TechCrunch Industry News
3,880 episodes — Page 21 of 78
Always-on video portal lets people in NYC and Dublin interact in real time
A new sculpture going live on Wednesday in the Flatiron South Public Plaza in New York is not your typical artwork. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Match looks to Hinge as Tinder fails
Match Group, the company that owns several dating apps, including Tinder and Hinge, released its first-quarter earnings report on Tuesday, which shows that Tinder’s paying user base has decreased for the sixth quarter in a row. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bedrock Studio is Amazon’s attempt to simplify generative AI app development
Amazon is launching a new tool, Bedrock Studio, designed to let organizations experiment with generative AI models, collaborate on those models, and ultimately build generative AI-powered apps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Rivian loses $1.45 billion as cost-cutting measures continu
Rivian lost $1.45 billion in the first quarter, showing that its recent company-wide cost-cutting measures have a ways to go before it can approach profitability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Threads is testing cross-posting from Instagram globally
Meta is encouraging more users to post to its X rival Threads. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apple teased AI improvements, including the M4’s neural engine, at its iPad event
Tuesday's theme focused on the new hardware devices themselves — devices like new iPads and an updated Apple Pencil — not on the AI advances Apple is making under the hood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Match-owned Archer hits over half a million installs amid dating app slump
It’s been almost one year since Match Group announced the launch of Archer, the online dating giant’s first app for gay, bi, and queer men. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Farewell, dunks? Threads launches quote controls for all users
Threads users can now exert more control over who can quote their posts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
UnitedHealth data breach should be a wakeup call for the UK and NHS
The ransomware attack that has engulfed U.S. health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group and its tech subsidiary Change Healthcare is a data privacy nightmare for millions of U.S. patients, with CEO Andrew Witty confirming this week that it may impact as much as one-third of the country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NASA is expanding its Wallops Island facility to support three times as many launches
NASA is kicking off a formal environmental assessment of its facilities on Wallops Island, Virginia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NASA orders studies from private space companies on Mars mission support roles
Mars exploration has been always been the exclusive purview of national space agencies, but NASA is trying to change that, awarding a dozen research tasks to private companies as a prelude to commercial support for future missions to the Red Planet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Peloton announces 400 layoffs, 15% of the workforce, as CEO Barry McCarthy departs
Peloton, the exercise equipment maker and creator of online fitness classes, has announced that it’s laying off 15 percent of its workforce — 400 people — as CEO, president, and board director Barry McCarthy steps down after two years in the role. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Amazon CodeWhisperer is now called Q Developer and is expanding its functions
Pour one out for CodeWhisperer, Amazon’s AI-powered assistive coding tool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Elon Musk guts Tesla’s charging team after winning over major automakers
Tesla has gutted its charging team in a new round of layoffs, despite recently winning over major automakers like Ford and General Motors and making its connector the defacto standard in North America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bumble’s “Opening Move” feature takes the pressure off women to come up with a new message every time
As Bumble prepares for its app relaunch this summer, the women-first dating platform announced a series of product updates on Tuesday, including a new feature that lets women prepare questions to send to matches, additional dating intention preferences and prompts, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The first-ever race between four self-driving cars and a Formula 1 driver just happened in Abu Dhabi
Wander the pits at any professional motorsports event, especially something like Formula 1, and you’ll see endless computer displays full of telemetry Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Zomato’s quick commerce unit Blinkit eclipses core food business in value, says Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs said in a report late Thursday that Indian food delivery giant Zomato’s quick commerce arm Blinkit is now more valuable than its core food delivery business, as per the bank’s sum-of-the-parts analysis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
OpenAI inks strategic tie-up with UK’s Financial Times, including content use
OpenAI, maker of the viral AI chatbot ChatGPT, has netted another news licensing deal in Europe, adding London’s Financial Times to a growing list of publishers it’s paying for content access. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Google’s new ‘Speaking practice’ feature uses AI to help users improve their English skills
Google is testing a new “Speaking practice” feature in Search that helps users improve their conversational English skills. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The IBM-HashiCorp coupling could be more complicated than it seems
At a quick glance the IBM-HashiCorp deal seems like a good one for both sides, but upon closer inspection, perhaps not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TikTok pulls feature from Lite app in EU over addiction concerns
TikTok suspended a gamification feature in the European Union following an intervention by the bloc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Mark Zuckerberg says Threads has 150 million monthly active users
Meta’s Twitter/X rival Threads is growing at a stable pace. The social network now has more than 150 million monthly active users Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tesla profits drop 55%, company says EV sales ‘under pressure’ from hybrids
Tesla profits fell 55% to $1.13 billion in the first quarter from the same year-ago period as a protracted EV price-cutting strategy continued to cut into the automaker’s bottom line Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
X is launching a TV app for videos ‘soon’
X, the company formerly known as Twitter, is launching a dedicated TV app for videos uploaded to the social network soon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Framework’s repairability philosophy is set to expand beyond the laptop
Framework Computer was ahead of the curve. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Perplexity is raising $250M+ at a $2.5-$3B valuation for its AI search platform, sources say
Perplexity, the AI search engine startup, is a hot property at the moment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TikTok Shop expands its secondhand luxury fashion offering to the UK
TikTok Shop, TikTok’s social commerce marketplace, is launching a secondhand luxury category in the U.K., putting it in closer competition with The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective, Depop, Poshmark, and Mercari, among others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tinder gets a ‘Share My Date’ feature for users to send date plans to their curious friends
It’s not uncommon for people to screenshot dating profiles and send them to their friends and loved ones, either to get feedback or to let them know who they’re seeing that weekend Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Robots can make jobs less meaningful for human colleagues
Much has been (and will continue to be) written about automation’s impact on the jobs market. In the short term, many employers have complained of an inability to fill roles and retain workers, further accelerating robotic adoption. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Internet users are getting younger; now the UK is weighing up if AI can help protect them
Artificial intelligence has been in the crosshairs of governments concerned about how it might be misused for fraud, disinformation and other malicious online activity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Alphabet X’s Bellwether harnesses AI to help predict natural disasters
The world is on fire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ramp raises another $150 million co-led by Khosla, Founders Fund at a $7.65B valuation
Spend management startup Ramp has raised another $150 million at a valuation of $7.65 billion, the company confirmed to TechCrunch today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Kickstarter launches pre-orders for completed campaigns
Once a Kickstarter campaign is complete, you need to turn to a creator’s own page to pre-order the products — that is, until now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Waymo begins robotaxi testing in Atlanta
Waymo, the self-driving company under Alphabet, began testing its robotaxis in Atlanta on Tuesday, adding another city to its ever-expanding testing and deployment domain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Meta’s Oversight Board probes explicit AI-generated images posted on Instagram and Facebook
The Oversight Board, Meta’s semi-independent policy council, it turning its attention to how the company’s social platforms are handling explicit, AI-generated images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Bluesky now allows heads of states to sign up for the social network
Social networking platform Bluesky lifted its ban on sign-ups for heads of state over the weeken Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Meta’s ‘consent or pay’ tactic must not prevail over privacy, EU rights groups warn
Ahead of a full meeting of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) this week (April 16 and 17), which is expected to produce guidance on a controversial tactic used by Meta to force Facebook and Instagram users to consent to its tracking, almost two dozen civil society groups and nonprofits have penned an open letter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Space Force tees up new ‘responsive space’ mission from Rocket Lab and True Anomaly
Each company will design and build a satellite capable of rendezvousing with other spacecraft in orbit at close proximity, as well as command and control centers for the mission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
X is removing ability to hide checkmarks for premium users
Last year, Elon Musk-owned social network X rolled out a feature for paid users to hide their checkmarks from others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Elon Musk accused of profiting from tragedy as study finds X rewards hate targeting Israel-Gaza war
A few weeks after defeating Elon Musk’s attempt to silence it in court, anti-hate research nonprofit, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, is back with a new piece of research into Musk’s social media platform X. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apple opens access to used iPhone components for repair
Apple announced that it has opened its iPhone repair process to include used components. Starting this fall, customers and independent repair shops will be able to fix the handset using compatible components. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Proxima Fusion raises $21M to build on its ‘stellarator’ approach to nuclear fusion
Munich-based Proxima has raised €20 million ($21.7M) in a seed round to begin building its first generation of fusion power plants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tesla risks losing its lead without an inexpensive EV
Given flagging sales of the company’s existing product line, a mass-market electric vehicle would be a welcome shot in the arm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
With Vertex AI Agent Builder, Google Cloud aims to simplify agent creation
AI agents are the new hot craze in generative AI. Unlike the previous generation of chatbots, these agents can do more than simply answer questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Google announces Axion, its first custom Arm-based data center processor
Google says its Axion instances offer 30% better performance than other Arm-based instances from competitors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Microsoft AI gets a new London hub fronted by former Inflection and Deepmind scientist Jordan Hoffmann
Microsoft has announced a new London hub for its recently unveiled consumer AI division. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Spotify launches personalized AI playlists that you can build using prompts
AI playlists will initially become available to users on Android and iOS devices in the U.K. and Australia and will be iterated on in the months ahead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Ford delays new EVs once more, showing why legacy automakers need to adopt a startup mentality
Ford is unusual in that it performs best when thinking like a startup, something it appears to have taken to heart recently, EV delays notwithstanding. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tesla slashes Model Y inventory prices by as much as $7,000
Tesla is dropping prices of unsold Model Y SUVs in the U.S. by thousands of dollars in an attempt to clear out an unprecedented backlog of inventory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Rooms, a 3D design app and ‘cozy game,’ gets a major update as users jump to 250K
Five months ago, Rooms, a 3D design platform made by ex-Google employees, launched its beta version on the App Store. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices