TechCrunch Industry News
3,880 episodes — Page 22 of 78
X is giving blue checks to influential users (which is what blue checks were supposed to be all along)
So, basically this means that if you are a popular poster, you will get a blue check. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Opera allows users to download and use LLMs locally
Web browser company Opera announced today it will now allow users to download and use Large Language Models (LLMs) locally on their computer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AWS unveils new service for cloud-based rendering projects
Amazon announced Deadline Cloud, a new service that lets customers set up, deploy and scale up graphics and visual effects rendering pipelines on AWS cloud infrastructure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TikTok is bringing its dedicated STEM feed to Europe
As TikTok continues to face increased pressure in the U.S. and the U.K., the company is signaling its commitment to fostering educational content on its app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Indeed announces AI-powered work experience writer and support for multiple resumes
Hiring portal Indeed has redesigned the profile page for users, allowing individuals to use an AI-powered writer to fill up work experience and also added support for multiple resumes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
MIT tool shows climate change could cost Texans a month and a half of outdoor time by 2080
Finally, something that makes climate change relatable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TikTok ban could harm Amazon sellers looking for alternatives
In March, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that could force ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a ban in U.S. app stores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apple dismisses Microsoft monopoly comparisons
A week after finding itself at the business end of a landmark lawsuit from the United States Department of Justice, Apple is staunchly denying any parallels between itself and Microsoft in the 1990s. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
X’s Grok chatbot will soon get an upgraded model, Grok-1.5
X.ai, Elon Musk’s AI startup, has revealed its latest generative AI model, Grok-1.5. Set to power social network X’s Grok chatbot in the not-to-distant future (“in the coming days,” X.ai writes in a blog post), © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
LinkedIn is experimenting with a TikTok-like video feed in its app
LinkedIn is testing a new TikTok-like short-form video feed, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Wednesday. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Oregon signs right to repair into law
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek on Tuesday signed Senate Bill 1596 into law, joining California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts and Minnesota in a growing list of states embracing a right to repair for citizens. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NASA’s snake robot is designed to search out life in the icy oceans of a Saturn moon
The snake robot form factor has existed for decades. In addition to the diversity it adds to the world of automation, the design has several pragmatic attributes. The first is redundancy, which allows for the system to keep chugging even after a module is damaged. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Facebook snooped on users’ Snapchat traffic in secret project, documents reveal
In 2016, Facebook launched a secret project designed to intercept and decrypt the network traffic between people using Snapchat’s app and its servers. The goal was to understand users’ behavior and help Facebook compete with Snapchat, according to newly unsealed court documents. Facebook called this “Project Ghostbusters" © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Profluent, spurred by Salesforce research and backed by Jeff Dean, uses AI to discover medicines
Last year, Salesforce, the company best known for its cloud sales support software (and Slack), spearheaded a project called ProGen to design proteins using generative AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Spotify tests video courses to teach everything from music production to excel
In its ongoing efforts to get its 600 million+ users to spend more time and money on its platform, Spotify is spinning up a new line of content: e-learning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Telegram’s peer-to-peer SMS login service is a privacy nightmare
Telegram has introduced a controversial new feature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Lordstown Motors’ ousted CEO settles with SEC for misleading investors
Steve Burns, the ousted founder, chairman and CEO of bankrupt EV startup Lordstown Motors, has settled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over misleading investors about demand for the company’s flagship all-electric Endurance pickup truck. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Boeing CEO to leave company by year-end, after a wave of safety incidents
Boeing’s chief executive Dave Calhoun will leave the plane-maker by the end of 2024, according to the company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
AT&T won’t say how its customers’ data spilled online
Customers say leaked AT&T customer data — names, addresses, phone numbers and Social Security numbers — is accurate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Why is AI so bad at spelling?
AIs are easily acing the SAT, defeating chess grandmasters and debugging code like it’s nothing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Pelikan Mobility's software-enabled commercial EV leasing solution; Candela’s electric ferries multiply
Chances are you may have noticed that many commercial vehicles are now electric vehicles; Electric boat maker Candela is approaching cruising speed with $25 million in new funding and the first commercial deployment of its new P-12 ferry, in New Zealand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
White House proposes up to $8.5B to fund Intel’s domestic chip manufacturing
Well before President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law back in August 2022, Intel has been a cornerstone of U.S. efforts to increase domestic chip manufacturing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Nvidia and Qualcomm join Open Source Robotics Alliance to support ROS development
The Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) this week announced the launch of the similarly named Open Source Robotics Alliance (OSRA). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Quilt is building AI assistants for solutions teams
The job of so-called “solutions professionals” — people like sales engineers, solutions architects and consultants — revolves around pitching complex enterprise tech to potential customers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Meta offers lower cost for EU ad-free subscription under privacy review
Meta has proposed to drop the price of an ad-free subscription in the European Union Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tech giant Fujitsu says it was hacked, warns of data breach
Multinational technology giant Fujitsu confirmed a cyberattack in a statement Friday, and warned that hackers may have stolen personal data and customer information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Scrap coercive ‘privacy fee’, MEPs urge Meta’s Nick Clegg in open letter
Meta is facing a call from lawmakers in the European Union to scrap its controversial “consent or pay” tactic on Facebook and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Mercedes begins piloting Apptronik humanoid robots
Pilot season has officially begun for the world of humanoid robotics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apple acquires AI startup specializing in overlooking manufacturing components
Apple has added another AI startup to its acquisition list with Canada-based DarwinAI, which specializes in vision-based tech to observe components during manufacturing to improve efficiency, Bloomberg reported. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
A bug in an Irish government website took two years to publicly disclose
The Irish government fixed a vulnerability two years ago in its national COVID-19 vaccination portal that exposed the vaccination records of around a million residents. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Amazon now lets sellers create listings through a URL by using AI
Amazon launched generative AI-powered features last year to help sellers quickly create listings by entering just a few words about the product. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Furno bets that super-efficient, modular kilns will turn the cement industry upside down
Cement startup promises to slash carbon emissions in the process, helping the company raise a $6.5 million seed round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Orbio Earth finds methane leaks that could cost oil companies $9 billion this year
Investors bet the startup’s algorithms, which feed on satellite data, will fill a significant gap in the methane market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tierra Biosciences nabs $11 million to create new AI-guided proteins
By using cell-free technology, Tierra is able to cut down protein manufacturing from months to weeks and enable customers to order proteins online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Google confirms it’s restricting Gemini election queries globally
If you want to ask Google’s AI chatbot a question about an upcoming election, you will have to do it from a country where there are no elections taking place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
‘Banking as a Service’ startup Griffin riases $24M and attains full banking licence
Founded by former Silicon Valley engineers, UK-based Griffin Bank bills itself as an API-driven ‘Banking as a Service’ platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Elon Musk says xAI will open-source Grok this week
Elon Musk said Monday he will open-source Grok, X’s AI chatbot rivaling ChatGPT, this week, days after suing OpenAI and complaining that the Microsoft-backed startup had deviated from its open roots. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Artemis Fund has a fresh $36 million to back diverse founders solving ‘big, hairy problems’
For Fund II, Artemis intends to continue leading and co-leading investments and will target around 20 new companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Faraday Future survives long enough to issue its first recall
Troubled EV startup Faraday Future has issued its first recall, covering all 11 vehicles it built last year, as it fights to hold onto its Los Angeles headquarters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Saildrone’s first aluminum Surveyor autonomous vessel splashes down for Navy testing
Ocean intelligence company Saildrone has just put the first of a new generation of Surveyor autonomous vessels in the water: an aluminum version that the Navy is keen to take advantage of. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Telegram now lets users to convert personal accounts to business accounts
Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced Wednesday that users on the chat app with personal accounts can now convert them into business accounts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Binance made crypto perfume in a baffling attempt to woo women
What does crypto smell like? Ozone, salt and moss, according to Binance’s new fragrance, “CRYPTO.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Amazon teams with recycling robot firm to track package waste
Amazon generate a lot of trash. Precisely how much is a matter of some debate. In 2021, the company says it used 214 million or so pounds of single-use plastic in its packaging. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NSA says it’s tracking Ivanti cyberattacks as hackers hit US defense sector
The U.S. National Security Agency has confirmed that hackers exploiting flaws in Ivanti’s widely used enterprise VPN appliance have targeted organizations across the U.S. defense sector. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Fohm rebrands to Saintly, for a heavenly clean bottom
When it comes to doing business — not startups, that other kind of business, that you have a whole separate room for in your house — we need to talk about wipes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Now the EU is asking questions about Meta’s ‘pay or be tracked’ consent model
Meta’s controversial pay or be tracked ‘consent’ choice for users the European Union is facing questions from the European Commission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apple reverses decision about blocking web apps on iPhones in the EU
Apple has reversed its decision about blocking web apps, also known as Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), on iPhones in the EU. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Karma3 Labs raises $4.5M to improve trust in web3 with ratings and recommendations
There’s no reputation system in the decentralized world of web3, so it’s hard to figure out which entities and individuals to trust and depend on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Spotify launches a $9.99/mo standalone audiobooks service for its free users
After adding 15 hours of free audiobooks listening to its subscription plan late last year, Spotify today is introducing a $9.99 per month option that will allow its free users to also access its audiobooks collection. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Google brings Stack Overflow’s knowledge base to Gemini for Google Cloud
Developer Q&A site Stack Overflow is launching a new program today that will give AI companies access to its knowledge base through a new API, aptly named OverflowAPI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices