Friday, January 31, 2025

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

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

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Autonomous vehicle testing in California dropped 50%. Here’s why.

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Tech companies developing self-driving vehicle technology have tapped the brakes on testing on California’s public roads, according to new data from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. The agency reported Friday a total of 4.5 million autonomous vehicle test miles were logged in 2024, a 50% drop from the previous year. That figure covers two […]

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

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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 […]

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OpenAI used this subreddit to test AI persuasion

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OpenAI used the subreddit, r/ChangeMyView, to create a test for measuring the persuasive abilities of its AI reasoning models. The company said so 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 […]

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

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Midha says R1 won't stop AI from spending billions.It means they will do more with the compute power they can obtain.

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MLCommons and Hugging Face team up to release massive speech data set for AI research

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MLCommons, a nonprofit AI safety working group, has teamed up with AI dev platform Hugging Face to release one of the world’s largest collections of public domain voice recordings for AI research. The data set, called Unsupervised People’s Speech, contains more than a million hours of audio spanning at least 89 different languages. MLCommons says […]

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‘Hundreds’ of companies are blocking DeepSeek over China data risks

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Some companies are blocking DeepSeek over concerns their data will end up with the Chinese government.

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Microsoft is forming a new unit to study AI’s impacts

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Microsoft says that it’s creating a new unit, the Advanced Planning Unit (APU), within its Microsoft AI business division that will help the company understand the societal, health, and work implications of AI the company hopes to build. Microsoft AI, which encompasses Microsoft’s Copilot, Bing, and Edge products, is becoming core to Microsoft’s growth strategy […]

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WeDoSolar pivots to B2B, after stake acquired by Chinese solar giant

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Last year Wind and solar energy overtook fossil fuels to provide 30% of the EU’s electricity. With that in the background, startups in the solar space have been riding a generational change in how we get our power. In 2022 we covered how a small B2C European startup planned to bring solar to homes via […]

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AI startup Perplexity sued for alleged trademark infringement

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Perplexity, the venture-backed startup building AI-powered search products, has been sued in federal court for allegedly violating another company’s trademark. In a complaint filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, attorneys representing a company called Perplexity Solved Solutions accuse Perplexity of infringing on its trademark rights by using the […]

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A brief history of mass-hacks

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Hackers are increasingly abusing bugs in popular enterprise software to target big companies in mass-hacking campaigns

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Backed by Mayo Clinic, Nutrix’s hardware monitors worker stress

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Stress isn’t just bad for you — it’s also bad for your employer. Factoring in absenteeism, diminished productivity, turnover, medical costs, and accidents, the non-profit American Institute of Stress estimates that workplace stress costs U.S. businesses over $300 billion annually. One way to measure stress is by monitoring cortisol levels. Even influencers know this, with […]

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

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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 […]

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Pentagon scrambles to block DeepSeek after employees connect to Chinese servers

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The Pentagon is rushing to block DeepSeek on its network after some employees used the service, which stores data in China.

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

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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 ended December 28, up 14% year-over-year. Services generated nearly $100 […]

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Apple CEO says DeepSeek shows ‘innovation that drives efficiency’

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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, […]

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

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Apple’s latest earnings were a mixed bag filled with slipping iPhone sales and 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 reported net income of […]

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Google quietly announces its next flagship AI model

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Google has quietly announced the launch of its next-gen flagship AI model, Gemini 2.0 Pro Experimental, in a changelog for the company’s Gemini chatbot app. The launch of Gemini 2.0 Pro Experimental, the successor the Gemini 1.5 Pro model Google launched last February, comes as the tech world remains fixated on Chinese AI startup DeepSeek. […]

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

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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 Michelle Johnston Holthaus said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Thursday, […]

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

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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 […]

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US Justice Department sues to block HPE’s $14B acquisition of Juniper Networks

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U.S. prosecutors are seeking to block the deal citing antitrust concerns.

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How DeepSeek changed Silicon Valley’s AI landscape

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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 […]

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Data center operator DataBank nets $250M equity investment

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The data center market is booming, driven by AI demand. Just last week, OpenAI said that it plans to team up with backers including SoftBank to spend at least $100 billion on data center infrastructure in the U.S. Microsoft aims to put around $80 billion toward AI infrastructure this year, and rival tech giants have […]

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International police coalition takes down two prolific cybercrime and hacking forums

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Authorities said the two forums — Cracked and Nulled — had more than 10 million users.

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Amazon hikes prices for its Music Unlimited subscriptions

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Amazon is the latest company to announce a price hike for its music streaming subscriptions. The company revealed this week that the price of an Amazon Music Unlimited Individual plan for Prime members is going from $9.99 per month to $10.99. As for subscribers without a Prime membership, the price of their subscription is going […]

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European embedded banking startup Swan adds another $44 million to its Series B

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French startup Swan has raised another €42 million (around $44 million at current exchange rates). The company considers this round as the second part of the Series B round that was originally announced in September 2024. Swan helps other companies offer financial products at scale. The company can generate both virtual and physical cards that […]

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SoftBank in talks to invest as much as $25B in OpenAI, report says

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SoftBank is in talks to invest up to $25 billion in OpenAI as part of a broader partnership that could see the Japanese conglomerate spend more than $40 billion on AI initiatives with the Microsoft-backed startup, according to Financial Times. The potential investment would make SoftBank OpenAI’s largest single backer, the report said, surpassing Microsoft, […]

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Meta says end of fact-checking hasn’t impacted ad spend

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Meta says its controversial decision to put an end to its fact-checking program hasn’t impacted advertiser spend. On its Q4 2024 call, Meta CFO Susan Li assured investors that advertiser demand remains strong and the company’s commitment to brand safety remains unchanged, despite the new measures. Meanwhile, CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that the community notes […]

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Zuck shrugs off DeepSeek, vows to spend hundreds of billions on AI

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Meta is doubling down on AI spending despite markets briefly panicking over concerns DeepSeek will reduce AI demand.

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LinkedIn passes $2B in premium revenues in 12 months, with overall revenues up 9% on the year

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LinkedIn, the social platform where people look for and talk about work, may be less visible in Microsoft’s earnings compared to the years when it was an independent company. But around earnings time, LinkedIn often reveals some figures that point to how it continues to grow. On Wednesday, as Microsoft reported its Q2 numbers, the […]

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Elon Musk claims Tesla will launch a self-driving service in Austin in June

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday that his company will launch a paid ride-hailing robotaxi service in Austin, Texas this coming June, the latest in a long line of sky-high promises he has yet to meet about autonomy. Musk was unsurprisingly light on details. He said that there will be no people in the cars, […]

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Threads adds another 20M monthly users since December, reaching 320M

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Threads, Meta’s microblogging service, is growing at a fast pace as users gravitate to the app over rivals like X. During the company’s fourth-quarter earnings presentation on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Threads now has 320 million monthly active users (MAUs), up from 300 million last month. The app had 275 million monthly active […]

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Hackers are hijacking WordPress sites to push Windows and Mac malware

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A cybersecurity company says hackers are pushing Mac and Windows malware through sites that are using outdated versions of WordPress.

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Health insurance startup Alan keeps growing at a rapid pace

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With its 700,000 customers, Alan could be considered as a mature company. But the health insurance company that wants to become a digital companion for your health is still growing like a startup. On Wednesday, the company shared some financial metrics. The most impressive one is its top-line revenue. In 2024, the company generated €505 […]

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Netflix adds a convenient feature for iOS users to download an entire TV season at once

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Netflix announced on Wednesday that it’s giving iOS users a new feature that allows them to download an entire season of their favorite TV show with one tap. The feature first became available to Android users. The Season Download button is available in the Netflix app, located next to the Share button on a show’s […]

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Ireland and Italy send data watchdog requests to DeepSeek: ‘The data of millions of Italians is at risk’

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The jury is still out on whether the Chinese AI upstart DeepSeek is a game changer or part of an elaborate plan by its hedge fund parent company to short Nvidia and other tech stocks. Whichever it might be (maybe both?), DeepSeek and its large language model have made some major waves. And now, it’s […]

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Resolution Games announces Battlemarked, an upcoming VR Dungeons & Dragons game

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Last year, Wizards of the Coast and Resolution Games announced an exciting development: Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), the popular tabletop role-playing game (RPG), is being adapted for virtual reality. Until now, specific details about the new game have been kept closely under wraps. However, on Wednesday, the companies finally unveiled the official title and more […]

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UVeye racks up another $191 million for its vision-based ‘MRI for cars’

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UVeye started as a play to scan cars for security threats, but the Israeli startup really hit its stride when its founders realized the AI-powered computer vision systems could perform more typical vehicle inspections. Now, the company is evolving its funding strategy. UVeye announced Wednesday morning a $191 million extension to its 2023 Series D […]

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DeepSeek reaches No. 1 on US Play Store

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Chinese AI lab DeepSeek's Android app has taken the No. 1 spot on the Google Play Store, days after the chatbot app clinched the top spot on the App Store.

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Shared scooter startup Voi reports its first profitable year as it explores an IPO

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Swedish shared micromobility giant Voi had its first profitable year in 2024, according to preliminary unaudited results the company shared exclusively with TechCrunch. Voi, which offers shared e-scooters and e-bikes across more than 100 markets in Europe, recorded €132.8 million ($138 million) in net revenue in 2024. On an adjusted basis, Voi earned €17.2 million […]

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Naboo secures $21M for its concierge-style corporate event booking platform

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If you’ve ever tried to book a venue for a company event, you’ll know how onerous a task it can be. You have to contact multiple vendors, wait for quotes, evaluate them, see if you can get a good deal, and then get all that approved. So it makes sense that depending on the size […]

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SoftBank to invest $500M in robotics startup SkildAI

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SoftBank is negotiating a $500 million investment in Skild AI, a software company building a foundational model for robotics at a $4 billion valuation, Bloomberg and Financial Times reported. The two-year-old company raised its previous funding round of $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation last July from investors including Jeff Bezos, Lightspeed Venture Partners, […]

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Italy sends first data watchdog request to DeepSeek: ‘The data of millions of Italians is at risk’

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The jury is still out on whether the Chinese AI upstart DeepSeek is a game changer or possibly part of an elaborate plan by its hedge fund parent company to short Nvidia and other tech stocks. Whichever it might be (maybe both?), DeepSeek and its large language model has made some major waves. Now, it’s […]

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

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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. DeepSeek’s AI models, which were trained using compute-efficient techniques, have led Wall Street analysts — and technologists — to question whether the U.S. can maintain its lead in the AI race […]

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David Sacks claims there’s ‘substantial evidence’ that DeepSeek used OpenAI’s models to train its own

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David Sacks, Trump’s AI and crypto “czar,” said in an interview on Fox on Tuesday that there’s “substantial evidence” that Chinese AI company DeepSeek “distilled” knowledge from OpenAI’s AI models, a process that Sacks compared to theft. Sacks, who didn’t cite the source of this “evidence,” suggested that DeepSeek used responses from OpenAI models to […]

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DeepSeek triggered a wild, baseless rally for some Chinese stocks

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Hype around DeepSeek sent the stock price of several Chinese companies soaring, but proof of their ties to DeepSeek is non-existent.

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GM expects to save up to $1 billion on Cruise costs

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General Motors expects to save up to $1 billion annually by ending its Cruise robotaxi development program, CEO and Chair Mary Barra said Tuesday during the company’s earnings call. The estimate comes nearly two months after the automaker said it would no longer fund Cruise, its self-driving subsidiary that aimed to commercialize robotaxis. “GM has […]

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Apple fixes zero-day flaw affecting all devices

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The zero-day bug was fixed in iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple TVs, Apple Watches and Vision Pro headsets.

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Hugging Face makes it easier for devs to run AI models on third-party clouds

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AI dev platform Hugging Face has partnered with third-party cloud vendors including SambaNova to launch Inference Providers, a feature designed to make it easier for devs on Hugging Face to run AI models using the infrastructure of their choice. Hugging Face says partners including Fal, Replicate, Together AI, and the aforementioned SambaNova have worked with […]

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Zepto shifts domicile to India as local listings gain appeal

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Quick commerce startup Zepto has completed its shift of domicile from Singapore to India, joining a growing wave of Indian startups moving their headquarters back home ahead of public listings. The transition marks the fastest domicile shift to India by a foreign-headquartered startup, according to Zepto’s chief financial officer Ramesh Bafna. The Indian authorities recently […]

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TravelPerk raises $200M as valuation nearly doubles to $2.7B

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Barcelona-based business travel management platform TravelPerk has raised $200 million at a hefty $2.7 billion valuation — almost double the $1.4 billion valuation at its previous fundraise last year. Alongside the raise, TravelPerk also announced it has acquired Swiss startup Yokoy to bring native expenses management into the fray. With the travel and tourism industry […]

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Google Maps will soon rename Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’

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Google will rename the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Denali mountain in Google Maps once a federal mapping database reflects changes ordered by the Trump Administration, the company announced Monday. Google is complying with an executive order issued last week by President Donald Trump that changed the names of several American landmarks. The executive order […]

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Reid Hoffman’s Manas AI raises $24.6M, a fraction of other AI drug discovery startups

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LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Siddhartha Mukherjee, cancer researcher and author of the book “The Emperor of All Maladies,” have co-founded an AI-powered drug discovery startup, Manas AI. The company, which will initially focus on breast cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma, has raised $24.6 million in seed funding from Hoffman, General Catalyst, and Greylock. Manas […]

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Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is already using DeepSeek instead of OpenAI at his startup, Gloo

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The tech industry's reaction to AI model DeepSeek R1 has been wild. Pat Gelsinger, for instance, is elated and thinks it will make AI better for everyone.

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SonicWall says hackers are exploiting a new zero-day bug to breach customer networks

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SonicWall said the bug is "confirmed as being actively exploited in the wild" by malicious hackers.

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Quartz has been quietly publishing AI-generated news articles

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Quartz, the international business news outlet, has been quietly aggregating reporting from other outlets, including TechCrunch, in order to publish AI-generated articles under the byline “Quartz Intelligence Newsroom.” Quartz started publishing simple AI-generated earnings reports months ago, but beginning last week, the outlet moved on to short articles. One of the 18 AI-generated articles published […]

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How to switch off Apple Intelligence on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac

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Here's a step-by-step guide on how to turn off and disable Apple Intelligence from your devices.

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Nvidia drops $600B off its market cap amid the rise of DeepSeek

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DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, became the talk of the proverbial AI town when it released its R1 model on Friday. R1’s functionality and accuracy compared to its U.S. counterparts, despite using fewer resources and less compute power, seems like a win for the overall AI industry. But it isn’t necessarily good news for everyone. […]

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

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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 […]

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OpenAI-backed 1X acquires Kind Humanoid

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1X has acquired Kind Humanoid, the Norwegian robotics startup told TechCrunch on Monday. The deal marks a small but key consolidation for a humanoid robotics industry on the brink of a major moment in 2025. TechCrunch spoke with Kind Humanoid in October, when the then-three-person startup announced that it had enlisted famed designer Yves Behar […]

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AI startup DeepSeek pauses signups amid cyber incident

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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 […]

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Viral AI company DeepSeek releases new image model family

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DeepSeek, the viral AI company, has released a new set of multimodal AI models that it claims can outperform OpenAI’s DALL-E 3. The models, which are available for download from the AI dev platform Hugging Face, are a part of a new model family that DeepSeek is calling Janus Pro. They range in size from […]

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Meta AI can now use your Facebook and Instagram data to personalize its responses

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Meta says that it is rolling out improvements to Meta AI, its cross-platform chatbot, including the ability have the bot “remember” details from conversations. In a post on Meta’s official blog, the company said that, in chats with Meta AI on Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp for iOS and Android in the U.S. and Canada, users can […]

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

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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, […]

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How the ransomware attack at Change Healthcare went down: A timeline

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The hack at Change Healthcare stands as the biggest breach of U.S. medical data in history, exposing 190 million people's data.

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

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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 […]

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TalkTalk investigating data breach after hacker claims theft of customer data

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A hacker claims to be selling the data of 18.8 million TalkTalk customers, but the telecoms giant says this figure is ‘significantly overstated’

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Perplexity submits a new bid for TikTok

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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 reporting is accurate. The […]

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DeepSeek gets Silicon Valley talking

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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 […]

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Why Reid Hoffman feels optimistic about our AI future

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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 […]

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2025 will likely be another brutal year of failed startups, data suggests

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More startups shut down in 2024 than the year prior and a high volume of startup failures will continue, data from multiple sources.

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As demand for data centers soars, real estate companies look to become energy developers

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Brendan Wallace has a lot on his mind lately. Wallace is the co-founder of Fifth Wall Ventures, a nine-year-old proptech venture firm with $3.2 billion in assets under management. He’s also a homeowner in L.A., which continues to battle raging wildfires. While his place remains intact, many of his friends haven’t been so lucky. Wallace […]

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Trump administration reportedly negotiating an Oracle takeover of TikTok

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The Trump administration is negotiating a deal that would see Oracle take over TikTok alongside new U.S. investors, according to a report in NPR. Lawmakers passed a bill last year forcing Chinese parent company ByteDance to either sell TikTok or see it banned in the U.S. The app briefly went dark before the law took […]

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Will states lead the way on AI regulation?

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2024 was a busy year for lawmakers (and lobbyists) concerned about AI — most notably in California, where Gavin Newsom signed 18 new AI laws while also vetoing high-profile AI legislation. And 2025 could see just as much activity, especially on the state level, according to Mark Weatherford. Weatherford has, in his words, seen the […]

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OpenAI wants to take over your browser

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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 general-purpose AI agent that can […]

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Paul McCartney calls on UK government to protect artists from AI

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Legendary musician Paul McCartney is warning against proposed changes to UK copyright law that would allow tech companies to freely train their models on online content unless the copyright holders actively opt out. In excerpts of an interview with the BBC, McCartney said the government needs to do more to protect musicians and other artists. […]

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Wall Street banks plan sale of X debt at a discount

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Bankers are reportedly gearing up to offload debt used to fund Elon Musk’s social network, for which he paid $44 million in 2022 including $13 billion in financing. Morgan Stanley is leading the charge, hoping to sell senior debt at between 90 and 95 cents on the dollar, reports the WSJ. As notes the outlet, […]

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UnitedHealth confirms 190 million Americans affected by Change Healthcare data breach

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The number of individuals confirmed to be affected by the data breach is almost double the company's previous estimate.

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

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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, allegedly after becoming hooked on the company’s technology. In October, Megan Garcia filed a lawsuit against Character AI in the U.S. District […]

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

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Sam Altman-backed Retro Biosciences is raising $1 billion to develop drugs that extend human lifespan by 10 years, the FT reports.

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US users dumped RedNote after Trump paused the TikTok ban

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In the days leading up to the TikTok ban in the U.S. on Sunday, U.S. users flooded the Chinese app RedNote, which offered a similar experience to their favorite short-form video app. The app, which is listed in the U.S. App Store under its Chinese name Xiaohongshu, quickly became the No. 1 free app in […]

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French e-bike startup Angell nears bankruptcy

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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 on the French version of “Shark […]

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Threads is testing ads in the U.S. and Japan

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Meta’s X rival Threads said Friday that it is now testing ads with select brands in the U.S. and Japan. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said that the company will listen to feedback before expanding this experiment in other markets. “We know there will be plenty of feedback about how we should approach ads, and we […]

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Mark Zuckerberg says Meta will have 1.3M GPUs for AI by year-end

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company plans to significantly up its capital expenditures this year as it aims to keep pace with rivals in the cutthroat AI space. In a Facebook post Friday, Zuckerberg said that Meta expects to spend $60 billion-$80 billion on capex in 2025, primarily on data centers and growing […]

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Flip, the TikTok Shop rival, launches a creator fund that grants up to $100M of equity

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Flip is a social commerce app that lets shoppers become creators. They can share honest reviews and earn cash based on engagement on the platform. As Flip competes with TikTok Shop and other platforms in a highly competitive market, it has introduced a new creator fund that offers a unique opportunity to help it stand […]

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US indicts five individuals in crackdown on North Korea’s illicit IT workforce

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The multi-year scheme saw the defendants generate hundreds of thousands in revenue.

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Tata acquires 60% stake in Apple partner Pegatron’s India unit

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Tata Electronics has acquired a 60% controlling stake in the Indian arm of Apple assembly partner, Pegatron, as the conglomerate expands its iPhone manufacturing capacity in the country. Taiwan-based Pegatron operates an iPhone production plant near Chennai in India’s sourthern state of Tamil Nadu. The deal comes less than a year after Tata Electronics acquired […]

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Madrona just announced its biggest fund ever, closing on $770M as other venture funds grow smaller

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Seattle-based Madrona Capital is celebrating its 30 years in business by raising $770 million in fresh capital. This is the firm’s largest fundraise to date, exceeding $690 million across two funds Madrona closed in 2022. While an 11% capital pool upsize may not seem significant, any increase at a time when many venture outfits are […]

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Reliance plans world’s biggest AI data centre in India, report says

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Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance is planning to build what could become the world’s largest data center in Jamnagar, India, with a capacity of three gigawatts to capitalize on surging AI demand. The facility would dwarf the current largest data center, Microsoft’s 600-megawatt site in Virginia, Bloomberg reported Friday. The project could cost between $20 billion to […]

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Tesla’s redesigned Model Y is coming to North America in March for $60,000

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Tesla has announced that its redesigned Model Y SUV is coming to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico in March, with a starting price just shy of $60,000. The news comes just two weeks after Tesla first revealed the new-look Model Y and said it was coming to China and other Asian markets, also in March. […]

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Even some of the best AI can’t beat this new benchmark

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The nonprofit Center for AI Safety (CAIS) and Scale AI, a company that provides a number of data labeling and AI development services, have released a challenging new benchmark for frontier AI systems. The benchmark, called Humanity’s Last Exam, includes thousands of crowdsourced questions touching on subjects like mathematics, humanities, and the natural sciences. To make […]

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OpenAI says it may store deleted Operator data for up to 90 days

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OpenAI says that it might store chats and associated screenshots from customers who use Operator, the company’s AI “agent” tool, for up to 90 days — even after a user manually deletes them. OpenAI has a similar deleted data retention policy for ChatGPT, its AI-powered chatbot platform. However, the retention period for ChatGPT is only […]

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

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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 applications — and understand the context […]

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Trump orders formation of working group to evaluate crypto stockpile

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President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the formation of a working group to propose federal regulations for “digital assets” — including cryptocurrencies, digital tokens, and stablecoins — and evaluate a national crypto stockpile. Ex-PayPal COO and founder of VC firm Craft Ventures David Sacks, Trump’s pick for crypto an AI ‘czar,’ will lead the working […]

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Passbolt raises $8M for its open source password manager for teams

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Password managers have become commonplace at this point. But businesses often have different needs than consumers. Teams, after all, often have to share credentials to access resources, all while IT and security teams need ways to control who has access to them. Passbolt, which is announcing an $8 million seed round Thursday, aims to become […]

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Hackers found a way to remotely unlock, start, and track millions of Subarus

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As long as employees have access to such data, that information is vulnerable to evolving methods of hacking.

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Hugging Face claims its new AI models are the smallest of their kind

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A team at AI dev platform Hugging Face has released what they’re claiming are the smallest AI models that can analyze images, short videos, and text. The models, SmolVLM-256M and SmolVLM-500M, are designed to work well on “constrained devices” like laptops with under around 1GB of RAM. The team says that they’re also ideal for […]

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WhatsApp wins reprieve in India over user data sharing

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An Indian tribunal on Thursday suspended restrictions that would have barred WhatsApp from sharing user data with its parent company Meta, delivering a significant victory for Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire in its largest market by users. The ruling by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal temporarily lifts a five-year ban imposed by India’s competition […]

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

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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, […]

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Someone bought the domain ‘OGOpenAI’ and redirected it to a Chinese AI lab

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A software engineer has bought the website “OGOpenAI.com” and redirected it to DeepSeek, a Chinese AI lab that’s been making waves in the open source AI world lately. Software engineer Ananay Arora tells TechCrunch that he bought the domain name for “less than a Chipotle meal,” and that he plans to sell it for more. […]

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Google buys part of HTC’s XR business for $250 million

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Google has agreed to acquire a part of HTC’s extended reality (XR) business for $250 million, expanding its push into virtual and augmented reality hardware following the recent launch of its Android XR platform. The deal involves transferring some of the HTC VIVE engineering staff to Google and granting non-exclusive intellectual property rights, according to […]

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Some shareholders of a16z-backed Divvy Homes may not see a dime from $1B sale

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The $1 billion acquisition of rent-to-own startup Divvy Homes, which was announced Wednesday, is expected to leave some shareholders without a payout, according to sources familiar with the deal. The terms — and Divvy’s journey from buzzy startup to acquisition target — reflects the rollercoaster ride the proptech industry has endured over the past decade. […]

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Raymond Tonsing’s Caffeinated Capital seeks $400M for fifth fund

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Caffeinated Capital, a San Francisco venture firm started by a solo capitalist Raymond Tonsing, is raising a fifth fund of $400 million, according to a regulatory filing. The firm, an early investor in software company Airtable and defense startup Saronic, has already raised $160 million toward the fund. If Caffeinated hits its target, it will […]

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Ati Motors raises $20M as India’s robotics industry grows

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Ati Motors, an Indian startup building AI-powered autonomous mobile robots, has raised $20 million in a Series B round.

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Microsoft’s head of venture has resigned

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Chris Young, Microsoft's head of of business development and its venture unit, M12, resigned from his role on Wednesday, the company said.

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

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In this suit, workers are claiming they suffered PTSD from disturbing content.

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Nearly 10 year later, Tumblr TV launches to all as a TikTok alternative

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In 2015, the blogging site Tumblr launched a GIF discovery feature called Tumblr TV as an experimental product. Now, with the U.S. TikTok ban leaving the fate of the short-form video app uncertain, Tumblr has decided it’s finally time to launch Tumblr TV, which has since evolved to support video, to all its users as […]

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Dewey launches a solution to save your TikTok favorites … just in case

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TikTok is back online in the U.S. for the time being, but its future remains uncertain. While many apps have been scrambling to attract TikTok users and creators, a bookmarking backup service called Dewey has launched a solution that saves your favorite TikTok videos and allows you to access them at any time — even […]

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

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YouTube said Wednesday that it is adding new experimental features for Premium users, including high-quality audio, 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 users can activate from youtube.com/new. The company said […]

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TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets now on sale: Lowest rates ever

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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 […]

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Conduent confirms outage was due to a cybersecurity incident

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U.S. government contractor Conduent, which provides technology to support services such as child support and food assistance, has confirmed that a recent outage was caused by a cybersecurity incident. Conduent confirmed the disruption, which left some U.S. residents without access to support payments, to TechCrunch on Tuesday but declined to say whether the outage was […]

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Trump open to Elon Musk or Larry Ellison buying TikTok

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President Donald Trump has said he would be open to Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Oracle chairman Larry Ellison buying TikTok as part of join venture with the U.S. government. Trump was asked at a press conference on Tuesday if he was open to “Elon buying TikTok.” He responded that he would be, and added: […]

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Vertice raises $50M for its AI-powered SaaS spend platform

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London startup Vertice has made a name for itself over the years in the very crowded world of expense management with a focus on applying AI to optimize a single area where businesses, collectively, are currently sinking hundreds of billions of dollars in IT budgets that are exceeding $5 trillion annually: software and cloud spend. […]

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Truecaller brings real-time caller ID to iPhone users

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Truecaller for iOS has been updated with live caller ID support for its premium iPhone users.

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Trump pardons Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht

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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 […]

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MrBeast is reportedly now among those trying to buy TikTok

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An unlikely group, including Mr Beast and Bench acquirer Employer.com, has submitted a bid to buy TikTok.

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Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg sanctioned by judge for allegedly deleting emails

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A Delaware judge has sanctioned Sheryl Sandberg, Meta’s former COO and board member, for allegedly deleting emails related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. The decision arises from a case Meta shareholders brought against Sandberg and another former Meta board member, Jeff Zients, late last year. The plaintiffs alleged that Sandberg and Zients used personal […]

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Microsoft is no longer OpenAI’s exclusive cloud provider

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Microsoft was once the exclusive provider of data center infrastructure for OpenAI to train and run its AI models. No longer. As part of Stargate, the company’s massive new infrastructure deal with SoftBank, Oracle, and others, Microsoft says that it has signed a new agreement with OpenAI that gives it “first right of refusal” on […]

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OpenAI teams up with SoftBank and Oracle on $500B data center project

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OpenAI says that it will team up with Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and with Oracle, along with others, to build multiple data centers for AI in the U.S. The joint venture, called The Stargate Project, will begin with a large data center project in Texas and eventually expand to other states. The companies expect to commit $100 […]

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Amperesand targets data centers as the next big customer for its solid-state transformers

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Amperesand’s technology replaces the iron cores that define old transformers with silicon carbide.

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Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang has published an open letter lobbying Trump to invest in AI

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Scale AI's CEO Alexandr Wang has five recommendations for President Trump to keep the US ahead of China on AI.

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Startup founders flooded inauguration parties hopeful for dealmaking

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All throughout America’s capital, founders enjoyed the fruits of their industry’s political jockeying.

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Funding to fintechs continues to decline, but at a slower pace

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Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at just how much fintech startups raised in 2024, a slew of fundraising deals, Plaid’s reported revenue growth last year, and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here. The […]

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Stripe is laying off 300 people, but says it still plans to hire in 2025

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Fintech giant Stripe is laying off 300 people, according to a leaked memo reported on Tuesday by Business Insider. The affected employees are “largely in product, engineering, and operations roles,” the memo said. Despite the layoffs, Chief People Officer Rob McIntosh said that Stripe intends to still grow its headcount by 17% “to land at […]

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Forum software NodeBB joins the fediverse

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Before there was social media, there were internet forums. Millions of forum sites continue to operate, which is why it’s notable that one top forum software provider, NodeBB, is now joining the fediverse, also known as the open social web. The fediverse today includes apps like decentralized X rival Mastodon, Instagram alternative Pixelfed, an open […]

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Samsung Unpacked 2025: Here’s how to watch and what we expect

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The biggest reveal from last week’s Samsung CES press conference may well have been another press conference. The hardware giant closed out the main event by teasing the company’s upcoming show. The next Samsung Unpacked event is set for Wednesday at 10 a.m. PT. As with all recent Unpacked events, next week’s big show will […]

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Meta will soon let you link your WhatsApp account with Instagram and Facebook

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Meta announced on Tuesday that users will soon be able to add their WhatsApp account to their Accounts Center, a hub where users can manage connected experiences across their Facebook, Instagram, and Meta Quest accounts. With this integration, users will be able to cross-post their WhatsApp Status as Stories on Instagram and Facebook, getting rid […]

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IMDb founder steps down as CEO after 35 years

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IMDb, the Amazon-owned online database that provides information on movies, TV shows, and celebrities, announced on Tuesday that its founder, Col Needham, is stepping down as CEO. Nikki Santoro, who has served as the Chief Operating Officer since 2021, has been appointed as his successor. Santoro’s appointment is significant, as she is the first woman […]

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Karmen secures $9.4 million for its revenue-based financing products

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French startup Karmen has secured a small funding round so that it can improve its instant financing products. The company offers short-term loans to small companies facing a working capital crunch. It’s a €9 million equity-and-debt round ($9.4 million at today’s exchange rates) with Seventure Partners buying a stake in the small startup. Financière Arbevel […]

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President Trump signs exec order to make Musk’s DOGE commission more official

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The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory commission spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk recommending deep cuts to federal agencies, could soon become more official, should an executive order signed by President Donald Trump pass legal muster. On Monday evening, Trump signed an order that renames the U.S. Digital Service, which was created in 2014 […]

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Trump signs exec order, delaying TikTok enforcement action for 75 days

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President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at restoring TikTok service in the U.S. The order instructs relevant government agencies to “pursue a resolution” that “protects national security” while “saving [TikTok.]” Via the order, Trump is instructing the U.S. Attorney General not to take any action for 75 days to enforce the Protecting […]

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President Trump repeals Biden’s AI executive order

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During his first day in office, President Donald Trump revoked a 2023 executive order signed by former President Joe Biden that sought to reduce the potential risks AI poses to consumers, workers, and national security. Biden’s executive order directed the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to author guidance that helps companies […]

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UK to unveil ‘Humphrey’ assistant for civil servants with other AI plans to cut bureaucracy

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A week after the U.K. government announced a sweeping plan to make big investments into AI, it’s laying out more details around how this will take shape in the public sector. On the agenda: AI assistants to speed up public services; data sharing deals across siloed departments; and a new set of AI tools — […]

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OpenAI’s agent tool may be nearing release

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OpenAI may be close to releasing an AI tool that can take control of your PC and perform actions on your behalf. Tibor Blaho, a software engineer with a reputation for accurately leaking upcoming AI products, claims to have uncovered evidence of OpenAI’s long-rumored Operator tool. Publications including Bloomberg have previously reported on Operator, which […]

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Friend delays shipments of its AI companion pendant

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Friend, a startup creating a $99, AI-powered necklace designed to be treated as a digital companion, has delayed its first batch of shipments until Q3. Friend had planned to ship devices to pre-order customers in Q1. But according to co-founder and CEO Avi Schiffman, that’s no longer feasible. “As much as I would liked to […]

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US safety regulators expand Ford hands-free driving tech investigation

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A U.S. federal safety regulator has “upgraded” its investigation into Ford’s hands-free advanced driver assistance system known as BlueCruise — a required step before a recall can be issued. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation launched a probe into Ford BlueCruise last April after the agency confirmed the system was active […]

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

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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 […]

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Flipboard’s new app Surf adds its own video feed, too

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After the TikTok ban went into effect on Sunday, social network Bluesky launched a custom feed for videos on its platform. Now, Flipboard’s newest app, Surf, which is dedicated to browsing the open social web and decentralized services like Mastodon and Bluesky, is taking advantage of that move to introduce a video feed of its […]

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RedNote, Flip, Clapper and Likee claim the top of the App Store as TikTok comes back online

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TikTok may be back, but that hasn’t prevented other Chinese competitors from gaining users. In the lead up to a ban on TikTok — which kicked off Sunday and lasted a day — a number of other video apps rose through the ranks and now dominate the App Store’s Top Charts. The Chinese app RedNote […]

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Meta confirms it will keep fact-checkers outside the U.S. ‘for now’

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Meta says it plans to keep its fact-checking program in place outside the U.S. for the time being, though it could eventually expand it elsewhere. “We’ll see how that goes as we move it out over the years,” Meta’s head of global business Nicola Mendelsohn told Bloomberg in a report from Davos on Monday. “So […]

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Here are the types of AI companies enterprise VCs want to back in 2025

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The AI startup market is sprawling, from companies looking to develop new chips, to those using AI to build robots, to others looking to use AI to create niche solutions for industry-specific workflows. There are a lot of potential areas for venture capitalists to invest in, but there are clearly a few subsectors they are […]

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How African VC firm Oui Capital returned its first fund with Moniepoint’s unicorn exit

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At a recent investor meeting, early-stage African investor Oui Capital informed limited partners that it had returned its $4 million debut fund following the sale of some shares in the business banking platform Moniepoint. The African fintech unicorn has so far proven to be a standout investment for five-year-old Oui Capital. When it launched its […]

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Bluesky launches a custom feed for vertical videos

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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 […]

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How to stream Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day 2025

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Donald Trump will take the presidential oath of office on Monday in front of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., once again. The event takes place at noon ET and is expected to attract considerable attention from both supporters and opponents. How to stream Trump’s inauguration You can watch the inauguration live with cable or […]

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How to stream Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day 2025

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

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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, […]

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TikTok is restoring service in the US

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Barely more than 12 hours after TikTok went dark in the United States, the video-sharing app is coming back online. “In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service,” the company said in a statement. “We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers […]

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TikTok goes dark in the US

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TikTok has gone dark in the U.S., the result of a federal law that bans the popular short-form video app for millions of Americans — at least for now. TikTok users began receiving a message about the ban around 10:30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday evening, and the app also disappeared from the Apple and Google […]

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Trump says he will delay TikTok ban, suggests a joint venture with US ownership

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TikTok went dark for users in the US on Saturday night, but it may not be gone for long. President-elect Donald Trump posted on Truth Social this morning that he will issuing an executive order Monday that will “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a […]

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

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Top LLMs performed poorly on a high-level history test, a new paper has found.

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Apple lists all apps it removed alongside TikTok in the U.S.

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Amid the TikTok shutdown, in a rare move, Apple 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 for when it blocks apps. Notably, other ByteDance apps, including CapCut, Lemon8 — which surged in the last few months — and […]

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TikTok goes dark in the US

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TikTok has gone dark in the U.S., the result of a federal law that bans the popular social media app for millions of Americans — at least for now. TikTok users began receiving a message about the ban around 10:30 p.m. Eastern. As of Saturday evening, the app was also no longer available in the […]

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Perplexity AI submits bid to merge with TikTok

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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 above) has submitted a bid to […]

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FTC says partnerships like Microsoft-OpenAI raise antitrust concerns

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The Federal Trade Commission said in a staff report issued Friday that there are potential competitive issues in partnerships between big tech companies and generative AI developers — specifically, Microsoft’s backing of OpenAI and Amazon and Alphabet/Google’s partnerships with Anthropic. “The FTC’s report sheds light on how partnerships by big tech firms can create lock-in, […]

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What we know about the TikTok ban

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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 that will effectively ban […]

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Once high-flying proptech startups Divvy Homes and EasyKnock are the latest to struggle

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Many proptech startups, born and funded during the low-interest-rate heydays, are in the throes of struggle. With investments into U.S.-based real estate startups falling from $11.1 billion in 2021 to $3.7 billion last year, according to PitchBook data, some are selling themselves off, while others are closing shop. The two most recent examples are the […]

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TikTok says it will go dark Sunday unless Biden offers ‘definitive statement’

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It remains unclear whether TikTok will still be available in US app stores Sunday, with the company claiming that President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration needs to offer “definitive” assurances that it won’t enforce the ban. On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld a law that would effectively ban TikTok in the United States if the app’s […]

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EV startup Canoo files for bankruptcy and ceases operations

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Seven-year-old electric vehicle startup Canoo has filed for bankruptcy and will “cease operations immediately.” The company is liquidating its assets in a Chapter 7 proceeding in the Delaware Bankruptcy Court. The company said in a press release published late Friday that it was “in discussions with foreign sources of capital” that proved unsuccessful, and also […]

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Amazon suspends U.S. drone deliveries following crash at testing facility

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Amazon has paused testing of its delivery drones following a crash involving two of its models, according to Bloomberg. It’s the latest setback for Amazon’s beleaguered Prime Air program, which aims to deliver around 500 million packages a year to customers by the end of the decade. Bloomberg reports two Amazon drones crashed in rainy […]

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ChatGPT’s head of product will testify in the US government’s case against Google

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The U.S. government has picked Nick Turley, ChatGPT's head of product, to testify in its antitrust case against Google.

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Malware stole internal PowerSchool passwords from engineer’s hacked computer

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The theft of a PowerSchool engineer's passwords prior to the breach raises further doubts about the company's security practices.

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Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd to reclaim CEO position in March

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Bumble announced today that founder Whitney Wolfe Herd is returning as CEO after stepping down from the position in 2023. Wolfe Herd will succeed Lidiane Jones, the company’s current CEO who has left for “personal reasons,” Bumble explained. Jones, the former CEO of Slack, will continue her role at Bumble until the transition takes effect […]

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

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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 […]

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Rivian finalizes $6.6B loan for its Georgia factory

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Rivian and the Department of Energy have finalized a $6.6 billion loan announced in November with just a few days left until Donald Trump’s inauguration. The company will use the loan to help build out its planned factory in Georgia, east of Atlanta, with construction beginning in 2026. The first R2 SUVs are scheduled to […]

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Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban

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The Supreme Court has upheld the law that will effectively ban TikTok on Sunday, January 19. The decision marks the end of TikTok’s months-long legal fight against a law that essentially forces the ByteDance-owned app to shut down unless it divests its US operations. As of Sunday, it will be illegal for app stores and […]

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Apple brings Store app to Indian market

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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 directly while receiving personalized shopping recommendations, the company said in […]

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FAA had to divert flights because of SpaceX Starship explosion

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The Federal Aviation Administration has told TechCrunch that it had to “briefly” slow and divert a number of aircraft near the area where debris was seen falling after SpaceX’s Starship exploded during a test flight Thursday. Multiple flights could be seen entering holding patterns or completely changing course in the airspace near Puerto Rico shortly […]

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SpaceX catches Starship booster a second time, loses ship to an ‘anomaly’ in space

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SpaceX caught the Starship rocket’s Super Heavy booster for a second time, after it launched the upper stage into space on Thursday during a seventh test flight of the system. Soon after the successful catch, SpaceX representatives reported the ship was lost after the company lost contact about eight and half minutes into the flight. […]

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SpaceX catches Starship booster a second time, loses ship to an ‘anomaly’ in space

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Despite VCs investing $75B in Q4 , it’s still hard for startups to raise money, data proves

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After two years of relatively muted investment activity, it seems that VCs are starting to pour capital into startups at pandemic-era levels once again. But a closer look shows that they aren’t really. In the fourth quarter of last year, investors funneled $74.6 billion into US startups, a substantial increase from the average of $42 […]

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TikTok ban poised to be delayed as Trump explores ways to extend deadline

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The U.S. ban on TikTok is poised to be delayed as the deadline falls on a holiday weekend and President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration intends to find a way to extend the deadline, Bloomberg reports. Biden officials sees the issue as one for Trump’s incoming administration, as the current administration doesn’t plan to intervene before the […]

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Polestar digs in for another grim year

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Volvo spinoff Polestar had a rough 2024, and 2025 looks like it could be just as difficult. The EV maker announced Thursday that it expects to generate less revenue in fiscal year 2024 than it did in 2023, after previously estimating sales would stay the same. That’s thanks to “fewer than expected Polestar 3 and […]

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Teal Health raises $10M to create at-home cervical cancer screenings

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The process of getting screened for cervical cancer is quite intimidating. It’s the once-a-year, sometimes life-changing treatment, that involves the bright lights of a doctor’s office and an uncomfortable insertion that always seems to last too long. It’s no wonder why Kara Egan and Dr. Avnesh Thakor saw the potential to make this process more […]

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Amazon to acquire Indian fintech Axio in credit push

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Amazon has agreed to acquire Indian buy now pay later startup Axio, deepening its push into financial services in one of its fastest-growing markets as it seeks to expand credit access to millions of underserved customers. The US technology group, which has held an equity stake in Axio for six years, signed the acquisition agreement […]

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