computer vision-enabled video surveillance technology used by law enforcement as well as businesses, property management companies, and...

11d ago | Share | Like

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Only 7 days left: Founders and VCs save $ 300+ on TechCrunch All Stage passes

TechCrunch All Stage is returning to Boston, Massachusetts, on July 15 for a jam-packed day where founders — no matter what stage they’re in — will gain practical insights to fuel their startup growth. With a lineup of expert-led sessions, founders will leave with actionable strategies they can...

11d ago | Share | Like

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US lifts sanctions on Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer linked to North Korean money laundering

U.S. Treasury officials have lifted sanctions on Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer that the U.S. government previously said was used to launder $ 7 billion worth of crypto stolen by North Korean hackers. In a statement, the Treasury said it “exercised our discretion” to delist Tornado Cash following a...

11d ago | Share | Like

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Cyberattack disrupts train ticket sales in Ukraine

Ukraine’s state-owned railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia said Monday that it was hit by a large-scale cyberattack. The cyberattack affected online ticket sales, including via the mobile app, while trains continue to operate, according to the railway operator’s statement on its official Telegram channel....

11d ago | Share | Like

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23andMe faces an uncertain future — so does your genetic data

DNA and genetic testing firm 23andMe is in turmoil following a 2023 data breach and its ongoing financial decline. The once-pioneering giant now faces an uncertain future as bankruptcy looms over the company, intensifying concerns about what might happen to the genetic data of 23andMe’s some 15...

11d ago | Share | Like

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Apply to compete in TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200 today!

Start your engines applications for TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield 200 competition are open! If you’re a pre-Series A startup founder looking to make your mark on a global stage, this is an opportunity you can’t pass up. We want to see you showcase your game-changing innovations to the world at...

11d ago | Share | Like

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French VC firm Founders Future plans US expansion

Founders Future, a Paris-based VC firm with €300 million in assets under management (around $ 324 million at current exchange rates), is opening up the capital of the holding company that manages Founders Future’s funds and Sowefund. The company has sold a 25% stake in the holding company to MACSF,...

11d ago | Share | Like

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Fair-code pioneer n8n raises $ 60M for AI-powered workflow automation

Developer tooling is changing rapidly with AI. So companies that are making it easier to adopt AI in their workflows are seeing a boom of attention. After a startup called n8n (pronounced “enay-ten”) pivoted its workflow automation platform to become more AI-friendly in 2022, it said it saw its...

11d ago | Share | Like

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Browser Use, the tool making it easier for AI ‘agents’ to navigate websites, raises $ 17M

We may not have an agreed-upon definition of AI “agent” yet, but a multitude of startups want to create “agentic” tools to automate various tasks online. One such firm, Browser Use, has attracted a ton of interest from developers and investors thanks to its solution that makes websites more...

12d ago | Share | Like

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Barack Obama joins Bluesky

Social network Bluesky, an alternative to X built on open source technologies, has scored a big win in terms of attracting notable users to its platform. The company on Sunday confirmed that former president Barack Obama has joined its service. Bluesky COO Rose Wang replied to a post where someone...

12d ago | Share | Like

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Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia takes wraps off his first assignment for DOGE

Almost two weeks after The New York time s reported that Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia had joined Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” Gebbia clarified his role on Thursday, announcing on X that as a starting point, he’ll be leveraging his design expertise as part of an effort to...

12d ago | Share | Like

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Jonah Peretti helped shaped digital media — can he do it again?

Jonah Peretti’s career to date has been defined by constant reinvention. As the founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, Peretti has been at the forefront of digital media for almost two decades, navigating changes as the once small startup transformed into, at one point, a mul time dia powerhouse. But as the...

12d ago | Share | Like

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Buy now, pay later . . . for a burrito?

In 2010, a programmer who was mining bitcoin famously made the comically expensive mistake of spending 10,000 bitcoin on two pizzas. As of this writing, those coins would be worth $ 850 million. While there are few comparisons to that kind of miscalculation, the prospect of adding interest payments...

12d ago | Share | Like

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Week in Review: Google buys Wiz

Welcome back to Week in Review! We’ve got tons of stories to share from this week, like the greatest hits from Nvidia GTC; the NASA astronauts finally came home; Rippling’s lawsuit; and Google bought Wiz. Let’s get to it! Google finally does it: Google made its biggest acquisition in its history...

13d ago | Share | Like

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The 20 hottest open source startups of 2024

A new report showcases the 20 top-trending open source startups around the world, more than half of which are closely aligned with AI. The report is the handiwork of European venture capital firm Runa Capital, which has operated the Runa Open Source Startup (ROSS) Index since 2020. The Index serves...

13d ago | Share | Like

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Charlie Javice trial becomes a master class in hubris for both sides

Charlie Javice’s high-profile fraud trial has become a showcase of embarrassing missteps on both sides, with eyebrow-raising details about how JPMorgan Chase was allegedly deceived into buying her startup, Frank, for $ 175 million when it had just 300,000 customers instead of four million. Per a new...

13d ago | Share | Like

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Inside the Google-Wiz acquisition and the deal's biggest winners

It was on, then off, and welp, now it’s on again — and this time for a lot more money. Yep, the Equity podcast dug into Google’s $ 32 billion acquisition of cloud security startup Wiz. There was a lot to unpack: the why, the how, what it means. And of course, there was the “who wins” part. Sequoia is...

14d ago | Share | Like

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DeepSeek: Everything you need to know about the AI chatbot app

DeepSeek has gone viral. Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week after its chatbot app rose to the top of the Apple App Store charts (and Google Play, as well). DeepSeek’s AI models, which were trained using compute-efficient techniques, have led Wall Street...

14d ago | Share | Like

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Skich launches an alternative app store on iOS in the EU

Skich, a Tinder-like app for discovering mobile games, announced Thursday the launch of a new marketplace to put it in closer competition with alternative game stores like Aptoide and Epic Games. Skich Store, a new alternative mobile games store, will be available for iOS users in the European...

14d ago | Share | Like

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Hugging Face expands its LeRobot platform with training data for self-driving machines

Last year, Hugging Face, the AI dev platform, launched LeRobot, a collection of open AI models, datasets, and tools to help build real-world robotics systems. On Tuesday, Hugging Face teamed up with AI startup Yaak to expand LeRobot with a training set for robots and cars that can navigate...

14d ago | Share | Like

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Anduril might build a weapons factory in the UK

Factories are all the rage in defense tech: Anduril announced a billion-dollar “megafactory” in Ohio earlier this year, while Saronic said last month it’s planning its own factory to mass-produce autonomous warships. Now, Anduril is considering building a factory in the U.K. as it expands beyond...

14d ago | Share | Like

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TechCrunch has, yes, personal news!

If you haven’t heard the news, TechCrunch has a shiny new home. After years under the ownership of Yahoo — which, in turn, is backed by Apollo Group — the brand is now in fresh hands. Its new parent company: Regent, a dynamic private equity firm with a diverse portfolio spanning media, retail, and...

14d ago | Share | Like

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ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big...

14d ago | Share | Like

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Russian zero-day seller is offering up to $ 4 million for Telegram exploits

Operation Zero, a company that acquires and sells zero-days exclusively to the Russian government and local Russian companies, announced on Thursday that it’s looking for exploits for the popular messaging app Telegram, and is willing to offer up to $ 4 million for them. The exploit broker is...

14d ago | Share | Like

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Apple faces lawsuit over Apple Intelligence delays

Apple has been sued in federal court over what plaintiffs allege is false advertising of several Apple Intelligence features. Filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, the suit seeks class-action status and damages on behalf of those who purchased Apple Intelligence-capable iPhones and...

14d ago | Share | Like

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Wayve CEO shares his key ingredients for scaling autonomous driving tech

Wayve co-founder and CEO Alex Kendall sees promise in bringing his autonomous vehicle startup’s tech to market. That is, if Wayve sticks to its strategy of ensuring its automated driving software is cheap to run, hardware agnostic, and can be applied to advanced driver-assistance systems,...

14d ago | Share | Like

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GTC felt more bullish than ever, but Nvidia’s challenges are piling up

Nvidia took San Jose by storm this year, with a record-breaking 25,000 attendees flocking to the San Jose Convention Center and surrounding downtown buildings. Many workshops, talks, and panels were so packed that people had to lean against walls or sit on the floor — and suffer the wrath of...

14d ago | Share | Like

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Microsoft is exploring a way to credit contributors to AI training data

Microsoft is launching a research project to estimate the influence of specific training examples on the text, images, and other types of media that generative AI models create. That’s per a job listing dating back to December that was recently recirculated on LinkedIn. According to the listing,...

14d ago | Share | Like

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TechCrunch Mobility: Inside Waymo’s deal with SFO, Elon’s moment of truth, and BYD’s breakthrough

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Before we jump into the news, just a quick bit of housekeeping. I’m putting “This week’s wheels” on hiatus for a few weeks as I get...

14d ago | Share | Like

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Startups Weekly: Wiz’s bet paid off in an M&A-rich week

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. It’s rare to report on an 11-figure startup acquisition, let alone multiple high-value deals in a single week. And there are more subtle signs that...

14d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI’s o1-pro is the company’s most expensive AI model yet

OpenAI has launched a more powerful version of its o1 “reasoning” AI model, o1-pro, in its developer API. According to OpenAI, o1-pro uses more computing than o1 to provide “consistently better responses.” Currently, it’s only available to select developers — those who’ve spent at least $ 5 on OpenAI...

15d ago | Share | Like

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Tesla recalls Cybertrucks for exterior panels that fall off

Tesla is issuing a recall for around 46,000 Cybertrucks sold to date because of an exterior steel trim panel on the side of the windshield that can peel off. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in a filing that the piece can come off while in motion, which can create a...

15d ago | Share | Like

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GM, Gatik, Torc team up with Nvidia to accelerate self-driving

Nvidia’s GTC conference kicked off with a series of announcements highlighting its role in advancing autonomous driving technology. The chipmaker provides automakers and autonomous vehicle companies with a handful of Nvidia-branded tools to help power self-driving cars and create digital twins of...

15d ago | Share | Like

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AWS generative AI exec leaves to launch startup

Raj Aggarwal is leaving AWS after nearly three years as the company’s GM of generative AI and revenue acceleration, according to a LinkedIn post Aggarwal published Wednesday. “I’m proud of the pioneering work our team did in generative AI from its earliest days,” Aggarwal said in his post. “We built...

15d ago | Share | Like

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Telegram founder Pavel Durov says app now has 1B users, calls WhatsApp a ‘cheap, watered down imitation’

Telegram founder Pavel Durov said today that the service now has more than 1 billion active users. This number is up from last year’s reported 950 million monthly active users. Durov also noted that the company registered $ 547 million in profits last year. He had announced the company’s...

15d ago | Share | Like

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Group co-led by Fei-Fei Li suggests that AI safety laws should anticipate future risks

In a new report, a California-based policy group co-led by Fei-Fei Li, an AI pioneer, suggests that lawmakers should consider AI risks that “have not yet been observed in the world” when crafting AI regulatory policies. The 41-page interim report released on Tuesday comes from the Joint California...

15d ago | Share | Like

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ChatGPT hit with privacy complaint over defamatory hallucinations

OpenAI is facing another privacy complaint in Europe over its viral AI chatbot’s tendency to hallucinate false information — and this one might prove tricky for regulators to ignore. Privacy rights advocacy group Noyb is supporting an individual in Norway who was horrified to find ChatGPT returning...

15d ago | Share | Like

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Substack rival Ghost is now connected to the fediverse

Newsletter platform Ghost, an open source competitor to Substack, is now connected to the fediverse, also known as the open social web. Federated apps run on the protocol ActivityPub, which powers apps like Mastodon, Pixelfed, Threads, Flipboard, and others, allowing posts published on one app to...

15d ago | Share | Like

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Amid calls for sovereign EU tech stack, Evroc raises $ 55M to build a hyperscale cloud in Europe

A Swedish startup aiming to build a hyperscale cloud company in Europe has raised €50.6 million ( $ 55 million) in Series A funding. Evroc, as it’s called, says it’s laying the foundations for a “secure, sovereign and sustainable hyperscale cloud to reimagine the digital future of Europe.” The...

15d ago | Share | Like

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Data breach at stalkerware SpyX affects close to 2 million, including thousands of Apple users

A consumer-grade spyware operation called SpyX was hit by a data breach last year, TechCrunch has learned. The breach reveals that SpyX and two other related mobile apps had records on almost 2 million people at the time of the breach, including thousands of Apple users. The data breach dates back...

15d ago | Share | Like

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Nvidia and Google DeepMind will help power Disney’s cute robots

Nvidia is collaborating with Disney Research and Google DeepMind to develop Newton, a physics engine to simulate robotic movements in real-world settings, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced at GTC 2025 on Tuesday. Disney will be among the first to use Newton to power its next-generation entertainment...

16d ago | Share | Like

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Tera AI comes out of stealth with $ 7.8M to provide visual navigation for robots

Robots are part of an exciting new frontier in tech, but here’s the challenge: Robots rely on arrays of sensors, external signals like GPS and Wi-Fi, and customized software to navigate their environments. Further, robotics often involves expensive, ready-made hardware solutions that include...

16d ago | Share | Like

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A key DeepMind robotics researcher left Google, and Nvidia has already backed his stealth startup

A senior research scientist at DeepMind who worked on robotics and AI has left Google to create his own robotics startup, called Generalist AI, and has already obtained investment from Nvidia, TechCrunch has learned. Pete Florence was listed as co-founder and CEO of Generalist AI on a panel at...

16d ago | Share | Like

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EU sends Apple first DMA interoperability instructions for apps and connected devices

The European Union has sent Apple preliminary instructions on how it expects the iPhone maker to comply with interoperability provisions in the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), its flagship market contestability reform. According to the Commission, device manufacturers and app developers should be...

16d ago | Share | Like

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Pebble creator unveils two new Pebble-inspired smartwatches

It looks like a Pebble, it works like a Pebble, but don’t call it a Pebble. Eric Migicovsky, the original creator of the Pebble smartwatch, just unveiled two new smartwatches — called the Core 2 Duo and the Core time 2. These spiritual successors to the Pebble smartwatches are available for...

16d ago | Share | Like

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FTC removes posts critical of Big Tech from its website

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has removed over 300 blog posts published during the agency’s leadership under former chair Lina Khan, Wired reports. These include posts that are critical of companies like Amazon and Microsoft for their handling of customer data. The FTC did not respond to a...

16d ago | Share | Like

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Google, Speedinvest back Kenya’s Leta, which uses AI to make logistics cheaper

African businesses pay up to four time s the global average to transport goods, driving up prices for essentials like food and medicine. Logistics make up 75% of product costs on the continent, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB). Many of these businesses also rely on manual logistics,...

17d ago | Share | Like

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YC-backed food supply startup Vendease restructures employees’ salaries

Y Combinator-backed Nigerian food procurement startup Vendease has changed its employee pay structure and is seeking fresh capital, TechCrunch has learned. This is after laying off 44% of its workforce — around 120 employees —last month, marking its second round of job cuts in five months. In the...

17d ago | Share | Like

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Telegram founder, Pavel Durov, allowed to leave France — despite ongoing criminal investigation

Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, no longer has to stay in France. A source told AFP that the investigating judge in charge of Durov’s case has accepted a request to modify the conditions of his supervision. “As you may have heard, I’ve returned to Dubai after spending...

17d ago | Share | Like

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Confirmed: Google is buying Wiz for $ 32B to beef up in cloud security

Google is making the biggest acquisition in its history. The company’s parent company Alphabet is buying Wiz, the cloud security startup, for $ 32 billion in an all-cash transaction. The deal has now been confirmed. A source described the transaction as a $ 33 billion deal previously. That includes...

17d ago | Share | Like

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A Google-backed weapon to battle wildfires made it into orbit

The first satellite of the Google-backed FireSat constellation successfully made it to orbit over the weekend, kicking off what promises to be a new era in wildfire detection and monitoring. The constellation will keep a close eye on wildfires. When fully operational, the constellation’s more than...

17d ago | Share | Like

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People are using Google’s new AI model to remove watermarks from images

Users on social media have discovered a controversial use case for Google’s new Gemini AI model: removing watermarks from images, including from images published by Getty Images and other well-known stock media outfits. Last week, Google expanded access to its Gemini 2.0 Flash model’s image...

17d ago | Share | Like

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Nvidia debuts Groot N1, a foundation model for humanoid robotics

Nvidia is releasing what it’s calling an AI foundation model for humanoid robotics. Announced at GTC 2025 in San Jose, the model, dubbed Groot N1, is a “generalist” model, trained on both synthetic and real data. In a video introducing Groot N1, Nvidia says it features a “dual-system architecture”...

17d ago | Share | Like

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Bumble heightens safety measures with new ID verification feature

Bumble is finally catching up with competitor Tinder with a new ID verification feature as dating app users urge for more safety measures. In addition to ID verification, the company also released three more features, including a feature that flags inappropriate messages in chat before users hit...

18d ago | Share | Like

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VC Aileen Lee highlights how the broader investor exodus is worsening woes for unicorn companies

In this week’s episode of the StrictlyVC Download podcast, veteran VC Aileen Lee was direct about a major consequence of the recent boom-and-bust cycle: many companies stuck in limbo aren’t just struggling to regain their footing after raising too much money at unsustainable valuations; they’ve...

19d ago | Share | Like

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Skype is shutting down in May — these are the best alternatives

After 23 years of connecting people around the world, Skype, the popular video-calling service, is shutting down. Microsoft, the parent company, confirmed that the official sunset date for the service is May 5, 2025. Skype users can either migrate all their contacts and chat data to Microsoft Teams,...

20d ago | Share | Like

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Week in Review: SXSW week comes to a close

Welcome back to Week in Review! I’m Karyne Levy, TechCrunch’s deputy managing editor, and I’ll be writing this newsletter from here on out. Thrilled to be here! This week we’re checking out everything at SXSW; Waymo’s expansion into Silicon Valley; Intel’s new CEO; TikTok’s new suitor; and why...

20d ago | Share | Like

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Google wants Gemini to get to know you better

In the AI chatbot wars, Google thinks the key to retaining users is serving up content they can’t get elsewhere, like answers shaped by their internet habits. On Thursday, the company announced Gemini with personalization, a new “experimental capability” for its Gemini chatbot apps that lets Gemini...

22d ago | Share | Like

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Omni raises $ 69M to design tools that help companies better analyze their data

Employees at many companies today are expected to make decisions through careful data analysis, but the tools they need to do it are clunky, slow or — in some cases — don’t exist. That’s according to Colin Zima, the CEO of Omni, a business intelligence (BI) platform that aims to help organizations...

22d ago | Share | Like

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Geothermal could power nearly all new data centers through 2030

There’s a power crunch looming as AI and cloud providers ramp up data center construction. But a new report suggests that a solution lies beneath their foundations. Advanced geothermal power could supply nearly two-thirds of new data center demand by 2030, according to an analysis by the Rhodium...

23d ago | Share | Like

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Apple fixes new security flaw used in ‘extremely sophisticated attack’

Apple released patches for a bug that it says “may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals,” citing a report. The zero-day bug was found in WebKit, the browser engine powering Safari and other apps, and allowed hackers to break out of WebKit’s...

23d ago | Share | Like

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Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow explains his troubled $ 30M personal loan, announces new ‘super app’

Bolt’s controversial co-founder Ryan Breslow, who returned as CEO earlier this month, spoke on Monday about the $ 30 million personal loan he took out of his company that sparked legal battles and contributed to his (temporary) ouster. Breslow also announced that Bolt will launch an “everything app”...

23d ago | Share | Like

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North Korean government hackers snuck spyware on Android app store

A group of hackers with links to the North Korean regime uploaded Android spyware onto the Google Play app store and were able to trick some people into downloading it, according to cybersecurity firm Lookout. In a report published on Wednesday, and exclusively shared with TechCrunch ahead of time ,...

23d ago | Share | Like

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Project Europe, a new early-stage fund, will back people under 25 to build the next tech titan

A recurring theme in Europe’s tech world is that the region needs its own Google or Microsoft. Now comes the launch of a new fund to support this initiative. Project Europe — a new fund for founders “solving hard problems with technical solutions” — says it has initially pulled together $ 10 million...

23d ago | Share | Like

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A comprehensive list of 2025 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still kicking in 2025. Last year saw more than 150,000 job cuts across 549 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. So far this year, more than 22,000 workers have been the victim of reductions across the tech industry, with a staggering 16,084 cuts...

23d ago | Share | Like

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Ditto lands $ 82M to synchronize data from the edge to the cloud

Ditto, a company that’s setting out to bring “resilient” connectivity to edge devices, has raised $ 82 million in a Series B round of funding at a post-money valuation of $ 462 million, more than double its Series A valuation from 2023. “Edge,” in the context of Ditto’s industry, refers to a...

23d ago | Share | Like

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Apple’s next major OS updates will bring the biggest design overhaul in years

Apple’s next set of major updates for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac operating systems could bring the biggest design changes across the company’s platforms in years, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources. The revamp, set to come in with iOS 19, iPadOS 19, and macOS 16, will refresh icons, menus,...

24d ago | Share | Like

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Y Combinator founders raising less money signals a ‘vibe shift,’ VC says

Silicon Valley has been captivated by the prospect of AI, not only as a productivity enhancer but also as a catalyst for creating successful companies with much leaner teams than in the past. Stories abound of AI startups quickly reaching tens of millions in revenue with headcount as low as 20...

24d ago | Share | Like

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Sola emerges from stealth with $ 30M to build the ‘Stripe for security’

Enterprises these days can choose from hundreds of apps and services available to secure their networks, data, and assets — nearly as many more to help them manage all the alerts and extra work that those security apps generate. But what if you could build your own apps, customized to your own...

24d ago | Share | Like

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In defense tech, Lithuania’s sovereign VC fund is one step ahead

Europe is waking up to the need to invest in defense, and so are European VCs. But with a painful history of Soviet occupations, Lithuania didn’t wait for the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to reach its third anniversary to commit 5% to 6% of its GDP to military spending — and...

26d ago | Share | Like

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How to stop doomscrolling

The world is bad some time s, but it feels even worse if you can’t stop staring into the all-consuming abyss that is the 6-inch screen of a smartphone, following you through space and time . It taunts you with its compact, light build that’s small enough to slip into your pocket and take anywhere, and...

26d ago | Share | Like

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9 US AI startups have raised $ 100M or more in 2025

Last year was a monumental year for the AI industry in the U.S. and beyond. There were 49 startups that raised funding rounds worth $ 100 million or more in 2024, per our count at TechCrunch. Three companies raised more than one “mega-round” last year, and seven companies raised rounds at $ 1 billion...

26d ago | Share | Like

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Startups Weekly: Startups raised funding to help others navigate challenges

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. Some time s problems are just that: problems. But often, they are also fodder. This week brought us a mix of startups facing adversity, some time s of...

27d ago | Share | Like

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ChatGPT on macOS can now directly edit code

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot platform, can now directly edit code — if you’re on macOS, that is. The newest version of the ChatGPT app for macOS can take action to edit code in supported developer tools, including Xcode, VS Code, and JetBrains. Users can optionally turn on an “auto-apply”...

28d ago | Share | Like

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Scrunch AI is helping companies stand out in AI search

As more people turn to AI chatbots like ChatGPT to look things up on the internet, the way companies approach their online presence has to change. Scrunch AI wants to help enterprises better prepare for a world in which more AI bots and agents visit their website than humans do. Scrunch AI says its...

30d ago | Share | Like

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Klarna CEO doubts that other companies will replace Salesforce with AI

The founder and CEO of IPO-bound fintech Klarna took to X to once again explain why his company ditched Salesforce’s flagship CRM product about a year ago in favor of its own homegrown AI system. But this time , Sebastian Siemiatkowski emphasized that he doesn’t think others will — or should — follow...

30d ago | Share | Like

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CoreWeave partner EcoDataCenter racks up half a billion dollars to build more sustainable buildings for AI

EcoDataCenter, a Swedish company that builds eco-friendly data centers used by major compute providers to handle their AI traffic, has raised nearly half a billion dollars — $ 478 million (€450 million) to be exact — in anticipation of more demand. The equity funding, which is coming from a group of...

30d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor lays out the bull case for AI agents

We still didn’t get a straight-up definition of exactly what an AI agent is during Bret Taylor’s Mobile World Congress fireside chat in Barcelona on Tuesday. The Sierra founder and OpenAI board chair preferred to sidestep CNN moderator Anna Stewart’s question asking how “agentic AI” is “any...

30d ago | Share | Like

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GibberLink lets AI agents call each other in robo-language

A weekend hackathon project that lets AI agents talk on the phone with each other in a robotic language, one that’s incomprehensible to humans, has gone viral on social media over the past week. The project, called GibberLink, was created by two Meta software engineers during a hackathon competition...

30d ago | Share | Like

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LlamaIndex launches a cloud service for building unstructured data agents

Agents are the next big thing in AI. Some define these “agents” differently from others, but the general idea is, they’re AI-powered tools that can perform tasks autonomously. The agent hype has reached a fever pitch, but one startup was relatively early to the game: LlamaIndex. Founded by former...

30d ago | Share | Like

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Hotel management platform Mews books $ 75M round led by Tiger Global

Despite clouds of uncertainty looming over the economy and geopolitics, people still want to travel. To meet that demand, Mews, an Amsterdam-founded “unicorn” building an SaaS platform for hotel management, has raised a fresh $ 75 million. The funding is coming at a crossroads in the travel...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Cloudsmith raises $ 23M to improve software supply chain security

The software supply chain is notoriously porous: A reported 81% of codebases contain high- or critical-risk open source vulnerabilities. A single vulnerability can have a far-reaching impact on the wider software supply chain, as evidenced by the likes of the Log4Shell exploit that saw millions of...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Dutch startup QuantWare seeks to fast-track quantum computing

Big Tech companies aren’t sleeping on quantum chips: Amazon Web Services introduced Ocelot; Microsoft, Majorana; and Google, Willow. But although all of these can be considered to be breakthroughs, quantum startups often focus on more practical advancements — and they are making progress. Founded in...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Signal is the No. 1 downloaded app in the Netherlands. But why?

Privacy-focused messaging app Signal has been flying high in the Dutch app stores this past month, often sitting at the top as the most downloaded free app on iOS and Android across all categories, per data from multiple app-tracking platforms such as Sensor Tower. The app has experienced surges in...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Key Cambridge, UK VC launches $ 126M fund to stem later stage flight

It’s often said that the UK and Europe lack the huge level of growth funding for later-stage startups that the US has for its own, and this is correct. According to the European Investment Fund, there are at least seven time s more large-size VC funds in the US than in Europe. So the appearance of a...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Electric aircraft founder Kyle Clark threw out the Silicon Valley playbook

On a cool morning last November, 800 people gathered before sunrise in a South Burlington hangar to witness the maiden flight of Beta Technologies’ first electric aircraft to be built on its new scaled production line. Kyle Clark, Beta’s enigmatic founder and CEO, piloted the Alia CX300 — one of the...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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This mental health chatbot aims to fill the counseling gap at understaffed schools

As school districts struggle to support the mental health of their students, a startup called Sonar Mental Health has built a “wellbeing companion” called Sonny to help. As described in the Wall Street Journal, Sonny is a chatbot that relies on a combination of human staff and AI. When students text...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Yope is sparking GenZ (and VC) interest with an Instagram-like app for private groups

Photo and video apps targeting young adults with social hooks are a dime a dozen these days, so those that show traction with 18-twentysomethings tend to catch the attention of investors looking for the next Instagram or TikTok. In the latest example, photo-sharing app Yope, which lets you share...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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The fallout from HP’s Humane acquisition

Welcome back to Week in Review. This week we’re looking at the internal chaos surrounding HP’s $ 116 million acquisition of AI Pin maker Humane; Mira Murati’s new AI venture coming out of stealth; Duolingo killing its iconic owl mascot with a Cybertruck; and more! Let’s get into it. Humane’s AI pin...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Fintech founder Charlie Javice’s criminal trial has begun

The criminal trial against fintech startup founder Charlie Javice began on Friday, with lawyers laying out their opening arguments, Reuters reported. Lawyers reiterated their original claims and defenses from the lawsuit filed by JPMorgan Chase against Javice in December of 2022. The financial...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Sakana walks back claims that its AI can dramatically speed up model training

This week, Sakana AI, an Nvidia-backed startup that’s raised hundreds of millions of dollars from VC firms, made a remarkable claim. The company said it had created an AI system, the AI CUDA Engineer, that could effectively speed up the training of certain AI models by a factor of up to 100x. The...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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How automotive exec Crystal Brown founded CircNova, an AI drug discovery biotech

Tiny Michigan biotech startup CircNova has raised a $ 3.3 million seed round for its technology that uses AI to target “circular RNA.” The development holds promise as a new method to quickly develop therapies for conditions that currently have no drug treatments. The new funding is also a victory...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Apple takes on recipe apps with Apple News+ Food

Recipe app developers just got new competition. On Friday, Apple introduced a soon-to-launch feature for Apple News+ subscribers called Apple News+ Food, a new section that will allow users to search, discover, save, and easily cook recipes from dozens of existing News+ publishing partners. It’s set...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Arize AI hopes it has first-mover advantage in AI observability

There are numerous observability platforms that monitor and evaluate cloud software, like Dynatrace and ServiceNow, which flag potential code errors or failures so engineers can find and fix them. Arize AI says it is bringing that same approach to AI models and applications. Arize is an AI...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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CEO of Clearview AI, a controversial facial recognition startup, has resigned

The CEO of Clearview AI, the controversial facial recognition startup that created a searchable database of 30 billion photos by scraping the internet, has resigned, according to a statement he supplied to TechCrunch. The CEO, Hoan Ton-That, said “it is time for the next chapter in my life” and that...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Pre-seed firm Afore Capital has a fresh $ 185M fund and a new program to help founders discover ideas

Afore Capital, a firm that claims to be the largest dedicated pre-seed investor, was founded on the idea that the first check into a new startup should be larger than what most accelerators and early-stage investors were offering. When Afore raised its third $ 150 million fund in 2022, the firm...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Cruise to slash workforce by nearly 50% after GM cuts funding to robotaxi operations

Autonomous vehicle company Cruise is laying off “nearly” 50% of its workforce — cuts that extend to the CEO and several other top executives — as it prepares to shut down operations. What remains of Cruise will move under parent company General Motors as the automaker directs its resources toward...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Former Whoop exec’s new app Alma uses AI for all things nutrition

Generative AI models have demonstrated to app developers that combining a robust knowledge base with the right model can enable them to offer users services — once reliant on costly professionals like therapists or executive assistants — at a fraction of the price. Former VP of product at fitness...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Sotira lands $ 2M to help brands offload and monetize their surplus inventory

An estimated 20% to 30% of all inventory in the U.S. is surplus, with much of it ending up in landfills. A startup called Sotira wants to help address this problem: It leverages AI to help companies offload and monetize their surplus inventory. Sotira partners with brands to offload millions of...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Hero’s all-in-one, AI productivity app takes on Google’s Calendar and others

People often use multiple apps for notes, schedule management, and to-dos. But why not combine them all in one app? That’s the ethos behind Hero, an all-in-one productivity app with an AI assistant (of course!). The iOS app was developed by former Meta employees Brad Kowalk and Seung W. Lee. Both...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Apple tops 1 billion subscriptions, nearly $ 100B in services revenue in 2024

Apple’s iPhone sales may be down, but the company’s Services division, which includes the App Store, iCloud, Music, TV+, and other subscriptions, is still soaring. The Cupertino-based tech giant reported Thursday its Services business had an all- time revenue high of $ 26.3 billion for the quarter...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Intel won’t bring its Falcon Shores AI chip to market

Intel is effectively killing Falcon Shores, its next-generation GPU for high-performance computing and AI workloads. The move comes as Intel tries to correct course after a number of disappointing product launches and historic losses, while competitors like AMD and Nvidia gain ground. Intel co-CEO...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Ai2 says its new AI model beats one of DeepSeek’s best

Move over, DeepSeek. There’s a new AI champion in town — and they’re American. On Thursday, Ai2, a nonprofit AI research institute based in Seattle, released a model that it claims outperforms DeepSeek V3, one of Chinese AI company DeepSeek’s leading systems. Ai2’s model, called Tulu3-405B, also...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Microsoft brings a DeepSeek model to its cloud

Microsoft’s close partner and collaborator, OpenAI, might be suggesting that DeepSeek stole its IP and violated its terms of service. But Microsoft still wants DeepSeek’s shiny new models on its cloud platform. Microsoft today announced that R1, DeepSeek’s so-called reasoning model, is available on...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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How DeepSeek changed Silicon Valley’s AI landscape

Chinese AI lab DeepSeek provoked the first Silicon Valley freak-out of 2025 after releasing open versions of AI models that compete with the best technology OpenAI, Meta, and Google have to offer. DeepSeek claims to have built its models highly efficiently and quickly (though some are skeptical of...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Perplexity submits a new bid for TikTok

Perplexity AI has submitted a revised proposal to merge with TikTok, in an arrangement that would give the U.S. government up to 50 percent ownership of the new entity. The Associated Press first reported on the new proposal. A source with knowledge of the bid confirmed to TechCrunch that the AP’s...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI wants to take over your browser

Welcome back to Week in Review. This week we’re diving into OpenAI’s newly released AI agent, called Operator. We also look at where TikTok stands after being resuscitated, whether it’s time to go back to Tumblr, and more! Let’s get into it. OpenAI launched a research preview of Operator, a...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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In motion to dismiss, chatbot platform Character AI claims it is protected by the First Amendment

Character AI, a platform that lets users engage in roleplay with AI chatbots, has filed a motion to dismiss a case brought against it by the parent of a teen who committed suicide after allegedly becoming hooked on the company’s technology. In October, Megan Garcia filed a lawsuit against Character...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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French e-bike startup Angell nears bankruptcy

Angell, a French smart electric bike startup, has announced in an email to customers that the company is declaring insolvency and approaching a court to ask for judicial liquidation. “It’s over for Angell,” said company co-founder and CEO Marc Simoncini on Instagram. (He also happens to be a judge...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Retro Biosciences, backed by Sam Altman, is raising $ 1 billion to extend human lifespan

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is doubling down on Retro Biosciences, a biotech startup based in San Francisco that wants humans to live 10 years longer than what it calls a healthy human lifespan. Altman previously provided Retro Biosciences’ entire seed round of $ 180 million. Now, the startup is raising a...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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UnitedHealth confirms 190 million Americans affected by Change Healthcare data breach

UnitedHealth has confirmed the ransomware attack on its Change Healthcare unit last February affected around 190 million people in America — nearly double previous estimates. The U.S. health insurance giant confirmed the latest number to TechCrunch on Friday after the markets closed. “Change...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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JetBrains launches Junie, a new AI coding agent for its IDEs

JetBrains, the company behind coding tools like the IntelliJ IDE for Java and Kotlin (and, indeed, the Kotlin language itself), on Thursday launched Junie, a new AI coding agent. This agent, the company says, will be able to handle routine development tasks for when you want to create new...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Neko Health’s unicorn-sized Series B is larger than some Series C rounds

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week was supposed to be a short one in the U.S., as it started with a holiday. But Inauguration Day kept some founders busy, and the following...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Allara lands $ 26M to expand women’s hormone telehealth

Growing up with an OB-GYN father, Rachel Blank assumed that most women received excellent gynecological care. She regularly witnessed her dad’s patients thanking him for delivering their child when they would bump into him around town. But Blank realized that not all women’s health issues are...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Kodiak has made its first driverless truck deliveries to customer Atlas Energy

Kodiak Robotics has officially handed off two autonomous trucks to customer Atlas Energy Solutions, marking the startup’s first commercial launch. Atlas, a provider of proppant (i.e., sand) and oilfield logistics, received its first Kodiak-equipped trucks in December and began driverless operations...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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ElevenLabs has raised a new round at $ 3B+ valuation led by ICONIQ Growth, sources say

Companies that want to build AI voice into their products are rushing to work with ElevenLabs, the startup that develops synthetic voice technology like voice cloning and dubbing tools. Now ElevenLabs is turning up the volume on its business with a huge Series C raise, just a year after a sizable...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Meta’s Yann LeCun predicts a ‘new AI architectures paradigm’ within 5 years and ‘decade of robotics’

Meta’s chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, says that a “new paradigm of AI architectures” will emerge in the next three to five years, going far beyond the capabilities of existing AI systems. LeCun also predicted that the coming years could be the “decade of robotics,” where advances in AI and robotics...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Stargate will use solar and batteries to power $ 100B AI venture

The massive $ 100 billion Stargate joint venture will reportedly be powered, at least in part, by solar and batteries. The renewable power installations will be built by SoftBank-backed SB Energy, according to a report from Bloomberg, though they’re unlikely to be the venture’s sole source of energy....

30+d ago | Share | Like

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LG Electronics takes majority stake in Bear Robotics, reportedly valuing startup at $ 600M

LG Electronics is betting on robotics as its next big growth driver. The South Korean electronics company said on Friday that it has agreed to acquire an additional 30% stake in Bear Robotics, a California-based startup it previously backed that is building AI-powered server robots for restaurants....

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Foyer unlocks $ 6.2M to help people save up to buy homes

Landy Liu knows how hard it is to save for a home. While working at mortgage startup Better.com, he spent years dealing with first-home home buyers who felt overwhelmed when it came to shopping for homes. By the time it was his turn in 2022, mortgage rates had nearly doubled, and he found himself in...

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Researchers develop a way to power wearables through human skin

The dream of battery-free devices has taken an unlikely turn, as Carnegie Mellon researchers debuted Power-Over-Skin. The technology allows for electrical currents to travel through human skin in a bid to power things like blood sugar monitors, pacemakers, and even consumer wearables like smart...

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Everstone acquires bootstrapped Indian startup Wingify for $ 200M

Private equity firm Everstone has reached a deal to acquire a majority stake in Wingify, one of India’s earliest bootstrapped software-as-a-service success stories, for about $ 200 million, three sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The deal, finalized this week, marks a significant exit...

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Databricks closes $ 15.3B financing at $ 62B valuation, Meta joins as ‘strategic investor’

Data analytics platform Databricks has confirmed that it has closed a previously announced $ 10 billion in Series J equity financing at a $ 62 billion valuation. The San Francisco-based company also added a further $ 5.25 billion in debt financing, funded by JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Citi, Goldman...

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Scale AI is facing a third worker lawsuit in about a month

Scale AI is facing its third lawsuit over alleged labor practices in just over a month, this time from workers claiming they suffered psychological trauma from reviewing disturbing content without adequate safeguards. Scale, which was valued at $ 13.8 billion last year, relies on workers it...

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Spotify introduces educational audio courses, starting in the UK

Spotify is expanding its streaming service to now include educational courses in addition to music, podcasts, and audiobooks. The company on Tuesday referenced one of its newer features called courses, which allow users to learn about topics in areas like business, tech, lifestyle, music, and...

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Perplexity launches Sonar, an API for AI search

Perplexity on Tuesday launched an API service called Sonar, allowing enterprises and developers to build the startup’s generative AI search tools into their own applications. “While most generative AI features today have answers informed only by training data, this limits their capabilities,”...

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What PowerSchool isn’t saying about its ‘massive’ student data breach

It’s only January, but the recent hack of U.S. edtech giant PowerSchool has the potential to be one of the biggest breaches of the year. PowerSchool, which provides K-12 software to more than 18,000 schools to support some 60 million students in the United States, confirmed the breach in early...

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YouTube launches speed controls and high-quality audio tests for Premium users

YouTube said Wednesday that it is adding new experimental features for Premium users, including high-quality audio, a faster playback speed option on mobile, and the ability to “jump ahead” on the web to skip to the more intriguing part of the video. The company routinely tests new features that...

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Truecaller brings real- time caller ID to iPhone users

Popular caller ID app Truecaller has long left iPhone users at a disadvantage by not offering the caller information in real- time — a feature its Android users have enjoyed for some time . Today, that changes as the company is rolling out an update that brings real- time caller ID support to its iOS...

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Blinkit signals costly battle ahead in Indian quick commerce market

Zomato’s quick-commerce business, Blinkit, is accelerating its expansion in India, but it expects losses to continue piling up as competition intensifies in India’s instant delivery market. Blinkit now aims to have up to 2,000 dark stores (small warehouses in residential areas that exclusively...

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AI benchmarking organization criticized for waiting to disclose funding from OpenAI

An organization developing math benchmarks for AI didn’t disclose that it had received funding from OpenAI until relatively recently, drawing allegations of impropriety from some in the AI community. Epoch AI, a nonprofit primarily funded by Open Philanthropy, a research and grantmaking foundation,...

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What we know about the TikTok ban

Welcome back to Week in Review. This week, we’re looking at the impacts of the looming TikTok ban in the U.S., including the “TikTok refugees” moving to Chinese app RedNote, the surge of English speakers learning Mandarin on Duolingo, and more! Let’s get into it. The Supreme Court upheld the law...

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Apple lists all apps it removed alongside TikTok in the US

In a rare move amid the TikTok shutdown, Apple has published a statement and a support document listing all affected apps that are inaccessible in the U.S. The iPhone maker typically doesn’t publish information when it blocks apps. Notably, other ByteDance apps, including CapCut, Lemon8 — which...

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Apple brings Store app to Indian market

Apple launched its dedicated Apple Store app in India on Friday, deepening its retail presence in the world’s most populous country as the iPhone-maker seeks to capitalize on growing consumer demand. The app, available for download on India’s App Store, lets customers purchase Apple products...

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CES 2025: Self-driving cars were everywhere, plus other transportation tech trends

Even before CES 2025 kicked off a few trends began to emerge — or more accurately, some gaps appeared. All U.S. and some European automakers that have helped turn CES into an auto show were absent. Several Chinese automakers filled that void, notably Zeekr, the EV brand owned by China’s Geely...

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Riding in a Zoox robotaxi at CES 2025: Everything that went right and wrong

A construction zone. A car crash. A double-parked truck. A motorcycle cop with its red, white, and blues deployed. My one-hour trip along the Las Vegas Strip in a custom-built Zoox robotaxi during CES 2025 wasn’t a dull one. A second, shorter ride the following evening proved less eventful. And in...

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Gumloop, founded in a bedroom in Vancouver, lets users automate tasks with drag-and-drop modules

Developers Max Brodeur-Urbas and Rahul Behal think that AI has the potential to automate lots of business-relevant tasks, but that many of the AI-powered automation tools on the market today are unreliable and costly. Part of the problem is that users expect too much of AI, Brodeur-Urbas told...

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Autonomous vehicles are having a moment and other vibes from CES 2025

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Hey hey, it’s a new year! I’ve missed you these past two weeks. But I’m back, and in Las Vegas for CES 2025. As always, announcements...

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Scale AI hit by its second employee wage lawsuit in less than a month

Scale AI relies on an army of workers it categorizes as contractors to do essential AI work like labeling images or rating LLM responses for Big Tech and others. But the AI startup, most recently valued at $ 13.8 billion, is facing mounting legal challenges over its labor practices. On January 3,...

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Hippocratic AI raises $ 141M for creating patient-facing AI agents

Hippocratic AI, a startup building AI solutions that can handle non-diagnostic patient-facing tasks, secured a massive $ 141 million Series B at a valuation of $ 1.64 billion led by Kleiner Perkins, the company announced Thursday. The funding comes nine months after Hippocratic AI raised a $ 53...

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The new Atari handheld knows its market

CES isn’t much of a gaming show. Every year, however, a few notable products slip through the news deluge. Created in collaboration with My Arcade, Gamestation Go fits the bill. The handheld sports a 7-inch display and comes preloaded with north of 200 titles from various Atari generations. Of...

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ICON, a builder of 3D-printed homes last valued around $ 2 billion, cuts about 25% of staff

ICON Technologies Inc., which builds homes using 3D printing, is laying off 114 people, according to a WARN letter filed with the Texas Workforce Commission. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the news to TechCrunch, providing a statement that ICON had “recently made a difficult decision to...

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Defense startup Epirus in talks to raise over $ 150M, potentially cutting valuation

Defense tech startup Epirus is reportedly raising between $ 150 million and $ 200 million in a new funding round led by Joe Lonsdale’s venture firm 8VC, Bloomberg reports. The round could give the company, which develops technology to intercept drones, a valuation of about $ 1 billion. If that’s the...

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Beams secures $ 9M Series A to digitize UK home renovation market

Home renovation projects can be unpredictable for both customers and builders. Meanwhile, small contractors barely use modern software and home renovation giants, like IKEA, tend to trundle on with dated legacy software. UK startup Beams thinks it can solve this conundrum and has now raised a $ 9...

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Doublepoint launches free Apple Watch app to control devices with hand gestures

Finnish startup Doublepoint launched its free app, WowMouse, for the Apple Watch this week at CES 2025. The app uses the wearable’s sensors, compass, and accelerometer to turn your hand into a mouse that can control devices through hand gestures. The Apple Watch already uses a similar technology for...

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How to delete Facebook, Instagram, and Threads

In the wake of Meta’s decision to remove its third-party fact-checking system and loosen content moderation policies, Google searches on how to delete Facebook, Instagram, and Threads have been on the rise. People who are angry with the decision accuse Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of cozying up to the...

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We talked to the guy who was stuck in a Waymo robotaxi on a dizzying loop

A month ago, a video circulated around social media of a Waymo robotaxi stuck in a roundabout loop — an isolated incident with no passengers in the vehicle, according to Waymo. Apparently, it wasn’t a one- time thing. Around the same time , in another Waymo robotaxi headed for the Phoenix airport, Mike...

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Scout Motors CEO Scott Keogh says modern cars have become ‘dystopian’ and ‘disconnected’

Volkswagen- backed startup Scout Motors broke cover just a few months ago, and at this week’s CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada, they hold the honor of being one of the only American automakers with a presence at the show. That’s not the only thing that stands out about Scout being here, though. In a sea...

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Mastodon CEO calls Meta’s moderation changes ‘deeply troubling,’ warns users cross-posting from Threads

Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko has spoken out about the significant moderation changes announced by Meta on Tuesday, which will see the social networking giant removing fact-checking across its apps in favor of a crowdsourced community notes feature, similar to X’s. The Mastodon founder, whose app...

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Xocean raises $ 119M to capture ocean data with uncrewed surface vessels

Xocean, an Irish marine robotics startup that provides ocean data to the energy and hydrography industries using uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), has raised €115 million ( $ 119 million) as it looks to expand coverage to additional sectors. Founded in 2017, Xocean has built a fleet of...

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PowerSchool says hackers stole students’ sensitive data, including Social Security numbers, in data breach

Edtech giant PowerSchool has warned customers that hackers accessed its customers’ highly sensitive information — including student Social Security numbers, grades, and medical information — during a recent data breach, TechCrunch has learned. In an FAQ obtained by TechCrunch that was sent to...

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Astrohaus launches a mechanical keyboard for writers

Astrohaus has cornered a very specific niche. The Michigan-based startup builds hardware for writers looking to eliminate distractions. It’s really tough finishing up that novel when Instagram exists, after all. While the company has made its name bucking most tech trends, however, its latest...

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Rounded is an AI orchestration platform that lets anyone build an AI voice agent

French startup Rounded believes AI voice agents are going to become the default way customers interact with companies, so instead of building AI voice agents that are ready to use, the company is building an orchestration platform that lets companies build their own voice agent. Rounded started off...

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Biosphere zaps germs with UV light to make biomanufacturing cheaper

Ask any scientist that has worked with cell cultures in a lab: Contamination is high on their list of fears. Even one stray bacterium or fungal spore can spoil an entire experiment. Now imagine scaling that risk up to biomanufacturing, which uses living cells to make a range of stuff, including...

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Flipkart hires Dunzo’s co-founder to lead quick commerce push

Flipkart has hired Kabeer Biswas, the co-founder of Indian delivery startup Dunzo, as the Walmart-owned e-commerce group expands its quick-commerce business in the country. Biswas will lead Flipkart’s quick commerce effort, called Flipkart Minutes, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch....

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Nuclear startup Deep Fission plans to bury micro-reactors to power data centers

Back in the 1950s, the U.S. started detonating nuclear bombs underground to limit the fallout, both radioactive and sociopolitical, unleashed by aboveground testing. Hundreds of feet of rock formed a tidy barrier for the next 40 years as countries continued to bomb the subsurface. Now a nuclear...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Oura valued at $ 5B following deal with medical device firm Dexcom

Smart ring maker Oura announced on Tuesday that it has received a $ 75 million investment from glucose device maker Dexcom. The investment marks Oura’s Series D funding round and brings the company’s valuation to more than $ 5 billion. The partnership paves the way for the two companies’ devices and...

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Cloudflare’s VPN app among half-dozen pulled from Indian app stores

More than half-a-dozen VPN apps, including Cloudflare’s widely-used 1.1.1.1, have been pulled from India’s Apple App Store and Google Play Store following intervention from government authorities, TechCrunch has learned. The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs issued removal orders for the apps,...

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OpenAI failed to deliver the opt-out tool it promised by 2025

Back in May, OpenAI said it was developing a tool to let creators specify how they want their works to be included in — or excluded from — its AI training data. But seven months later, this feature has yet to see the light of day. Called Media Manager, the tool would “identify copyrighted text,...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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People are playing a new DOOM-themed CAPTCHA

CAPTCHA programs that are used to determine whether a site visitor is a person or a bot come in pretty standard formats. Think text distortion (where users type the characters they see in a box amid other squiggles); image recognition (you’re selecting, say, all the squares in a grid with a bicycle...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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A Waymo robotaxi and a Serve delivery robot collided in Los Angeles

On December 27, a Waymo robotaxi and a Serve Robotics sidewalk delivery robot collided at a Los Angeles intersection, according to a video that’s circulating on social media. The footage shows a Serve bot crossing a street in West Hollywood at night and trying to get onto the sidewalk. It reached...

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Judge allows California’s ban on addictive feeds for minors to go into effect

Late Tuesday evening, a federal judge blocked tech lobbying group NetChoice’s challenge to California’s recently enacted law, SB 976, which prohibits companies from serving “addictive feeds” to minors. The effect of this decision is that beginning Wednesday, companies will be prohibited from serving...

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ChatGPT and Sora went down for the second time this month

ChatGPT, Sora, and OpenAI’s developer-facing API were down on Thursday for more than four hours. OpenAI says it started experiencing a major outage at 11 a.m. PT, but now says its services are slowly coming back online as of 3:16 p.m. PT. Frequent users of ChatGPT may recall that the service went...

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Silicon Valley stifled the AI doom movement in 2024

For several years now, technologists have rung alarm bells about the potential for advanced AI systems to cause catastrophic damage to the human race. But in 2024, those warning calls were drowned out by a practical and prosperous vision of generative AI promoted by the tech industry — a vision that...

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Investigation exposes pedophilia in the child-influencer industry

A New York time s investigation found that dozens of potential pedophiles have prolifically exploited the child influencer industry, portraying themselves as photographers or social media experts to get close to the children. One such man, Michael Allen Walker, reportedly promised mothers that their...

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India’s mobile payments dilemma

India’s payments regulator is set to decide as early as Monday whether to curb the dominance of Walmart’s PhonePe and Google in the nation’s fast-growing mobile payments market, a move that could reshape how its billion-plus population moves money. The decision centers on UPI, or Unified Payments...

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Permira’s Brian Ruder talks AI, Squarespace acquisition, and the value of co-leadership

It has been a busy year in the private equity realm, with countless big-money acquisitions unfolding. The take-private space specifically has seen some sizable transactions, with private equity firms spearheading more than a dozen billion-dollar deals for public tech companies. London-headquartered...

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How to watch CES 2025’s press conferences

CES kicks off January 7. The annual Las Vegas event sets the tone of the year’s consumer electronics and automotive industries. As always, TechCrunch will be there, sniffing stories from the most exciting startups and tech giants. If you really want a piece of the action without paying for the hotel...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Watch this robotic ‘Superman Suit’ rotate around a gymnastics bar

Scientists at the Suzumori Endo Robotics lab in Tokyo have developed the Superman Suit: a suit powered by hydraulic artificial muscles that allow it to perform superhuman tasks. In this video, the suit demonstrates the ability to complete 15 rotations around a bar, making anyone into a great...

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The promise and perils of synthetic data

Is it possible for an AI to be trained just on data generated by another AI? It might sound like a harebrained idea. But it’s one that’s been around for quite some time — and as new, real data is increasingly hard to come by, it’s been gaining traction. Anthropic used some synthetic data to train...

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Venture capitalists continue to play musical chairs

From Keith Rabois to Matt Miller, a lot of VCs have switched firms or spun out of storied VC institutions this year. These employment changes are surprising because unlike in many other fields, venture capitalists don’t traditionally move around very much — especially those who reach the partner or...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Proton’s device aims to help those with kidney disease, and cut heart failure risks

People with chronic kidney disease, or those at risk of heart failure, are greatly affected by potassium imbalances in the body. These can even be life-threatening. While wearable glucose monitors are now commonplace and have transformed the lives of diabetes patients, potassium monitoring is in...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Juniper Ventures spins out of Climate Capital to invest in synthetic biology for the climate

There’s a mismatch in climate tech investing: Well over half of all dollars invested since 2020 have flowed into startups working on energy and transportation, according to Sightline Climate. “It’s awesome to see those solutions doing well,” Michael Luciani, founding partner at Juniper, told...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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AI startups attracted 25% of Europe’s VC funding

Venture funding into Europe is heading for a flat year, but this may obfuscate the fact that European AI startups are thriving. According to VC firm Balderton Capital and Dealroom, 25% of VC funding into the region — approximately $ 13.7 billion — went to AI startups this year, compared to 15% four...

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Coralogix acquires AI observability platform Aporia

Coralogix, the well-funded observability platform, on Monday announced that it has acquired Aporia, a startup that focuses on giving businesses tools to observe and secure their AI workloads, as well as set guardrails for them to avoid hallucinations or unintended disclosures. As part of this...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Tesla Superchargers: GM, Ford, Rivian, and other EV brands with access

In May 2023, Ford triggered a transformation when the U.S. automaker locked in a deal to give owners of its EVs access to the Tesla Supercharger network. In a stunning shift, automaker after automaker — from GM and Hyundai to Rivian and Mercedes — followed suit. By the end of 2023, nearly every...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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CES 2025 is coming: TechCrunch wants to meet your hardware startup

According to the calendar, we’re a mere weeks out from CES — the perfect gift for your gadget blogger who has everything. The massive consumer electronics and automotive event kicks off in Las Vegas on January 7. TechCrunch is returning to the future home of the Oakland Athletics for the event, and...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI’s o3 suggests AI models are scaling in new ways — but so are the costs

Last month, AI founders and investors told TechCrunch that we’re now in the “second era of scaling laws,” noting how established methods of improving AI models were showing diminishing returns. One promising new method they suggested could keep gains was “test- time scaling,” which seems to be...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Tetsuwan Scientific is making robotic AI scientists that can run experiments on their own

Cristian Ponce was wearing an Indiana Jones costume when he met his co-founder Théo Schäfer. It was at a Halloween party in 2023 thrown by Entrepreneur First, a startup program that introduces founders to one another before they launch an idea. The two hit it off, Ponce remembers. Schäfer had...

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The biggest flops and fizzles in 2024 transportation, from Apple Car to Fisker

Autonomous vehicle technology and electrification startups were once the darlings of the VC and corporate world. The two technologies promised billions of dollars in revenue — and a new pathway for automakers to make money beyond building and selling cars. Those VC-money-printing days have been over...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI’s GPT-5 reportedly falling short of expectations

OpenAI’s efforts to develop its next major model, GPT-5, are running behind schedule, with results that don’t yet justify the enormous costs, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal. This echoes an earlier report in The Information suggesting that OpenAI is looking for new strategies,...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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K2 Space will fly its extra-large satellite for the first time in 2026

K2 Space is betting that the future of space hardware will be big — really big. The startup is building massive spacecraft under the assumption that launch costs will continue to drop as SpaceX’s Starship and other heavy-lift vehicles come online. It looks like the Space Force is taking up their...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Tesla is courting Texas cities to test its promised robotaxi service

Tesla is evaluating multiple Texas cities where it wants to test a long-promised robotaxi service, including Austin, according to emails obtained by Bloomberg News. An employee has apparently been in touch with Austin officials since May, and recently held an event in December to “train first...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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This fintech processed $ 1B in payments through word-of-mouth

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re diving into: How Juicyway processed more than $ 1 billion in cross-border payments. • CarDekho SEA’s first round of external funding. • A fintech using AI to match financial advisers with prospective clients. • And more! P.S. We’re taking time off for the...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Insight VC describes Databricks’ wild $ 10B deal and the bad advice the CEO ignored

It’s been a wild week for investors clawing their way into Databricks’ record-breaking $ 10 billion fundraising, one of the VCs leading the deal told TechCrunch. “There were calls that went well late into the night, and that’s okay, that’s how good opportunities emerge,” George Mathew, managing...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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AI is burying company web sites in search results, but Otterly.AI thinks it can help

Many sites saw their organic traffic decline in 2024, in big part due to the rise of AI-generated search results. Many queries no longer lead to click-throughs, and even when users click, it is hard for companies to get more context on searches made within apps like ChatGPT or Perplexity. The answer...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has more than 130,000 job cuts across 457 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Grammarly acquires productivity startup Coda, brings on new CEO

Grammarly is acquiring productivity startup Coda, the company announced on Tuesday. As part of the deal, Coda’s CEO and co-founder Shishir Mehrotra will become the new CEO of Grammarly. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition will help turn Grammarly’s AI assistant into an...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Slip Robotics snags $ 28M for its bots that can load a truck in five minutes

Drop by any given loading dock and a buzz of forklifts — loaded up with goods — can be spotted maneuvering in and out of truck trailers. This logistical dance can take up to an hour to fill a trailer, leaving truck drivers in idle limbo. The founders of Atlanta-based Slip Robotics say they’ve...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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The DOJ wants a Perplexity executive to testify in its Google antitrust case

A U.S. court ruled in August that Google has a search monopoly, and while Google appeals, the Justice Department is figuring out what kind of potential penalties to impose — like breaking off Chrome. As part of this process, the DOJ wants to call on a specific witness, according to a recent court...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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‘It’s dumb to IPO this year’: Databricks CEO explains why he’s waiting to go public

Databricks just closed one of the largest funding rounds ever, raising a staggering $ 10 billion in fresh capital. Naturally, technology investors were quick to ask what this means for the company’s highly anticipated IPO. During an event in San Francisco on Tuesday night, Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Waymo robotaxis are coming to Tokyo in 2025

Waymo will begin testing its autonomous vehicle technology in Tokyo in early 2025, the first time the Alphabet company’s robotaxis have driven on public roads outside the U.S. The move to Japan is part of Waymo’s “road trips,” a development program that involves bringing its technology to a variety...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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TuSimple’s former CEO wants a new board that will liquidate the company

TuSimple co-founder and former CEO Xiaodi Hou is on a war path in the lead up to Friday’s annual shareholder meeting that will decide the makeup of the company’s board of directors. Over the past several weeks, Hou has sued TuSimple for control of his voting rights, demanded the company immediately...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Agave, the startup behind Find the Cat, finds $ 18M

A startup out of Turkey that has built a hit casual mobile game where you have to find cats in Where’s Wally-style drawings of increasing complexity has now found something else: $ 18 million in funding. Agave Games, the creator of Find the Cat, will be using the Series A to build out its team and...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Google DeepMind unveils a new video model to rival Sora

Google DeepMind, Google’s flagship AI research lab, wants to beat OpenAI at the video-generation game — and it might just, at least for a little while. On Monday, DeepMind announced Veo 2, a next-gen video-generating AI and the successor to Veo, which powers a growing number of products across...

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Focused Energy buys two of the world’s most powerful lasers for its fusion quest

Fusion power startup Focused Energy has signed a deal to buy two of the world’s most powerful lasers, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The massive lasers will be installed in the startup’s future facility, which it is building in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next two years. “These are...

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Cohere is quietly working with Palantir to deploy its AI models

Cohere is one of the best-known AI startups outside of OpenAI and Anthropic, hitting a $ 5.5 billion valuation as of July. It’s co-founded by an author of the “Attention Is All You Need” paper that helped launch the large language model (LLM) revolution. Based in Toronto and San Francisco, Cohere...

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Cohere is quietly working with Palantir to deploy its AI models

Cohere is one of the best-known AI startups outside of OpenAI and Anthropic, hitting a $ 5.5 billion valuation as of July. It’s co-founded by an author of the “Attention Is All You Need” paper that helped launch the large language model (LLM) revolution. Based in Toronto and San Francisco, Cohere...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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GM ‘blindsides’ Cruise by giving up on robotaxis

Welcome back to Week in Review. This week, we’re looking at GM’s decision to pull out of the robotaxi business, Google alluding to the existence of multiple universes, and how you can make some serious cash by getting an AI bot to fall in love with you. Let’s get into it. General Motors will no...

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ElevenLabs’ new feature is a NotebookLM competitor for creating GenAI podcasts

Voice AI startup ElevenLabs on Wednesday introduced a feature that lets you upload different types of content to create a multispeaker podcast for you, similar to Google’s NotebookLM. The feature, called GenFM, can be found on the company’s ElevenLabs Reader iOS app. Currently, GenFM supports 32...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Kalshi CEO admits enlisting influencers to dis Polymarket in a now-deleted podcast segment

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour confirmed on a podcast interview that his employees asked social media influencers to promote memes about the FBI’s raid on the home of his archrival, the CEO of Polymarket. Both companies offer competing events-betting markets, a new kind of betting industry where people...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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The 51 most disruptive startups of 2024

All year long, TechCrunch covers startups, everything from unicorns to tiny seed-stage launches. We are, in many ways, the startup experts. To create this list, organized alphabetically, we looked back through our year’s worth of coverage for startups that stood out to us. They have fascinating new...

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Databricks is on track to raise a record $ 9.5+ billion round at $ 60B valuation

Databricks is close to finalizing a $ 9.5 billion round at a $ 60 billion valuation, including a secondary sale for employees that could climb even higher before it closes, Reuters reports. Just 17 days ago, Reuters reported that the deal was at $ 8 billion and a $ 55 billion valuation. Thrive Capital...

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Liquid AI just raised $ 250M to develop a more efficient type of AI model

Liquid AI, an AI startup co-founded by robotics luminary Daniela Rus, has raised $ 250 million in a Series A led by AMD. Per Bloomberg, the round values Liquid AI at over $ 2 billion. Liquid AI aims to build general-purpose AI systems powered by a relatively new type of AI model called a liquid neural...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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As AI-fueled disinformation explodes, here comes the startup counterattack

With disinformation on the rise, especially given the explosion of AI, companies are just as vulnerable to its effects as individuals. Refute is a London-based startup that detects and responds to disinformation on behalf of these commercial entities. It’s now raised a £2.3 million ( $ 2.9 million)...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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G2 Ventures Partners is raising $ 750 million for a third fund

G2 Venture Partners, the high-profile firm that spun out of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is raising a third fund with a target of $ 750 million, TechCrunch has learned. The raise, which was disclosed in a regulatory filing, is a bullish vote of confidence in climate and sustainability startups,...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Google Gemini: Everything you need to know about the generative AI models

Google’s trying to make waves with Gemini, its flagship suite of generative AI models, apps, and services. But what’s Gemini? How can you use it? And how does it stack up to other generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta’s Llama, and Microsoft’s Copilot? To make it easier to keep up with...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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It's the end of the road for Cruise, and Bluesky is still taking off

Almost one decade after its $ 1 billion acquisition of Cruise, automaker General Motors has decided to give up on the self-driving startup. GM will now use Cruise tech to improve its own advanced driver assistance system with the ultimate goal of offering personal autonomous vehicles. Today, on...

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Google’s NotebookLM now lets you talk to its AI podcast hosts

A few months ago, Google’s NotebookLM note-taking app debuted an Audio Overviews feature that generates a podcast with AI virtual hosts based on information you have shared with the app. Now NotebookLM is rolling out the ability for users to interact with the AI podcast hosts. The idea behind Audio...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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How 21-year-old Koko Xs became the new rising-star solo VC

When Koko Xs considered pursuing a career as a VC after he graduated from college last year, he observed a handful of trends that suggested he should do something else. He noticed that it’s hard to land deals and it takes a long time to see returns, given that most VC funds typically take a decade...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Activate and The Engine Accelerator team up to train scientists to become founders

The road from scientist to founder is well trodden, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Those pitfalls are why, over the last decade, several programs have sprung up to help smooth the path for technical founders. Now, two prominent programs, Activate and The Engine Accelerator, have decided they can...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Twelve Labs is building AI that can analyze and search through videos

AI models that understand videos as well as text can unlock powerful new applications. At least, that’s what Jae Lee, the co-founder of Twelve Labs, believes. Granted, Lee’s a little biased. Twelve Labs trains video-analyzing models for a range of use cases. But there may just be something to his...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has more than 130,000 job cuts across 457 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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BeReal hit with privacy complaint over how it asks EU users to agree to tracking

Right after BeReal got acquired by French mobile games publisher Voodoo this summer, the candid selfie-sharing app which has been popular with Gen Zers changed how it asks users to consent to tracking. The resulting pop-up is now the target of a privacy complaint in Europe. Confirmed breaches of...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Microsoft will take an $ 800M hit over Cruise robotaxi shutdown

GM’s decision to shut down its Cruise robotaxi program continues to ripple through the market, extending to the self-driving car company’s minority investors. Microsoft, which in 2021 made an investment into Cruise, will take $ 800 million impairment charge as a result of GM’s actions, according to a...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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RIP, Cruise robotaxi

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! GM’s decision to no longer fund its self-driving car subsidiary Cruise was a surprise to many — and got me thinking about this startup...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Carta is making it too difficult to cancel subscriptions, some founders say

Running a startup can be expensive, requiring a multitude of different subscriptions. Cap table management software, which helps founders organize their funding, can cost thousands of dollars a year. San Francisco-based Carta is the market leader in this industry. But some startup founders say Carta...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Here’s how OpenAI uses your data when you use ChatGPT through Apple’s integrations

Following Apple’s integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT within iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, OpenAI has detailed how your data is handled when you use ChatGPT through Apple’s integration. You can use ChatGPT through Apple’s integrations without logging into a ChatGPT account, but you get access to...

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Cruise employees ‘blindsided’ by GM’s plan to end robotaxi program

The news came by Slack message. Cruise CEO Marc Whitten, who took the top post in June, posted a message Tuesday afternoon in the company’s announcements channel along with a link to a press release entitled “GM to refocus autonomous driving development on personal vehicles.” GM, which acquired the...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Google Gemini can now do more in-depth research

Google is upgrading Gemini, its chatbot platform, with the ability to “reason” through a research problem and compile a comprehensive report. The updated Gemini offers a feature called “Deep Research” that Google says uses “advanced reasoning” and “long context capabilities” to generate research...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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It sure looks like OpenAI trained Sora on game content — and legal experts say that could be a problem

OpenAI has never revealed exactly which data it used to train Sora, its video-generating AI. But from the looks of it, at least some of the data might’ve come from Twitch streams and walkthroughs of games. Sora launched on Monday, and I’ve been playing around with it for a bit (to the extent the...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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YouTube AI updates include auto dubbing expansion, age ID tech, and more

In his annual letter, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan dubbed AI one of the company’s four “big bets” for 2025. The executive pointed to the company’s investments in AI tools for creators, including ones for video ideas, thumbnails, and language translation. The latter feature will roll out to all creators...

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ServiceNow to buy Moveworks for $ 2.85B to grow its AI portfolio

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Indian fintech Slice seals bank merger

Indian fintech startup Slice said it has completed its merger with North East Small Finance Bank, marking a rare instance of a startup successfully entering India’s tightly regulated banking sector. The merger, first proposed last year, transforms the Bengaluru-based startup into a banking entity,...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI whistleblower found dead at 26 in San Francisco apartment

A former OpenAI employee, Suchir Balaji, was recently found dead in his San Francisco apartment, according to the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In October, the 26-year-old AI researcher raised concerns about OpenAI breaking copyright law when he was interviewed by The New York...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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X could introduce labels for parody accounts, but enforcement might be tricky

X is filled with accounts that mimic real-life public figures, ranging from politicians to sports professionals and artists. While some accounts mention “Parody” in their display names, others mention it in their bios, leading some people to mistake them for real accounts — including news...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Beta Technologies unveils first passenger carrying electric aircraft

Beta Technologies unveiled Monday the next electric aircraft in its lineup — a passenger-carrying version of its ALIA vertical takeoff and landing and fixed-wing vehicles. Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles don’t rely on a runway, whereas fixed-wing aircraft do. The Vermont-based...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Workday acquires AI-powered document platform Evisort

Workday announced on Tuesday that it’s acquiring Evisort, an AI-powered contract management platform, for an undisclosed amount. In a statement, Terrance Wampler, group general manager at Workday, said that Evisort’s tech will enable Workday to add a range of AI-powered document processing tools to...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Sam Altman’s Worldcoin becomes World and shows new iris-scanning Orb to prove your humanity

Worldcoin, the Sam Altman co-founded “proof of personhood” crypto project that scans people’s eyeballs, announced on Thursday that it dropped the “coin” from its name and is now just “World.” The startup behind the World project, Tools for Humanity, also unveiled its next generation of...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI could shake up its nonprofit structure next year

It’s looking increasingly likely that OpenAI will soon alter its complex corporate structure. Reports earlier this week suggested that the AI company was in talks to raise $ 6.5 billion at a $ 150 billion pre-money valuation. Now Reuters says the deal is contingent on whether OpenAI can restructure...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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YouTube tests a new way for creators to avoid takedowns

YouTube is now testing a new feature that will let creators edit their videos to remove age restrictions and restore videos that had been impacted due to certain Community Guidelines violations. Until now, if a video received an age restriction label or was removed for breaking YouTube’s Community...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI upgrades its transcription and voice-generating AI models

OpenAI is bringing new transcription and voice-generating AI models to its API that the company claims improve upon its previous releases. For OpenAI, the models fit into its broader “agentic” vision: building automated systems that can independently accomplish tasks on behalf of users. The...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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TikTok parent ByteDance reportedly values itself at $ 300B

ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, valued itself at $ 300 billion in a recent share buyback offer, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal. That number might sound familiar, as the WSJ previously reported on a ByteDance buyback offer at a $ 300 billion valuation back in...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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How a $ 6M bet on Wiz turned into a massive 200x return for one early backer

Wiz’s $ 32 billion all-cash acquisition by Google parent Alphabet promises a colossal payday for the cybersecurity startup’s early-stage investors. The deal is a big win for Sequoia, one of the best-known VC firms, which stands to make $ 3 billion, about 25x the money it invested in the company,...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Apple quarterly revenue increases, even as China sales decline 11%

Apple’s latest earnings were a mixed bag, with slipping iPhone sales countered by rising revenue. Reporting after the bell Thursday, the iPhone maker’s overall revenue in the first quarter of 2025 beat Wall Street expectations, with a 4% bump to $ 124.3 billion over the same time last year. Apple...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Rad Power Bikes already has a new CEO

Rad Power Bikes has named a new CEO, just a few days after its previous leader stepped down. The e-bike company has tapped Kathi Lentzsch, who has spent the last few decades helping turn around underperforming companies in both the consumer and B2B spaces. The change comes as Rad Power continues to...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Consumer tech is bouncing back, and consumer founders like Brynn Putnam are bouncing back with it

When Brynn Putnam sold her last company, Mirror, to Lululemon for $ 500 million at the start of the pandemic, it looked to this editor like she’d sold the smart fitness company too soon. Instead, the timing proved brilliant. The home fitness craze crashed nearly as abruptly as it peaked during that...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI plans to open an office in Germany

OpenAI is expanding its footprint to Germany. According to a press release issued Friday, the ChatGPT maker plans to open an office in Munich in the coming months. “Germany is renowned for its technical expertise, academic excellence, and industrial innovation,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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North Korea launches new unit with a focus on AI hacking, per report

The North Korean government is reportedly establishing a new hacking group within the intelligence agency Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB). Daily NK, a news outlet that focuses on North Korea, reported last week that the new hacking unit, called Research Center 227, will focus on research to...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Flock Safety quietly hired a sitting California mayor. Now he’s suing Flock

Last year, police surveillance startup Flock Safety hired the mayor of a California city with over 200,000 residents to promote its products. But the mayor, Ulises Cabrera of Moreno Valley, now claims Flock wrongfully terminated him, partly because he refused to use his position as mayor to benefit...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Anthropic’s latest flagship AI might not have been incredibly costly to train

Anthropic’s newest flagship AI model, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, cost “a few tens of millions of dollars” to train using less than 10^26 FLOPs of computing power. That’s according to Wharton professor Ethan Mollick, who in an X post on Monday relayed a clarification he’d received from Anthropic’s PR. “I was...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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US lawmakers urge UK spy court to hold Apple ‘backdoor’ secret hearing in public

A group of bipartisan U.S. lawmakers are urging the head of the U.K.’s surveillance court to hold an open hearing into Apple’s anticipated challenge of an alleged secret U.K. government legal demand. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, along with four other federal lawmakers, said in a letter this week to the...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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OpenAI launches $ 50M grant program to help fund academic research

OpenAI on Monday said it is supporting a new consortium called NextGenAI that would focus on supporting AI-assisted research at top universities. NextGenAI, whose 15 founding academic partners include Harvard, the University of Oxford and MIT, will be funded with $ 50 million in research grants,...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Pokémon Go maker Niantic is selling its games division to Scopely for $ 3.5B

Mobile gaming giant Scopely on Wednesday said it has agreed to acquire Pokémon GO maker Niantic’s gaming division for $ 3.5 billion. Niantic said that it will add an additional $ 350 million cash to yield a total value of $ 3.85 billion to Niantic equity holders. Niantic’s games roster includes the hit...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Brazilian fintech Tako emerges from stealth with sizable seed round led by a16z and Ribbit Capital

Running payroll is hard in any country, but perhaps especially so in Brazil thanks to consistently changing laws and extremely influential unions that make it significantly harder to get it right. Fernando Gadotti struggled with this as the co-founder of DogHero, LatAm’s version of Rover. When...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Bluesky will soon let you limit replies to ‘followers only’

Social network Bluesky will soon give its users more control over who can reply to their posts. Confirmed by Bluesky developer Paul Frazee, Bluesky will add a new “followers only” setting that users can configure to limit replies. In addition, he says, Bluesky will create a way for users to set...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Nvidia thinks AI can solve electrical grid problems caused by AI

Nvidia announced Thursday it’s partnering with EPRI, a power industry R&D organization, to use AI to solve problems facing the electrical grid. Perhaps ironically, the issues are largely caused by rising power demand from AI itself. The Open Power AI Consortium, which includes a number of electrical...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Japan says Chinese hackers targeted its government and tech companies for years

The Japanese government published an alert on Wednesday accusing a Chinese hacking group of targeting and breaching dozens of government organizations, companies, and individuals in the country since 2019. Japan’s National Police Agency and the National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Mozilla Foundation lays off 30% staff, drops advocacy division

The Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Firefox browser maker Mozilla, has laid off 30% of its employees as the organization says it faces a “relentless onslaught of change.” When reached by TechCrunch, Mozilla Foundation’s communications chief Brandon Borrman confirmed the layoffs in an...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Generative AI startup Runway inks deal with a major Hollywood studio

Runway, a startup developing AI video tools, including video-generating models, has partnered with Lionsgate — the studio behind the “John Wick” and “Twilight” franchises — to train a custom video model on Lionsgate’s movie catalog. Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns said in a statement that the...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Meta settles UK ‘right to object to ad-tracking’ lawsuit by agreeing not to track plaintiff

A human rights campaigner, Tanya O’Carroll, has succeeded in forcing social media giant Meta not to use her data for targeted advertising. The agreement is contained in a settlement to an individual challenge she lodged against Meta’s tracking and profiling back in 2022. O’Carroll had argued that a...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Threads adds new features to highlight topics and limit replies

Meta’s social network Threads, an X competitor with more than 320 million monthly active users, is now rolling out new features related to topics, reply controls, and video playback in the app, among other things. It’s also making political content suggestions more personalized to the user, the...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Are your noise-canceling headphones messing with your head?

We all know headphones can be bad for your hearing if you listen to sounds too loudly in close proximity to your ears. But a BBC report suggests that a new health scare could be emerging around the noise-canceling feature that’s hugely popular in modern earphones. The article considers whether the...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Drip Capital, a fintech that provides working capital to SMBs, picks up $ 113M

For over two decades, Jay Chandarana relied on commercial banks to meet the day-to-day, working capital needs of his family business, the sesame seed exporter Dhaval Agri. It was an arrangement that basically worked: The company grew to have a 13% share of the country’s total exports, making it the...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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People are using Google’s new AI model to remove watermarks from images

Users on social media have discovered a controversial use case for Google’s new Gemini AI model: removing watermarks from images, including from images published by Getty Images and other well-known stock media outfits. Last week, Google expanded access to its Gemini 2.0 Flash model’s image...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Adapty releases a web-based solution for app makers to earn money outside app stores

Over the last few years, developers have increasingly complained about paying fees to Apple or Google for App Store or Play Store distributions. App makers have often said that both companies make it difficult for them to earn money outside of their systems. New York-based app revenue management...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Anthropic CEO says spies are after $ 100M AI secrets in a ‘few lines of code’

Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei is worried that spies, likely from China, are getting their hands on costly “algorithmic secrets” from the U.S.’s top AI companies — and he wants the U.S. government to step in. Speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations event on Monday, Amodei said that China is known...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Inside the Humane acquisition: HP offers big raises to some, others immediately laid off

Humane, formerly one of Silicon Valley’s buzziest AI hardware startups, announced on Tuesday it was being partially acquired by HP for $ 116 million, which is less than half of the $ 240 million the startup raised in venture capital funding. Tuesday may not have been a great day for some Humane...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Bluesky quickly sold out of the T-shirt its CEO wore to troll Mark Zuckerberg

When Bluesky CEO Jay Graber took the SXSW stage this week, she managed to make fun of Mark Zuckerberg without mentioning Meta at all. Her black T-shirt was emblazoned with black text stretching across the chest and sleeves, similar to the style of a T-shirt that the billionaire founder wore at an...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Uber to launch OpenAI-powered AI assistant to answer driver EV questions

Uber is continuing its push to bring more electric vehicles onto the ride-hail and delivery platform, and it thinks giving drivers a chatbot to answer all their EV questions will help. Starting early 2025, Uber will launch an AI assistant for drivers in the U.S. powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o. At...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Snapchat brings camera shortcut to the iPhone lock screen

Users with iPhone iOS 18 and later can now replace the flashlight or native camera lock screen shortcut with the Snapchat camera. Once a picture is taken or video is recorded with the shortcut, users will have to unlock their phone before sharing. Snapchat says more than 55,000 Snaps are created...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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EU cybersecurity rules for smart devices enter into force

Rules for boosting the security of connected devices have entered into force in the European Union. The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) puts obligations on product makers to provide security support to consumers, such as by updating their software to fix security vulnerabilities. Although the deadline...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Solar notches another win as Microsoft adds 475 MW to power its AI data centers

Microsoft is adding another 475 megawatts to its already considerable renewable-powered portfolio to feed the growing energy appetite of its data centers. The company recently signed a deal with energy provider AES for three solar projects across the Midwest, one each in Illinois, Michigan, and...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Roblox adds safety measures to ban kids under 13 from social spaces and other experiences

Throughout the years, several reports have accused Roblox, the popular gaming platform aimed at preteens, of lacking strict safety protocols for children, which exposes them to dangers such as grooming, explicit content, and violent or abusive material. In a significant update to its safety policy,...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Gusto’s head of technology says hiring an army of specialists is the wrong approach to AI

As founders plan for an increasingly AI-centric future, Gusto co-founder and head of technology Edward Kim said that cutting existing teams and hiring a bunch of specially trained AI engineers is “the wrong way to go.” Instead, he argued that non-technical team members can “actually have a much...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Hackers are exploiting Fortinet firewall bugs to plant ransomware

Security researchers have observed hackers linked to the notorious LockBit gang exploiting a pair of Fortinet firewall vulnerabilities to deploy ransomware on several company networks. In a report published last week, security researchers at Forescout Research said a group it’s tracking dubbed...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Rivian executives accused of harassment in previously unreported lawsuits

Four employees have sued Rivian in separate lawsuits this year over allegations they were harassed, in some cases by top executives, and that the company’s leadership did little to address their concerns, according to a TechCrunch review of court records. Rivian has also reached settlements in three...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Perplexity is reportedly in talks to raise up to $ 1B at an $ 18B valuation

AI- powered search startup Perplexity is said to be in early talks to raise up to $ 1 billion in a new funding round valuing the startup at $ 18 billion. Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported on Thursday that Perplexity’s annual recurring revenue has now reached $ 100...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Minimalist Light Phone III launches March 27

Light, the maker of a minimalist phone designed to help consumers disconnect from smartphone distractions and social media, will launch its newest model, the Light Phone III, on March 27. This version of the device, like its older counterpart, offers a simple black-and-white display and necessary...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Roli releases a 49-key educational keyboard and generative AI play

Roli on Thursday announced its latest educational product at the NAAM audio show in Anaheim. The simply named Roli Piano builds on products like the Roli Airwave and Piano M, more than doubling the latter’s key count to 49. The Piano is much like its predecessor in most ways, with MIDI keys that...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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WhatsApp scores historic victory against NSO Group in long-running spyware hacking case

A U.S. judge has ruled that Israeli spyware maker NSO Group breached hacking laws by using WhatsApp to infect devices with its Pegasus spyware. In a historic ruling on Friday, a Northern California federal judge held NSO Group liable for targeting the devices of 1,400 WhatsApp users, violating state...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Watch Boston Dynamics’ electric Atlas do a backflip

A little early holiday surprise from Boston Dynamics this week, as Santa suit-wearing electric Atlas performs a backflip. The feat occurs about 13 minutes into a new video, showcasing yet another trick in the humanoid robot’s arsenal. It’s worth noting that — unlike with humans — a robot performing...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Nintendo tries again on mobile with a $ 10 Animal Crossing game arriving in December

It was a sad day when Nintendo announced that its free mobile game, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, would soon shut down. The app is ending its service on November 28; however, it’s also getting a revival. This time , though, it’ll be a paid game. On December 3, Nintendo is launching a paid version of...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Alan unveils AI health assistant for its 680k health insurance members

While Alan is better known as a health insurance company, the French startup has always tried to offer more than insurance coverage. It now wants to build a super app for all things related to healthcare and announced three new product updates on Tuesday morning, including an AI chatbot that’s...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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After selling his last AI startup to Meta, Beyond Presence’s founder nabs $ 3.1M to build lifelike avatars

Computer vision applications are getting a huge boost from advances in smartphones combined with AI that helps fill in the gaps of what everyday devices cannot see. Using these tools, a startup out of Munich called Beyond Presence believes it holds the keys to what is coming next: Hyper-realistic...

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Instagram locks out developers of third-party consumer apps

A change to Meta’s developer tools is impacting third-party consumer apps that had previously integrated with Instagram. Among those affected by the changes are the Match-owned dating apps Tinder and Hinge, which had allowed their users to link their Instagram profiles to their accounts to display...

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AI helps Telegram remove 15 million suspect groups and channels in 2024

Telegram has been under unprecedented pressure to clean up its platform this year, after its founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France and faces charges over the alleged harmful content shared on his messaging app. After announcing a crackdown in September, Telegram now says it has removed 15.4...

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Ex-Twitch CEO Emmett Shear is founding an AI startup backed by a16z

Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Twitch, is launching a new AI startup, TechCrunch has learned. The startup, called Stem AI, is currently in stealth. But public documents show it was incorporated in June 2023, and filed for a trademark in August 2023. Shear is listed as CEO on an incorporation...

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Researchers open source Sky-T1, a ‘reasoning’ AI model that can be trained for less than $ 450

So- called reasoning AI models are becoming easier — and cheaper — to develop. On Friday, NovaSky, a team of researchers based out of UC Berkeley’s Sky Computing Lab, released Sky-T1-32B-Preview, a reasoning model that’s competitive with an earlier version of OpenAI’s o1 on a number of key...

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Japanese telco giant NTT Com says hackers accessed details of almost 18,000 organizations

Japanese telecom giant NTT Communications (NTT Com) has confirmed that hackers accessed the data of almost 18,000 corporate customers during a February cyberattack, affecting an as-yet-unknown number of individuals. The Tokyo-based NTT Com, which provides phone and network tech to enterprises, said...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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The global future of remote work, according to three HR startup leaders

Software is eating the world, and companies are hiring global talent more frequently than ever. They want to be able to hire talent in foreign countries and retain employees who want to move abroad. That’s why a new wave of global HR startups are helping companies hire people all around the world...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Mistral releases its AI assistant on iOS and Android

Mistral, the company some time s considered Europe’s great hope for AI, is releasing several updates to its AI assistant, Le Chat. In addition to a major web interface upgrade, the company is releasing a mobile app on iOS and Android. As a reminder, Mistral develops its own large language models. The...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Epic Games to pre-install its game store on ‘millions’ of devices with new Telefónica deal

Epic Games is partnering with Telefónica, one of the largest telecommunication providers in the world, to preinstall the Epic Games Store on all new compatible Android devices on its network. Telefónica services Spain, the U.K., Germany, and Latin America. The company says the partnership will bring...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Anti-aging zealot Bryan Johnson wants to start ‘foodome sequencing’

In the same way that genome sequencing determines the genetic makeup of an organism, Bryan Johnson — the investor and founder behind the Don’t Die movement — wants to start “foodome” sequencing. “We’re going to sequence the U.S. ‘foodome,’ which means test 20% of foods that constitute 80% of the...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Europe asks for input on banned uses of AI

The European Union is developing compliance guidance for its new law on AI. As part of that process it’s launched a consultation (here) seeking input in two areas. The first is how the law defines AI systems (as opposed to “simpler traditional” software). It’s asking people in the AI industry,...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Meta spotted testing AI-generated comments on Instagram

In recent years, Meta has introduced many AI features and capabilities to its apps, even going so far as experimenting with AI-generated characters complete with unique profiles and personalities, before scrapping them after they were deemed creepy and unnecessary. In yet another move that may not...

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Apple adds AI-powered app review summaries with iOS 18.4

As part of the iOS 18.4 software update, currently in public beta, Apple is introducing AI-powered summaries of App Store reviews. The new feature will leverage Apple Intelligence, the company’s built-in AI technology, to offer an overall summary based on the reviews others have left on the App...

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Samsung’s CES 2025 press conference: How to watch

Samsung’s CES presser is always an odd duck. The Korean electronics giant generally keeps its powder dry when it comes to consumer electronics. After all, it’s expected to announce its latest flagship handset — the Galaxy S25 — toward the end of January. CES 2025 is going to continue the company’s...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Matt Mullenweg calls WP Engine a ‘cancer to WordPress’ and urges community to switch providers

Automattic CEO and WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg unleashed a scathing attack on a rival firm this week, calling WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress.” Mullenweg criticized the company — which has been commercializing the open source WordPress project since 2010 — for profiteering without giving...

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UK consults on opt-out model for training AIs on copyrighted content

The U.K. government is consulting on an opt-out copyright regime for AI training that would require rights holders to take active steps if they don’t want their intellectual property to become free AI training fodder. The rise of generative AI models that are trained on vast quantities of data has...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Black Friday hits a record $ 74.4B in sales online, up 5% on last year

The momentum of Thanksgiving — which saw consumers spend a record $ 33.6 billion globally online on the day — looks like it continued into Black Friday, with a bang. Adobe said that in the U.S., consumers made a record-breaking $ 10.8 billion of purchases, up 10.2% on last year. Meanwhile, Salesforce...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Nvidia releases its own brand of world models

Nvidia is getting into world models — AI models that take inspiration from the mental models of the world that humans develop naturally. At CES 2025 in Las Vegas, the company announced that it is making openly available a family of world models that can predict and generate “physics-aware” videos....

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Crypto wallet integrated with Telegram introduces crypto trading and yield features

Telegram’s crypto wallet, developed by a third-party company called The Open Platform (TOP), has introduced new features for people who don’t just use Telegram as a messaging app. The updates include multi-asset trading and yield functionalities. Based on the TON blockchain, TOP launched the wallet...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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ePlane looks to ride the Indian government’s interest in air taxis with new $ 14M round

Soaring private vehicle ownership and declining use of public and nonmotorized transport have created mounting traffic congestion in India, the world’s most populous country, which also struggles with relatively narrower roads and inadequate parking facilities in cities. New Delhi recognizes these...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Hackers are ramping up attacks using year-old ServiceNow security bugs to target unpatched systems

Hackers are ramping up their attempts to exploit a trio of year-old ServiceNow vulnerabilities to break into unpatched company instances, security researchers warned this week. Threat intelligence startup GreyNoise said in a blog post on Tuesday that it had observed a “notable resurgence of...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Boston Dynamics’ Atlas humanoid hot dogs for the camera

Automation skeptics ask: Why humanoids? There are many benefits and drawbacks of the robotics form factor, but Boston Dynamics’ latest electric Atlas video showcases one of the most underdiscussed factors: costumes. “Why build a humanoid robot?” the company rhetorically posits. “Because the world is...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Temu is the most downloaded app on the US App Store in 2024

Chinese shopping app Temu was once again the most downloaded free app in the U.S., according to a list of top apps and games across the App Store released by Apple on Monday. The shopping app moved into the No. 1 slot last year, stealing the position from TikTok, which held the title in in...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Bluesky gets growth and analytics tools with BlueSkyHunter launch

A new startup is addressing the need for an all-in-one toolset built for people who want to grow, manage, and track their Bluesky presence and following. The subscription service BlueSkyHunter, which launched Friday, introduces an online dashboard that combines access to analytics and other tools...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Anthropic used Pokémon to benchmark its newest AI model

Anthropic used Pokémon to benchmark its newest AI model. Yes, really. In a blog post published Monday, Anthropic said that it tested its latest model, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, on the Game Boy classic Pokémon Red. The company equipped the model with basic memory, screen pixel input, and function calls to...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Drone manufacturer Skydio raises $ 170 million extension round

American drone manufacturer Skydio has raised an extension round of $ 170 million, adding to the $ 230 million Series E it closed early last year. The new tranche of funding brings in strategic investors like Japanese telecom operator KDDI and Axon, the creator of the taser and other police tech. It...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Watch a robot dog run under water

MAB Robotics Tuesday showcased the latest trick from its Honey Badger robot. In a video, the quadruped is seen running along the bottom of a pool. Legs don’t generally make more sense than propellers or other more standard methods of underwater robot locomotion, but the video demonstrates a sense...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Sequoia nears first Asia-Pacific deal since regional split

Sequoia is closing in on making its first deal in India and the broader Asia Pacific region since its split with former partners, according to four sources familiar with the matter. The venture capital firm, one of the world’s largest, is in advanced talks to back Vance, a Bengaluru-based...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Samsung chief Jay Y. Lee cleared of all charges in 2015 merger case

A Seoul appeals court on Monday upheld the acquittal of Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee in accounting fraud and stock manipulation in a case related to a controversial 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates, Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T. The Seoul High Court dismissed the...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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What exactly is an AI agent?

AI agents are supposed to be the next big thing in AI, but there isn’t an exact definition of what they are. To this point, people can’t agree on what exactly constitutes an AI agent. At its simplest, an AI agent is best described as AI-fueled software that does a series of jobs for you that a human...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok

With a TikTok ban looming in the United States, Perplexity AI is the latest bidder hoping to give the video app a new corporate home. CNBC first reported on Perplexity’s interest. A source with knowledge of the offer confirmed to TechCrunch that Perplexity (whose CEO Aravind Srinivas is pictured...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Apple reportedly worked with a Chinese automaker to develop a battery for its now-canceled car

Apple worked with a Chinese automaker for years to design a battery system for its now-canceled car project. That’s according to Bloomberg, which reports that Apple was collaborating with BYD Co., a Shenzhen-based car company, to develop batteries using lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells. Apple...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Redwood Materials preps for expansion spree with new R&D center in San Francisco

Redwood Materials has been on an expansion tear in recent years — growth that has extended the lithium-ion battery recycling and materials startup’s footprint well beyond its Carson City, Nevada headquarters as it locked up deals with Toyota, Panasonic, and, GM, started construction on a South...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Meta rethinks smart glasses with Orion

Meta Connect 2024 was this week, showcasing new hardware and software to support two of the company’s big ambitions: AI and the metaverse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced new Quest headsets, updates to Meta’s Llama AI model, and real- time video capabilities of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The biggest...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Fortinet confirms customer data breach

On Thursday, cybersecurity giant Fortinet disclosed a breach involving customer data. In a statement posted online, Fortinet said an individual intruder accessed “a limited number of files” stored on a third-party shared cloud drive belonging to Fortinet, which included data belonging to “less than...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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Death Clock app predicts the date of your death

A new app called Death Clock predicts the date of its users’ deaths and offers tips on how to push that date back. TechCrunch wrote about an iPod Death Clock app way back in 2006 — but developer Brent Franson told Bloomberg that with an AI trained on more than 1,200 life expectancy studies, his app...

30+d ago | Share | Like

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