TechCrunch Industry News
3,880 episodes — Page 29 of 78
Hackers are infecting Call of Duty players with a self-spreading malware
Hackers are infecting players of an old Call of Duty game with a worm that spreads automatically in online lobbies, according to two analyses of the malware. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Amazon makes bid to settle UK antitrust probe into seller data, Buy Box and Prime
In a move seeking to settle an open antitrust investigation in the UK, Amazon has offered to limit its use of data on marketplace sellers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Trustmi lands $17M to scale its payments fraud prevention tech
Shai Gabay and Eli Ben-Nun, two entrepreneurs based in Israel, met in 2018 while working at Cynet, a cybersecurity startup developing extended detection and response tools Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Thales enters app security market with $3.6B Imperva acquisition
French aerospace and defence group Thales is procuring cybersecurity company Imperva from Thoma Bravo in a deal worth $3.6 billion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Spotify reports strong user growth as it is raising subscription price
Spotify just reported its second-quarter earnings and the two most impressive metrics are the number of subscribers and the total number of Spotify users. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Spotify confirms price hike
Spotify has announced that it’s raising its premium plan prices, confirming reports that first started to surface over the weekend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’
Twitter has removed the iconic bird logo and adopted ‘X’ as its official logo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
SpaceX’s Swarm Technologies is halting new device sales
Swarm, the Internet-of-Things connectivity provider that was acquired by SpaceX, will no longer be selling new devices, according to an email sent to customers earlier this month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Autonomous vehicle company Aurora sells $820M worth of stock
Aurora Innovation, the self-driving technology company that aims to launch an autonomous trucking business in 2024, has completed a capital raise of $820 million from a public and concurrent private offering of its stock. The company expects the deal to close Friday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Kitchen robot Botinkit raises $13M from DJI angel and others
Having worked in the food industry for several years, Shirley Chen saw firsthand the challenges of managing staffing and training for restaurant expansion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Former NHTSA head blasts Cruise’s ‘Humans are terrible drivers’ ad
A former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has responded to a full-page ad taken out in several major newspapers by Cruise, General Motors’ self-driving subsidiary, that calls humans terrible drivers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Farizon, Geely’s truck unit, raised $600M to expand outside China
Farizon, a maker of hybrid and electric trucks owned by China’s Geely, has closed a $600 million Series A raise, the company said in a statement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
UK provisionally approves Broadcom’s $69B VMware acquisition
The U.K.’s competition authority has said that it plans to greenlight Broadcom’s $69 billion bid for virtualization software giant VMware. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TikTok’s new program aims to identify rising artists in the music industry
TikTok is launching a new program that is designed to identify the next wave of rising artists in the music industry, the company announced on Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Hammerspace ingests $56M for a new approach to work with vast amounts of unstructured data
Data may be “the new oil,” but only when it can be extracted and put to use. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Intel backs Figure’s Humanoid robot to the tune of $9 million
Bay Area-based robotics firm Figure this week announced that its humanoid officially took its first steps — a milestone it hit a few days shy of of the company’s first anniversary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tesla announces first Cybertruck build ahead of Q2 earnings
Tesla over the weekend said its first much anticipated Cybertruck came off the electric vehicle maker’s production line in Texas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Google Play Games beta for PC expands to over 60 new countries including India
Google has finally launched its Play Games beta for PC project, which lets users play Android games on their Windows systems, in India after introducing it in more than 50 countries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
India’s Chandrayaan-3 blasts off to the moon
Chandrayaan-3, India’s third mission to the moon, has taken off successfully — almost four years after its predecessor failed to touch down on the lunar surface in 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Cruise, Waymo say humans are bad drivers amid robotaxi permit delays
Autonomous vehicle companies Cruise and Waymo have separately pushed a narrative this week that humans are bad drivers, and that their technologies are crucial to making roads safer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Defacto gets new credit facility to provide instant financing to small companies
French startup Defacto has closed a new securitization fund that will be used to provide short-term loans to small and medium enterprises via an embedded, API-first approach. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Google’s Bard chatbot finally launches in the EU, now supports more than 40 languages
Google is making its ChatGPT rival Bard available to a wider audience today, launching the generative AI chatbot in more than 40 languages and finally bringing it to the European Union (EU) after an initial delay due to data privacy concerns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Gmail brings in Calendly-style availability sharing from Google Calendar
On Tuesday, Google released new scheduling-related features for Gmail with Google Calendar integration including quick event creation and easy availability sharing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Roku users can now buy products from Shopify merchants with their TV remote
Roku is partnering with Shopify to give users the ability to purchase products from Shopify merchants through their TVs, the hardware company announced Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Discord introduces new opt-in parental controls for teens
Discord is introducing a new Family Center opt-in-tool that is designed to make it easy for parents and guardians to learn more about who their teens are friends with and talk to on the platform, the company announced on Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Instagram’s Threads app reaches 100 million users within just five days
Instagram’s text-based app Threads has achieved the mark of 100 million sign-ups in just five days. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
If you don’t buy Jony Ive’s $60,000 turntable, are you really a music fan?
You enjoyed his iMacs, his iPhones, his iPads. You thrilled at the way he said “aluminium” [sic]. You admired the typeface. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Tesla to provide more info on its driver alert system amid Autopilot probe
U.S. regulators have requested more information from Tesla to assist in their ongoing investigation into 830,000 Tesla vehicles that include Autopilot, the automaker’s advanced driver assistance system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
EV truck maker Nikola fails again to secure enough shareholder support to issue more shares
Nikola failed for the second time since June to get enough shareholders to vote on a proposal that would allow the EV truck maker to issue more shares in a bid to raise more capital. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TikTok launches a music streaming service in Brazil and Indonesia called ‘TikTok Music’
TikTok has already dominated the short-video and social media market, and is now looking to take on Spotify and Apple Music with its latest offering. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Threads won’t be fun — but it will give brands a home away from Twitter
There are many Twitters now, but we may never have another Twitter again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
China’s WeRide secures self-driving vehicle license from UAE
The United Arab Emirates has given Chinese autonomous driving company WeRide the first national license for self-driving vehicles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Rivian delivers first electric vans to Amazon in Europe
Amazon has begun rolling out its custom electric delivery vans from Rivian in Europe, the e-commerce giant said Monday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Kentucky is the latest state to mandate Tesla’s charging plug
Kentucky now requires that electric vehicle charging companies include Tesla’s charging plug if they want to secure federal funds from a state program to electrify highways, Reuters reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Fidelity deepens valuation cut for Reddit and Discord
Fidelity has further slashed the estimated worth of its holding in social platform Reddit and chat app Discord as well as SaaS startup Gupshup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
TikTok parent ByteDance launches music creation and audio editing app in closed beta in the US
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance announced today that it’s launching a new, free-to-use music production app in closed beta in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Get a clue, says panel about generative AI: it’s being “deployed as surveillance”
At a Bloomberg conference in San Francisco, some of the biggest names in AI turned up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Halo Car launches remotely piloted rental car deliveries in Las Vegas
Halo Car, a startup that uses remote operators to deliver rental cars to a customer’s door, has launched driverless operations in Las Vegas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Techstars raising $150 million for new accelerator fund
The accelerator is seeking new capital ahead of the end of the deployment period of its third institutionally-backed fund, Techstars Accelerator 2021, late this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Reddit protest plunges user engagement, site activity and ad portal visits
Reddit community moderators made a bold move earlier this month that caused quite a stir online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Rocket Lab doubles down on marine booster recovery with next Electron launch
Rocket Lab’s next Electron mission will include another marine recovery attempt of the rocket’s booster, the latest step by the company to advance its reusability program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
CalypsoAI raises $23M to add guardrails to generative AI models
Companies are increasingly embracing generative AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Redpanda nabs $100M Series C as streaming service experiences significant growth
Redpanda helps companies capture data in real time in a modern context, providing a new way to stream data while maintaining backwards compatibility with Kafka, the popular open source streaming project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Aston Martin taps Lucid to help develop electric vehicles
Lucid Group, the U.S. automaker that produces the luxury all-electric Air sedan, will supply Aston Martin with powertrain components for future electric vehicle models, the companies said Monday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
UTU raises $35M to help travelers get more from tax-free shopping
Utu, a travel tech company that helps flyers get more out of their tax-free shopping, announced today it has raised a $35 million Series B led by SC Ventures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
SoulCycle to offer trainer-guided virtual work sessions with the FLOWN startup
FLOWN is a startup that took the idea of the sort of ‘virtual co-working’ some of us during the pandemic just have some company during lockdowns, and created a model of guided “deep work” sessions with actual coaches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Apple’s Vision Pro SDK is now available, in-person developer labs launch next month
Time to get a jump on all of that spatial computing. Apple today announced that its visionOS software development kit is now available, allowing 3D parties to begin building content for the Vision Pro. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Roblox invites its community to build mature experiences for 17+ users
Roblox is well aware that its young users are getting older, and the company is making every effort to grow up along with them. The platform, once synonymous with younger kids, announced Tuesday that it would allow creators to build mature content designed for users age 17 and up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Twitch will require new labels for streams with sexual themes, gambling and M-rated games
Twitch is rethinking the way it flags mature content, swapping its existing toggle for a more granular set of topic-specific labels. The company announced Tuesday that it would introduce a new set of content labels that require streamers to signal when their channels will contain sexual themes, graphic violence, “drugs, intoxication, or excessive tobacco use. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Consumer group calls on EU to urgently investigate ‘the risks of generative AI’
European regulators are at a crossroads over how AI will be regulated — and ultimately used commercially and non-commercially — in the region, and today the EU’s largest consumer group, the BEUC, weighed in with its own position: stop dragging your feet, and “launch urgent investigations into the risks of generative AI” now, it said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices