Category: TC

GitHub has announced a slew of updates for Copilot, while also giving a glimpse into a more agentic future for its AI-powered pair programmer. Among the notable updates includes a feature called Vision for Copilot, which allows users to attach a screenshot, photo, or diagram to a chat, with Copilot generating the interface, code, and…

Softbank could soon buy Renee James’ Ampere chip company for about $6.5B

February 5, 2025

Researchers created an open rival to OpenAI’s o1 ‘reasoning’ model for under $50

February 5, 2025

AI researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington were able to train an AI “reasoning” model for under $50 in cloud compute credits, according to a new research paper released last Friday. The model known as s1 performs similarly to cutting-edge reasoning models, such as OpenAI’s o1 and DeepSeek’s R1, on tests measuring math…

Stripe makes $1.1 billion crypto bet as it closes on Bridge acquisition

February 5, 2025

Stripe has closed on its $1.1 billion purchase of stablecoin platform Bridge – marking the payment giant’s largest acquisition to date and tangible push into crypto. Co-founded in 2022 by Coinbase and Square alumni Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, San Antonio, Texas-based Bridge built an API that helps companies accept stablecoins. The pair raised $58…

Workday cuts nearly 2,000 employees

February 5, 2025

Enterprise HR platform Workday is the latest tech company to announce layoffs in recent weeks. Silicon Valley-based Workday laid off 1,750 employees on Wednesday, as originally reported by Bloomberg and confirmed independently by TechCrunch. That total represents approximately 8.5% of headcount. Unlike many other tech companies, including Meta and Microsoft, Workday has not held drastic…

Tickets on sale: TechCrunch All Stage 2025, formerly known as Early Stage

February 5, 2025

Founders and investors, it’s time! TechCrunch Early Stage has evolved into TechCrunch All Stage 2025, returning to Boston on July 17. Get your tickets now and save up to $310 on select ticket types, securing your spot at the best rates. Register here for your All Stage ticket at unbeatable prices. All Stage covers all…

AI’s biggest stage awaits – TechCrunch Sessions: AI tickets available

February 5, 2025

AI is heating up, and we’re diving in! TechCrunch Sessions: AI is officially open for registration. Secure your spot now and save up to $300 on select tickets before prices rise From startup founders to AI investors to aspiring innovators — TC Sessions: AI is where the entire AI ecosystem comes together. Whether you’re building,…

A16z hires acquitted former Marine Daniel Penny as an investor

February 4, 2025

Powerhouse venture firm Andreessen Horowitz has hired Daniel Penny as an investor, its webpage confirms. Penny is the former Marine who was tried last year and found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of a homeless man on a New York City subway. After the man acted erratically, Penny held him in…

China may probe Intel for antitrust: report

February 4, 2025

Amid China’s retaliation to recently-announced U.S. tariffs, Intel may find itself in the hot seat with China’s regulators. China is apparently considering an antitrust probe into semiconductor giant Intel, according to reporting from the Financial Times. This would be in addition to the set of tariffs against the U.S. that China announced on Monday. Per…

OpenAI’s Operator agent helped me move, but I had to help it, too

February 4, 2025

OpenAI gave me one week to test its new AI agent, Operator, a system that can independently do tasks for you on the internet. Operator is the closest thing I’ve seen to the tech industry’s vision of AI agents — systems that can automate the boring parts of life, freeing us up to do the…

LinkedIn amps up vertical video tools as uploads jump 36%

February 4, 2025

Video reigns supreme on social media like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. And now, video is becoming a bigger business for LinkedIn. The Microsoft-owned social network for the working world has yet to go full TikTok. But with a big boost of usage — today it said that video uploads jumped by 36% compared to last…

No, DeepSeek isn’t uncensored if you run it locally

February 3, 2025

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: Secure your ticket at this year’s lowest rates

February 3, 2025

Missed the 2-for-1 deal for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025? No problem! Super Early Bird prices are still available, with savings of up to $1,130 on individual tickets and up to 30% on group passes. These savings are only good until the end of this month. Celebrate 20 years of TechCrunch Disrupt from October 27-29 at Moscone…

Dub: the copy trading app that has teens talking

February 2, 2025

Social media changed everything from news consumption to shopping. Now, Dub thinks it can do the same for investing through an influencer-driven marketplace where users can follow the trades of top investors with a few taps. Think of it as TikTok meets Wall Street. Founded by 23-year-old Steven Wang — a Harvard drop-out who began…

Shein app returns to India via Reliance deal

February 2, 2025

Chinese fast-fashion retailer Shein has relaunched in India through a partnership with Reliance Retail, nearly five years after it was banned amid diplomatic tensions between New Delhi and Beijing. The new Shein India Fast Fashion app, developed and launched by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail, marks the firm’s significant return to one of Asia’s largest…

OpenAI used this subreddit to test AI persuasion

January 31, 2025

OpenAI used the subreddit, r/ChangeMyView, to create a test for measuring the persuasive abilities of its AI reasoning models. The company revealed this in a system card – a document outlining how an AI system works – that was released along with its new “reasoning” model, o3-mini, on Friday. Millions of Reddit users are members…

Sam Altman believes OpenAI has been on the ‘wrong side of history’ concerning open source

January 31, 2025

To cap off a day of product releases, OpenAI researchers, engineers, and executives, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, answered questions in a wide-ranging Reddit AMA on Friday. OpenAI the company finds itself in a bit of a precarious position. It’s battling the perception that it’s ceding ground in the AI race to Chinese companies like…

Mistral board member and a16z VC Anjney Midha says DeepSeek won’t stop AI’s GPU hunger

January 31, 2025

Elon Musk is reportedly taking control of the inner workings of US government agencies

January 31, 2025

People working for, or with, Elon Musk are reportedly taking over the inner workings of multiple government agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management and the Treasury Department. The Washington Post reported Friday that the highest-ranking career official at Treasury is leaving the department after “a clash” with people working for Musk’s so-called Department of…

CFPB fines fintech Wise, alleging it charged deceptive fees

January 31, 2025

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has hit UK-based remittance company Wise with about a $2 million fine for what it described as “a series of illegal actions.” Those actions include advertising inaccurate fees and failing to properly disclose exchange rates and other costs, the CFPB alleges. Specifically, the agency claims that the fintech company…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: Last 24 hours for 2-for-1 Pass

January 31, 2025

Final hours for 2-for-1 Passes! One of the best Super Early Bird Deals for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 will be wrapping up in just 24 hours for the rest of the year. The 2-for-1 Pass lets you bring a friend, colleague, or business partner, for nearly free. Buy one pass at the Super Early Bird rate…

Intel has already received $2.2B in federal grants for chip production

January 30, 2025

Semiconductor giant Intel Corporation has already received $2.2 billion in federal grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce through the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, the company shared during its Thursday earnings call. Dave Zinsner, Intel’s co-interim CEO, executive vice president and CFO, said the Silicon Valley-based company received the first tranche of $1.1 billion…

Apple CEO says DeepSeek shows ‘innovation that drives efficiency’

January 30, 2025

Apple CEO Tim Cook said DeepSeek’s AI models represent “innovation that drives efficiency” on an earnings call on Thursday while fielding questions from analysts about the iPhone maker’s ambitions around AI. “In general, I think innovation that drives efficiency is a good thing. And, you know, that’s what you see in that model,” said Cook,…

Elon Musk reveals Elon Musk was wrong about Full Self-Driving

January 30, 2025

For nearly nine years, Elon Musk has promised Tesla vehicles had the hardware needed to support a self-driving car. This week, he made his latest admission that many are not. Musk said on a conference call Wednesday evening that Tesla cars equipped with so-called Hardware 3 will need an upgrade before they can support unsupervised…

a16z has venture scouts scattered across Europe

January 30, 2025

Despite news that Andreessen Horowitz closed its London crypto-focused office, the VC reportedly still has dozens of scouts in Europe looking for startups. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

How DeepSeek changed Silicon Valley’s AI landscape

January 30, 2025

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, and is providing these models at a fraction of the price American…

Little Umbrella’s next Jackbox-style game pits you and your friends against an AI game show host

January 30, 2025

Web-based party games are making a comeback, now with the infusion of generative AI. Among the startups joining the trend, the current forecast looks good for one startup, Little Umbrella, which leverages AI for its social party games. The company announced on Thursday its $2 million seed funding round. Little Umbrella plans to use the…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: Only 3 days left for 2-for-1 Pass

January 29, 2025

Only 3 days remain to score the ultimate deal for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 — two of the same ticket types for the price of one! Don’t wait to take advantage of these massive savings. This limited-time offer ends this Friday, January 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT — after that, these 2-for-1 Passes will be gone.…

Meteomatics eyes U.S. expansion for its enterprise-focused weather forecasting tools

January 29, 2025

Martin Fengler knows a lot about the weather. Fengler got his Ph.D. in mathematics, focused on numerical weather prediction, before working for Meteomedia AG, a network of weather stations in Switzerland and Germany. But while he knew a lot about weather forecasting from the prediction side, he realized the gaps that remained on the consumption…

Alice&Bob raises $104M, says quantum computers based on cat qubits will be ready by 2030

January 28, 2025

Quantum computing remains something of a holy grail in the world of technology: it promises a huge leap in computing power, but only if someone can figure out how to square away the fault rates that prevent any scaling of the tech. Now, one of the more promising quantum startups in Europe is announcing a…

ENGlobal says hackers accessed ‘sensitive personal’ data during cyberattack

January 28, 2025

DeepSeek displaces ChatGPT as the App Store’s top app

January 27, 2025

The mobile app for DeepSeek, a Chinese AI lab, skyrocketed to the number-one spot in app stores around the globe this weekend, topping the U.S.-based AI chatbot, ChatGPT. On iOS, DeepSeek is currently the No. 1 free app in the U.S. App Store and 51 other countries, according to mobile app analytics firm Appfigures. The…

AI startup DeepSeek pauses signups amid cyber incident

January 27, 2025

DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup that made waves in the AI world last week when it released its open-source R1 model, is pausing new user signups. The company has temporarily paused new user registrations this morning, according to CNBC reporting, due to a cyberattack. Existing users can still access their accounts with no issue. TechCrunch…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: 5 Days left to claim your 2 for 1 Passes at the lowest rate of the year

January 27, 2025

The clock is ticking for one of our Super Early Bird sales! You have just 5 days left to lock in your 2 for 1 Passes at the lowest rates of the year for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. Save up to $1,400 on two of the same individual ticket type. This limited-time offer ends this Friday,…

DeepSeek ‘punctures’ tech spending plans, and what analysts are saying

January 27, 2025

Chinese AI firm DeepSeek has emerged as a potential challenger to U.S. AI leaders, demonstrating breakthrough models that claim to offer performance comparable to leading chatbots at a fraction of the cost. The company’s mobile app, released in early January, has also topped iPhone charts across major markets including the U.S., UK, and China. Founded…

DeepSeek gets Silicon Valley talking

January 26, 2025

Since Chinese AI company DeepSeek released an open version of its reasoning model R1 at the beginning of this week, many in the tech industry have been making grand pronouncements about what the company achieved, and what it means for the state of AI. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, for example, posted that DeepSeek is “one…

Why Reid Hoffman feels optimistic about our AI future

January 26, 2025

In Reid Hoffman’s new book Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right With Our AI Future, the LinkedIn co-founder makes the case that AI can extend human agency — giving us more knowledge, better jobs, and improved lives — rather than reducing it. That doesn’t mean he’s ignoring the technology’s potential downsides. In fact, Hoffman (who…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets now on sale: Lowest rates ever

January 24, 2025

We’re kicking things off earlier than ever! TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets are officially on sale. Don’t miss your chance to snag them at the lowest rates of the year! Immerse yourself in the epicenter of tech innovation at Disrupt 2025! From October 27 to 29, Moscone West in San Francisco transforms into the global hub…

Waymo lobbyist activity in SF skyrocketed in 2024

January 24, 2025

Waymo lobbyists had a busy 2024. A recent review of lobbyist disclosure data by the San Francisco Examiner revealed Waymo paid lobbyists to meet with San Francisco government officials 348 times last year, more than double the 137 times it reported in 2023. The pop in lobbyist activity is in sync with Waymo’s expansion in…

Spacetech Voyager is aiming for a multi-billion valuation IPO

January 23, 2025

Coval evaluates AI voice and chat agents like self-driving cars

January 23, 2025

What do AI voice agents and self-driving cars have in common? Their performance can be evaluated in the same way, argues Brooke Hopkins, a former tech lead at Waymo. Coval, Hopkins’ new startup, looks to do just that. “When I left Waymo, I realized a lot of these problems that we had at Waymo were…

Neko, the body-scanning startup co-founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek, snaps up $260M at a $1.8B valuation

January 23, 2025

Stockholm startup Neko Health has made a big bet on consumers wanting to learn about their state of health and how to prevent things going wrong. Now, investors are making a big bet on Neko. The startup has raised a fresh $260 million in funding, a Series B that values Neko at $1.8 billion post-money,…

Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI cracked when it hired Mustafa Suleyman, rival Marc Benioff says

January 22, 2025

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets now on sale: Lowest rates ever

January 22, 2025

We’re kicking things off earlier than ever! TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets are officially on sale. Don’t miss your chance to snag them at the lowest rates of the year! Immerse yourself in the epicenter of tech innovation at Disrupt 2025! From October 27–29, Moscone West in San Francisco transforms into the global hub for technology…

Postman launches an AI agent builder on top of its API platform

January 22, 2025

Since it was founded in 2014, India-based Postman has made a name for itself as one of the most popular platforms for building and using APIs, with 500,000 organizations now using the service. Like with so many other SaaS services, though, its valuation today is reportedly down from its $5.6 billion high in 2021. But…

Trump pardons Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht

January 21, 2025

President Trump on Tuesday pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the infamous dark web exchange Silk Road, which was best known as a once-thriving online marketplace for illegal drugs. Trump announced the news in a Truth Social post, saying the pardon was in honor of Ulbricht’s mother and the Libertarian movement. In 2015, a federal…

Meta is building Oakley smart glasses for athletes: report

January 21, 2025

Meta’s Reality Labs is expanding its lineup of AI smart glasses with a new pair of Oakley-branded spectacles targeted at athletes, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Bloomberg reports the new smart glasses, with which Meta seeks to capitalize on the Ray-Ban Meta’s success, will be based on Oakley’s Sphaera glasses, and will shift the camera…

At the Microsoft Excel World Championship, selfies and a ‘hype’ tunnel

January 20, 2025

An arena. A hype tunnel, the kind through which NBA players typically streak. A competitor dressed in a jersey patterned with a six-pack abs. In a new piece, the New York Times takes readers to an event that organizers call the Microsoft Excel World Championship, a 40-minute, Las Vegas-based competition featuring 12 contestants — all…

DeepSeek claims its reasoning model beats OpenAI’s o1 on certain benchmarks

January 20, 2025

Chinese AI lab DeepSeek has released an open version of DeepSeek-R1, its so-called reasoning model, that it claims performs as well as OpenAI’s o1 on certain AI benchmarks. R1 is available from the AI dev platform Hugging Face under an MIT license, meaning it can be used commercially without restrictions. According to DeepSeek, R1 beats…

Sources: AI vision startup Metropolis is buying Oosto (formerly known as AnyVision) for just $125M

January 20, 2025

The general hype around all things AI is not lifting all boats: certain startups continue to struggle and are looking for exits. In one of the latest developments, TechCrunch has heard from a reliable source that Metropolis, an AI-powered parking platform, is buying Oosto, the controversial computer vision company that used to be known as…

Bluesky launches a custom feed for vertical videos

January 19, 2025

It is the product shipping time for all social networks with TikTok’s services in the restoration phase, and the app still unavailable in the App Store and the Play Store. Bluesky said Sunday that it is launching a custom feed for vertical video in its app. Users can see a trending videos section in the explore tab…

The Pentagon says AI is speeding up its ‘kill chain’

January 19, 2025

Leading AI developers, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, are threading a delicate needle to sell software to the United States military: make the Pentagon more efficient, without letting their AI kill people. Today, their tools are not being used as weapons, but AI is giving the Department of Defense a “significant advantage” in identifying, tracking,…

AI isn’t very good at history, new paper finds

January 19, 2025

OpenAI is trying to extend human life, with help from a longevity startup

January 17, 2025

OpenAI says it trained a new AI model called GPT-4b micro with Retro Biosciences, a longevity science startup trying to extend the human lifespan by 10 years, according to the MIT Technology Review. Retro, which is backed by Sam Altman, has been working with OpenAI for roughly a year on this research, according to the…

Malware stole internal PowerSchool passwords from engineer’s hacked computer

January 17, 2025

Trump spoke to China’s President Xi about TikTok just ahead of Supreme Court ruling

January 17, 2025

Just ahead of today’s Supreme Court ruling — which saw the nation’s highest court uphold the law banning TikTok in the U.S. as of January 19 — Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he had a “very good” phone call with China’s President Xi Jinping, which included discussion of TikTok. Though the U.S. president-elect…

Trump comments on TikTok ban

January 17, 2025

New York powerhouse VC Insight Partners nabs another $12.5B after $8B in exits

January 16, 2025

In AI copyright case, Zuckerberg turns to YouTube for his defense

January 15, 2025

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears to have used YouTube and its battle to take down pirated content to defend his own company’s use of a data set containing copyrighted e-books to train AI models, newly released snippets of his deposition reveals. The deposition, which was part of a complaint submitted to the court by plaintiffs’…

Hindenburg Research, a short seller that targeted tech and EV companies, is closing up shop

January 15, 2025

When Hindenburg Research posts a blog on its website, it often means a company’s final days are near. Today, that company is Hindenburg Research. Nate Anderson announced Wednesday he has shut down short-selling firm Hindenburg Research, after a seven-year run issuing damning reports about high-profile companies, including many of the technology world’s giants and buzzy…

Reusable rocket startup Stoke raised another massive round: $260M

January 15, 2025

LinkedIn adds free AI tools for job hunters and recruiters

January 15, 2025

If you’ve ever applied or thought of applying for a job via LinkedIn, you’ll know that the experience can be immediately disheartening: Openings that look interesting typically can see hundreds or thousands of applications in a matter of hours — data that LinkedIn, a social network for the world of work, proudly exposes in its…

SEC sues Elon Musk for allegedly failing to disclose Twitter acquisition on time

January 14, 2025

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk on Tuesday over an alleged securities violation relating to his acquisition of Twitter, now called X. The SEC claims Musk failed to disclose his 5% ownership stake of Twitter in a timely manner, violating federal securities law, according to a complaint filed in federal…

Meta execs obsessed over beating OpenAI’s GPT-4 internally, court filings reveal

January 14, 2025

Executives and researchers leading Meta’s AI efforts obsessed over beating OpenAI’s GPT-4 model while developing Llama 3, according to internal messages unsealed by a court on Tuesday in one of the company’s ongoing AI copyright cases, Kadrey v. Meta. “Honestly… Our goal needs to be GPT-4,” said Meta’s VP of Generative AI, Ahmad Al-Dahle, in…

TikTok users’ attempted migration to Chinese app RedNote isn’t going too well

January 14, 2025

American TikTok users have been thumbing their collective noses at the U.S. government’s decision to ban TikTok by spitefully joining another Chinese social media app, Red Note (aka Xiaohongshu), sending it to the top of the U.S. App Store on Monday. Unfortunately, many of those who already made the transition have faced problems with having…

ChatGPT now lets you schedule reminders and recurring tasks

January 14, 2025

Paying users of OpenAI’s ChatGPT can now ask the AI assistant to schedule reminders or recurring requests. The new beta feature, called tasks, will start rolling out to ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Pro users around the globe this week. With tasks, users can set simple reminders with ChatGPT such as, “Remind me when my passport…

Decentralized Instagram alternative Pixelfed launches mobile apps

January 14, 2025

Pixelfed, a decentralized alternative to Instagram, has launched its official mobile apps. The service today runs on the same ActivityPub protocol that powers an open source X alternative Mastodon, a YouTube competitor PeerTube, and other decentralized social apps, including now Meta’s Threads and Flipboard (plus its newer app, Surf), that are part of a growing…

Powerset gives founders $1 million to invest in other startups

January 14, 2025

Powerset, founded in late 2022, is an investment program with a simple hypothesis: what if the best investors aren’t venture capitalists but other founders, scribbling off checks in between late night coding sessions and board meetings? © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

North Korea stole over $659M in crypto heists during 2024, deploys fake job seekers

January 14, 2025

A joint international statement provides the first official confirmation that North Korea was behind the $235M hack of WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Robinhood agrees to pay $45M in SEC settlement

January 13, 2025

Robinhood has agreed to fork out $45 million to settle an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission over several alleged violations, reported the Wall Street Journal on Monday. The settlement is being made via two of Robinhood’s brokerage units. One of the violations relates to Robinhood’s November 2021 confirmation that it was hacked “with…

Groww, India’s biggest trading app, prepares for IPO

January 13, 2025

Groww, India’s largest retail stockbroker, is positioning itself to file for an IPO in 10-12 months and is seeking a valuation between $6 billion to $8 billion, sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch, in what would be a landmark listing for the country’s fintech sector. The Bengaluru-headquartered’s listing would be the first IPO by…

Watch Duty was downloaded 2 million times during this week’s LA fires

January 12, 2025

Fire-tracking app Watch Duty has become a crucial source of information for Los Angeles residents threatened by the ongoing wildfires. As TechCrunch’s Maxwell Zeff explained, the app relies on a network of active and retired firefighters, first responders, official government reports, and volunteer reporters who monitor radio scanners to offer real-time updates on active wildfires.…

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

January 12, 2025

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 Holdings. Wey, a premium…

Here are the five best pieces of founder advice I learned as a host of Found

January 12, 2025

After more than two years — and nearly 100 episodes — as a host of TechCrunch’s recently ended Found podcast, I have learned a lot about how founders approach building their startups. I’ve heard stories about how founders know when it is the right time to expand from their core product, to how startups approach…

Mark Zuckerberg defends Meta’s latest pivot in three-hour Joe Rogan interview

January 10, 2025

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended his decision to scale back Meta’s content moderation policies in a Friday appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Zuckerberg faced widespread criticism for the decision, including from employees inside his own company. “Probably depends on who you ask,” said Zuckerberg when asked how Meta’s updates have been received. The key updates…

TikTok ban: How both sides made their case to the Supreme Court and what the justices asked

January 10, 2025

On Friday, the nation’s highest court heard arguments on whether to uphold or block a law that could effectively ban TikTok in the U.S. The bill, signed into law by President Biden in April 2024, gives TikTok’s parent company ByteDance until January 19 to divest its U.S. operations or face a ban in the country.…

India’s payment push is cutting out Visa and Mastercard

January 10, 2025

As global regulators increase their scrutiny on Visa and Mastercard over merchant fees, India has chosen a different path: creating rival payment networks that are increasingly sidelining international card networks. The strategy builds on India’s Unified Payments Interface, known as UPI, a nine-year-old system that now processes more than 13 billion real-time transactions monthly, or…

Nvidia’s AI avatar sat on my computer screen and weirded me out

January 9, 2025

Nvidia unveiled a prototype AI avatar at CES 2025 that lives on your PC’s desktop. The AI assistant, R2X, looks like a video game character, and it can help you navigate apps on your computer. The R2X avatar is rendered and animated using Nvidia’s AI models, and users can run the avatar on popular LLMs…

TikTok tells LA staff impacted by wildfires to use personal/sick hours if they can’t work from home

January 9, 2025

Wildfires are currently devastating the greater Los Angeles area, burning over 45 square miles, torching over 1,300 structures, and putting nearly 180,000 people under evacuation orders as of Thursday. And yet, TikTok’s LA-based employees are being told to either continue their work from home or use their personal/sick days if that’s not possible, while the…

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

January 9, 2025

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 the double tap feature it released…

Elon Musk agrees that we’ve exhausted AI training data

January 8, 2025

Elon Musk concurs with other AI experts that there’s little real-world data left to train AI models on. “We’ve now exhausted basically the cumulative sum of human knowledge …. in AI training,” Musk said during a live-streamed conversation with Stagwell chairman Mark Penn streamed on X late Wednesday. “That happened basically last year.” Musk, who…

Gamers can’t fathom how 6x CEO Elon Musk found time to best Diablo IV

January 8, 2025

On October 16 and November 20, Elon Musk tweeted videos of himself clearing the highest level of the Diablo IV video game in about 2 minutes. While Diablo IV has been out since mid-2023, the latest “season,” called The Pit, launched on October 7. Many asked: How did he find the time to do it…

Omi, a competitor to Friend, wants to boost your productivity using AI and a ‘brain interface’

January 8, 2025

San Francisco startup Based Hardware announced the launch of a new AI wearable, Omi, to boost productivity during the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas this week. The device can be worn as a necklace where Omi’s AI assistant can be activated by saying “Hey Omi.” The startup also claims Omi can be attached to…

Sam Altman’s family responds to lawsuit alleging he sexually assaulted his sister

January 7, 2025

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded to sexual assault accusations from his estranged younger sister on Tuesday, calling the claims “entirely untrue.” According to the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, in a new lawsuit filed Monday, Annie Altman alleges her older brother sexually assaulted her over a nine-year period in the 1990s and 2000s. The suit echoes…

X hires former WSJ editor and bureau chief to lead news group

January 7, 2025

X, formerly Twitter, wants to make its platform a home to the future and news and journalism. On that front, the company has now hired John Stoll, a former editor and Detroit bureau chief at The Wall Street Journal to lead its news group and partnership team at X. The hiring news was announced on…

TechCrunch Space: New year, new milestones

January 6, 2025

Hi, and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. Happy New Year! And…surprise!: This will be the last edition of TechCrunch Space for the foreseeable future. I know, it’s a bummer. But fear not: We’ll still be reporting on space startups, so I hope you’ll stay tuned. And there will certainly be a lot to cover. This…

Kirin offers a taste of its electric salt spoon at CES 2025

January 5, 2025

On the first night of CES 2025, Kirin Holdings, a Japanese company known for its beer and beverages, showed off its new electronic spoon that makes your food taste saltier. The company says its spoon uses a weak electric current to concentrate sodium ion molecules in your food, adding a stronger umami and salt flavor…

Accel could raise billions for India, but it’s sticking to $650 million

January 5, 2025

Accel has maintained its India fund size at $650 million for its eighth vehicle, even as other venture firms in the region are racing to raise increasingly larger pools of capital. The firm had ample opportunity to raise “multi-billion dollars,” said Shekhar Kirani, partner at Accel, in an interview with TechCrunch. But unlike peers who…

United Airlines accelerates its Starlink rollout, with first commercial flight planned for spring

January 5, 2025

A few months ago, United Airlines announced its deal with Starlink to offer in-flight internet access for its passengers. At the time, the airline said it would start testing the new service in early 2024 and then offer it on passenger flights later in the year. United has now accelerated this timeline a bit, with…

New ship, new year: SpaceX to deploy model Starlink satellites on next Starship launch

January 3, 2025

SpaceX is significantly upping the ante of its Starship test flight program, with the next rocket launch expected to demonstrate payload deployment for the first time. The payload in question will be 10 Starlink “simulators” that will be similar in size and weight to the next-gen satellites SpaceX plans to use Starship to deploy in…

Meta policy chief Nick Clegg steps down

January 2, 2025

The President of Meta’s Global Affairs team, Nick Clegg, is stepping down from his position at the company, the executive announced in a tweet on Thursday. Clegg, Meta’s politically centrist policy chief since 2018, will be replaced by one of the company’s most prominent Republican executives, Joel Kaplan. Clegg noted on X that Kaplan is…

Internal SpaceX documents show the sweet stock deals offered to investors like a16z, Gigafund

January 1, 2025

Like many highly valued startups, SpaceX sometimes allows its employees to cash out some of their shares by selling to company-authorized outside investors. TechCrunch has gotten a peek at an internal SpaceX document about such a tender offer from May 2022. Musk posted on X last month that SpaceX holds such sales for employees about…

Silicon Valley stifled the AI doom movement in 2024

January 1, 2025

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 also benefited their wallets.…

Elon Musk’s pro-Trump critics claim they’re being censored on X

December 31, 2024

Backed by a16z and QED, Brazilian startup Carecode puts AI agents to work on healthcare

December 30, 2024

AI holds huge promise for healthcare, but not just on the medical side; many startups are convinced machine learning-based systems can do a lot of good on adjacent tasks such as appointment scheduling and confirmations. Brazilian startup Carecode is among these AI believers. It’s coming out of stealth with an ambition to reduce healthcare costs…

Nvidia’s next move: powering humanoid robots

December 29, 2024

The chipmaking giant Nvidia is leaning more heavily into robotics in 2025. More specifically, it’s launching a new generation of compact computers for humanoid robots, called Jetson Thor, in the first half of the new year, confims the Financial Times. The move, which was expected, is part of an evolving, years-long strategy. Back in March,…

Crypto industry groups sue IRS over broker reporting rule

December 29, 2024

Three crypto industry groups — the DeFi Education Fund, the Blockchain Association, and the Texas Blockchain Council — are suing the Internal Revenue Service to block new regulations that require decentralized finance (DeFi) entities to report customer information. The IRS has been finalizing crypto tax regulations as part of the Biden Administration’s Infrastructure Investment and…

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