TechCrunch Industry News

Russian crypto exchange Garantex has yet to directly address the international law enforcement operation that resulted in the seizure of its domains, and criminal charges against two of its administrators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just weeks after Google said it would review its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the Google for Startups Founders Fund webpage is peppered with changes. Most notably Google is now using past tense to describe all of its fund programs for underrepresented founders. This is a change that took place after December. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Scale AI is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Labor for compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the rise of AI companions who serve as online friends or romantic interests, experts are questioning how the technology affects our real-world social connections and relationships. According to Kasley Killam, author of the social health-focused book “The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Private search engine DuckDuckGo is leaning further into the generative AI opportunity. The non-tracking search engine has been dabbling with expanding the role of AI assistance in its product for the past year, including launching a chatbot-style interface last fall — available at Duck.ai. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An international coalition of law enforcement agencies seized the official website of Garantex, which has previously been sanctioned by the U.S. and E.U. governments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic has quietly removed from its website several voluntary commitments the company made in conjunction with the Biden Administration in 2023 to promote safe and “trustworthy” AI. The commitments, which included pledges to share information on managing AI risks across industry and government and research on AI bias and discrimination, were deleted from Anthropic’s transparency Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ryan Breslow is once again the CEO of Bolt, the fintech company told TechCrunch on Wednesday. Bolt shared a communication that recently went out to investors in which Breslow wrote that “following a challenging few years,” he had been reinstated as Bolt’s CEO with “unanimous approval” of the board of the one-click checkout company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Venture investment to startups founded by women in Europe declined 12% in 2024, but it was in line with the 11% decrease in venture investment overall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Colossal Biosciences, known for its outlandish goal to resurrect the woolly mammoth by 2028, is claiming steady progress. It’s evidence: Genetically engineering mice to have mammoth-like fur. To engineer the woolly mouse, the company’s scientists found mouse versions of mammoth genes and then used CRISPR to edit mice embryos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

HackerPulse builds dashboards of information pulled from engineering tools to show how and where engineers spend their time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban waded into the latest government tech shake-up on Saturday, posting an unexpected offer of support for newly laid-off federal workers on the social network Bluesky. His message, which quickly gained traction, urged the displaced engineers and designers to turn the upheaval to their advantage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After kickstarting the market for making calls over the internet 23 years ago, Skype is closing down. Microsoft, which acquired the messaging and calling app 14 years ago, said it will be retiring it from active duty on May 5 to double down on Teams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mozilla has responded to user backlash over the Firefox web browser’s new Terms of Use, which critics have called out for using overly broad language that appears to give the browser maker the rights to whatever data you input or upload. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The automated logic behind many financial decisions — for example, decisions that determine whether a client is approved for a credit line — is hard-coded. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Inception, a new Palo Alto-based company started by Stanford computer science professor Stefano Ermon, claims to have developed a novel AI model based on “diffusion” technology. Inception calls it a diffusion-based large language model, or a “DLM” for short. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s no sure-fire approach to sales enablement, the process of providing a sales team with the resources it needs to close deals. Some teams are deficient on the prospecting side — that is, identifying and contacting potential customers. Others require help getting deals over the finish line. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Framework, the company that is better known for its modular, repairable laptops, just released its first desktop computer. It’s a small desktop PC that punches above its weight. The most interesting part is what’s inside the device. Framework is one of the first companies to use AMD’s recently announced Strix Halo architecture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Tuesday, Google introduced a new, free consumer version of its AI code completion and assistance tool, Gemini Code Assist, and which the company calls Gemini Code Assist for Individuals. The company also rolled out Gemini Code Assist for GitHub, a code review “agent” designed to automatically look for bugs in code and offer suggestions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Adobe announced on Tuesday it’s bringing its popular design and editing software Photoshop to mobile, starting with iOS. The company plans to launch a Photoshop for Android app later this year. With the new Photoshop for iPhone app, users can access both free and paid features through a mobile-friendly design that’s accessible on the go. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.S. government is leaning hard on tech companies to make more commitments to building their businesses in the country, and Big Tech is falling in line. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Palantir co-founder and CEO Alexander Karp opens his new book with a provocative declaration: “Silicon Valley has lost its way.” Over the past decade or so, as the data analytics company rose to prominence for its work with U.S. military and intelligence, Karp has largely stayed out of the limelight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rivian’s cost–cutting measures have gotten it a lot closer to profitability, but the company is warning that 2025 could still be a challenging year – especially because of the whorl of uncertainty caused by the new Trump Administration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google is pulling its AI assistant Gemini from the main Google app for iOS devices. The move is meant to encourage users to download the standalone Gemini app instead, which would allow Google to more directly compete with other consumer-facing AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A study by the Pew Research Center found that Americans’ views of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg skew more negative than positive. While Zuckerberg has sparked chatter in Silicon Valley with his sudden interest in high fashion, the Meta CEO is less popular than President Trump’s right-hand man, Elon Musk, the report found. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recommendation algorithms operated by social media giants TikTok and X have shown evidence of substantial Far Right political bias in Germany ahead of a federal election that takes place Sunday, according to new research carried out by Global Witness Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Career product manager Amanda DeLuca has launched a parenting management app, Riley, born out of her own experience with parental anxiety and feedback from other families. DeLuca, who previously at Google, Nerdwallet, and Eventbrite, in addition to Etsy, became pregnant three years ago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It has been more than two years since ChatGPT burst on the scene. Shortly after that, it seemed like almost every email app integrated AI-powered email writing and summaries. Some also introduced AI-powered search for you to sift through your inbox quickly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Researchers found that PirateFI was never designed to be a real game, but a vehicle to infect gamers with malware and steal their passwords with an infostealer called Vidar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon is shutting down “Inspire,” its TikTok-like, short-form video and photo feed that was previously available in its mobile app. The feed allowed users to discover products and shop from content created by influencers, brands, and other customers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As gaming platforms like Roblox and Minecraft continue to grow in popularity among young children, and with platforms like YouTube consuming hours of their daily screen time, edtech companies face challenges in capturing their attention. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Copyright claims against AI companies just got a potential boost. A U.S. federal judge last week handed down a summary judgment in a case brought by tech conglomerate Thomson Reuters against legal tech firm Ross Intelligence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ICON, which builds homes using 3D printing, has closed on $56 million in Series C funding co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Tiger Global, the company has confirmed to TechCrunch exclusively. The raise represents a first close for the Austin-based ICON, according to a spokesperson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Airbnb is planning to first introduce AI to its customer support system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new startup founded by a former Google DeepMind scientist is exiting stealth with $50 million in funding. Latent Labs is building AI foundation models to “make biology programmable,” and it plans to partner with biotech and pharmaceutical companies to generate and optimize proteins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Information security company CyberArk has acquired identity access and governance platform Zilla Security in a deal worth up to $175 million. Founded in 1999, Boston-based CyberArk specializes in access management, including privileged access security which helps organizations protect sensitive data and critical infrastructure from external (and internal) threats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot platform, may not be as power-hungry as once assumed. But its appetite largely depends on how ChatGPT is being used, and the AI models that are answering the queries, according to a new study Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

E-commerce startups built around food continue to gobble up funding as investors look for sticky consumer concepts that can scale without breaking the bank. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

HR giant Workday is launching a new way for enterprises to keep track of all of their AI agents in one place. It’s also launching a few more AI agents of its own, for good measure. Silicon Valley-based Workday announced on Tuesday the release of Workday Digital Workforce Management, which is meant to help customers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a statement on Tuesday, Dario Amodei, the CEO of AI startup Anthropic, called the AI Action Summit in Paris this week a “missed opportunity,” and urged the AI industry — and government — to “move faster and with greater clarity.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Security experts say the ‘draconian’ order would have global ramifications that make this a privacy ‘emergency for us all’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ride-hail giant Lyft plans to bring fully autonomous robotaxis, powered by Mobileye, to its app “as soon as 2026” in Dallas, with more markets to follow, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The news comes a day before Lyft shares its fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 earnings report Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A number of startups are racing to make vehicle inspections faster, easier, and cheaper. Self Inspection, a startup based in San Diego, thinks it has them all beat with its AI-powered service — and now it has convinced outside investors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

France’s public investment bank announced that it plans to invest as much as €10 billion (around $10.3 billion at current exchange rates) in the artificial intelligence ecosystem in France. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As cancer rates in the West, and globally, tack upwards due to lifestyle and environmental pollution, so does the need for the nuclear isotopes used in detecting those cancers in a medical setting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After consumer protection scrutiny dialed up on fast-fashion giant Shein in the European Union on Wednesday, the bloc’s executive announced Thursday that it’s sent a fresh request for information to the ecommerce platform under the Digital Services Act (DSA), a pan-EU online governance framework Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Modern Synthesis’s fibers can be manipulated in ways that simple plant fibers cannot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Both startups and big tech companies have aggressively used AI to help developers write code or learn programming better. People have used chatbots to prepare for different scenarios in life, like interviews. Tech assessment platform CodeSignal, which introduced a learning platform for technical subjects with AI assistants last year, launched soft skill courses on its platform Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On a clear spring evening in Michigan, the stars aligned — just not in the way Upfront Ventures partner Nick Kim expected. He’d just led a $9.5 million seed round for OurSky, a software platform for space observational data, and was eager to see what its telescope partner PlaneWave Instruments could do. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Norway-based browser maker Opera on Tuesday launched a new browser called “Opera Air,” which focuses on mental well-being and mindfulness with features like break reminders, breathing exercises, soundscapes, and binaural beats for better focus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices