TechCrunch Industry News

The U.S. inked Technology Prosperity Deals (TPD) with Japan and South Korea with an eye towards spurring collaboration on AI, semiconductors, quantum computing, biotech, space, 6G and other technologies. Character AI is ending its chatbot experience for kids. After facing lawsuits and public outcry following the suicides of two teenagers, Character.AI says it's making changes to its platform to protect children, changes that could affect the startup’s bottom line. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Netflix viewers will be able to vote while watching live content to directly influence the outcome of what they're watching on their TV or mobile device. Also, OpenAI says its deep learning systems are rapidly advancing, with models increasingly able to solve complex tasks faster. So fast, in fact, that internally, OpenAI is tracking towards achieving an intern-level research assistant by September 2026, and a fully automated “legitimate AI researcher” by 2028, CEO Sam Altman said during a livestream Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon said on Tuesday that it plans to reduce its corporate workforce by 14,000 jobs as it seeks to reduce bureaucracy, remove layers and invest more in its AI strategy. Plus, OpenAI has completed its recapitalization, splitting the AI lab into a for-profit corporation nested inside a non-profit foundation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two 401(k) management unicorns, Human Interest and Guideline, are squaring off in federal court with allegations so brazen that they're embarrassing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fitness app Ladder is debuting a new nutrition tracking feature that lets you snap a photo to input macros. Also, according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple Maps users could start seeing ads in the app as soon as next year. Similar to Google Maps and other mapping apps, Apple’s plan is to allow restaurants and other businesses with brick-and-mortar locations to pay to promote themselves in search results Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-The United States and China are ready to move forward on a TikTok deal, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. -A high school student in Baltimore County, Maryland was reportedly handcuffed and searched after an AI security system flagged his bag of chips as a possible firearm. -OpenAI is working on a new tool that would generate music based on text and audio prompts, according to a report in The Information. Such a tool could be used to add music to existing videos, or to add guitar accompaniment to an existing vocal track, sources said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ford is prioritizing its gas and hybrid F-150 trucks instead. Plus, Trump's $250 million White House ballroom will be funded in part by big tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rudy Arora and Sarthak Dhawan, two 20-year-old college dropouts, grew an AI note-taker app to five million users and an eight-figure ARR. Also, The milestone marks a new record for the platform, as YouTube’s annual music industry payout increased by $2 billion since 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

South Korea's 52-hour workweek cap is stricter than the U.S. and Singapore but more flexible than much of Europe. Still deep tech founders and investors worry it's too restrictive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The founders of machine learning community Kaggle are trying to upend the crowded sales prospecting market with AI. And they're making headway. Also, Starbridge raises $42M Series A led by Craft Ventures to help businesses better monitor public service opportunities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The company is also improving search by suggesting properties that you might have missed due to your filters and has redesigned the Maps view to let you search for points of interest such as nearby landmarks, attractions, and restaurants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The company says Atlas will first roll out on macOS, with support for Windows, iOS, and Android coming soon. OpenAI says the product will be available to all free users at launch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The dispute centered on a plot of land along the Rio Grande River in Cameron County, Texas, that Cards Against Humanity purchased in 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

These removals are part of a broader pattern under the Trump administration, which began issuing executive orders to direct federal agencies to remove or modify substantial amounts of government content. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The online encyclopedia is not completely immune to broader trends, with human pageviews falling 8% year-over-year, according to Marshall Miller of the Wikimedia Foundation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Silicon Valley leaders including White House AI & Crypto Czar David Sacks and OpenAI Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon caused a stir online this week for their comments about groups promoting AI safety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Austin Russell was replaced in May following an ethics inquiry, but now he wants to use his new AI lab to buy Luminar. Plus, 50 fashion brands are launching their shoppable worlds for VLGE's World Fashion Week, founder Evelyn Mora says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

VC legend Ron Conway quits Salesforce Foundation after Benioff’s National Guard comments Kayak is bringing AI directly to its main platform with a new “AI Mode” that lets travelers research, plan, and book trips through a built-in chatbot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pinterest is rolling out new controls that let users limit how much AI-generated content appears in their feeds. The company is also making its AI content labels more visible. Ke Yang’s departure marks the latest in a string of exits from Apple’s AI unit, putting the company into jeopardy in the lead up to a much-anticipated Siri revamp scheduled for March. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

F5 Networks, which provides cybersecurity defenses to most of the Fortune 500, said the DOJ allowed it to delay notifying the public on national security grounds. Semiconductor firm Arm is partnering with Meta to enhance the social media company's AI systems amid an unprecedented infrastructure buildout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

OpenAI says it will soon roll back some of ChatGPT's safeguards, and even allow the chatbot to engage in erotica for adult users. Waymo already has ties to the UK, which began after the autonomous vehicle technology company acquired Latent Logic in 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Walmart is partnering with OpenAI to let shoppers buy products directly through ChatGPT. The new integration will allow users to link their Walmart accounts, browse items ,and instantly check out — all within the chatbot. Designed for one-on-one meetings, the tool lets you insert available time slots directly into an email, automatically creating a calendar invite once a recipient selects a time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

SpaceX said farewell to its V2 on Monday night as it sent Starship’s current configuration on one last test flight, in a mission that the company says hit all its key goals, moving the program into its next phase. ecurity researchers have discovered that as many as half of all geostationary satellites in Earth’s orbit are carrying unencrypted sensitive consumer, corporate, and military information, making this data wide open to eavesdropping. And Grinder’s majority owners are scrambling to take the LGBTQ plus dating app private after a stock decline triggered a personal financial crisis, according to a report from Semafor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oura's chief commercial officer doesn't seem particularly worried about capturing every demographic. Instead, she's focused on keeping Oura’s core users happy while organically attracting new segments. And young women are becoming part of that core market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a landmark bill on Monday that regulates AI companion chatbots, making it the first state in the nation to require AI chatbot operators to implement safety protocols for AI companions The law is designed to protect children and vulnerable users from some of the harms associated with AI companion chatbot use. It holds companies — from the big labs like Meta and OpenAI to more focused companion startups like Character AI and Replika — legally accountable if their chatbots fail to meet the law’s standards. Also, Salesforce announced Monday the latest version of its AI agent platform as the company looks to lure enterprises to its AI software in an increasingly crowded market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Friday, the technology giant announced a new feature that will automatically disable browser notifications for the websites you haven’t interacted with recently, disrupting their ability to pop up alerts and updates that you may no longer be interested in. the President declared Friday that he will impose a 100% tariff on all imports from China, while also imposing export controls on “any and all critical software” from the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Political shifts might have set back the energy transition, but large investors are betting that renewables are at the future of energy. In other news, the CMA has designated Google as having "strategic market status" in the search and search advertising markets, which means the company has such "a substantial and entrenched" position that it requires special regulations to ensure fair competition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella offered a glimpse of the "first of many" massive Nvidia AI systems it is rolling out, starting now. a16z’s Anish Acharya calls India office reports “entirely fake news!” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-The U.S.' top auto safety agency said it had identified more than 50 reports of FSD running red lights, crossing yellow lines, or making illegal turns. -Apple speaks out about how the Texas age assurance law was written, saying it affects the privacy of users. -SoundCloud is evolving into a more social platform with new features like playlists based on the likes of friends or favorite artists you follow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From phone spyware and facial recognition to phone unlocking technology and databases and more, this tech powers Trump's deportation machine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Japanese investing conglomerate SoftBank Group is buying a robotics company as the financial behemoth says physical AI is its next frontier. SoftBank announced on Wednesday that it has acquired Zurich, Switzerland-based ABB Group’s robotics business unit for more than five billion dollars. The deal is subject to regulatory approval; SoftBank predicts the deal will close in mid-to-late twenty twenty six. Sami Atiya, the head of the division, will exit the company once the acquisition is complete. Square has launched new features for merchants, including AI-powered voice ordering for restaurants, enhancements to its AI assistants, such as providing local insights and an integrated Bitcoin solution to accept and hold the digital currency. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement paid eight hundred twenty five thousand dollars earlier this year to a company that manufactures vehicles equipped with various technologies for law enforcement, including fake cellphone towers known as “cell-site simulators,” which can be used to spy on nearby phones. Also, hackers working for the North Korean government have stolen more than $2 billion in crypto so far this year. That’s according to blockchain analysis firm Elliptic. On Tuesday, Elliptic published a blog post with this new estimate, which the company says is the “largest annual total on record, with three months still to go,” and is based on more than thirty hacks this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Deloitte is rolling out Claude to its nearly 500,000 employees after issuing a refund for a report that contained AI hallucinations. Plus, Taylor Swift fans love a good puzzle, but some were rubbed the wrong way by a promotional scavenger hunt which appeared to use AI-generated videos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AMD has signed a multi-year chip supply deal with OpenAI that could generate tens of billions in revenue for the chipmaker, helping accelerate its momentum in the AI industry. AMD has agreed to supply 6 gigawatts of compute capacity to OpenAI, which is enough to power up to 4 ½ million homes, across multiple generations of its Instinct GPUs, starting with the Instinct MI450 GPU. OpenAI will receive the first gigawatt of capacity in the second half of next year, when the new chip is scheduled for deployment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A waffle-centric controversy underlines ongoing tensions between Bluesky and some of its most vocal users. Also, police say they have arrested a suspect allegedly connected to multiple online threats that led TikTok to evacuate its headquarters near Los Angeles on Friday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

California's Department of Insurance has been warning Tesla to fix its claims process since 2022, but consumer complaints have skyrocketed anyways. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made a rare public appearance at Italian Tech Week in Turin on Friday and used the opportunity to predict that millions of people will be living in space “in the next couple of decades,” the Financial Times reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A notorious predominantly English-speaking hacking group has launched a website to extort its victims, threatening to release about a billion records stolen from companies who store their customers’ data in cloud databases hosted by Salesforce. Apple has removed ICEBlock and other apps from its App Store that allow users to anonymously report sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, following pressure from the Trump administration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google says hackers associated with a prolific ransomware group are sending extortion emails to executives at “numerous” large organizations after claiming to have stolen their sensitive information from a suite of business software products developed by Oracle. Also, OpenAI has sold 6.6 billion dollars in shares held by current and former employees, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The sale pushed OpenAI’s total valuation to 500 billion dollars, the highest ever achieved by a privately held company. Purchasers included SoftBank, Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital, MGX, and T. Rowe Price, the report said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

London-based actress Tilly Norwood has about 40 thousand Instagram followers. One thing to know though is she’s not real. She is an AI-generated character created by Xicoia, the AI division of the production company Particle6. Also, Apple is sidelining plans to overhaul its Vision Pro VR glasses to focus on developing AI smart glasses that can compete with products from Meta, according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Current and former OpenAI researchers seem torn over how the company's Sora app fits in with its broader mission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

-Fortnite maker Epic Games said that Apple’s new installation workflow, implemented in iOS 18.6, has had a positive impact on its user growth, with a 60 percent decrease in drop-offs. On Wednesday, Wikimedia Deutschland announced a new database that will make Wikipedia’s wealth of knowledge more accessible to AI models. The U.S. Department of Energy has taken equity stakes in Canadian company Lithium Americas and its Nevada mining joint venture with General Motors as part of a renegotiation of a federal loan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, has blocked an effort to pass legislation that would have extended data privacy protections for federal lawmakers and public officials to everyone in the United States. On Monday night, Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, asked the U.S. Senate for unanimous consent from fellow senators to pass his legislation, Protecting Americans from Doxing and Political Violence Act. Fubo, the popular live sports TV streaming service, announced on Tuesday that its shareholders have approved its transaction with Disney, combining Fubo with Hulu Live TV. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Tuesday, DoorDash unveiled Dot, a small robot it built in-house that can autonomously drive on roads, bike lanes, and sidewalks to deliver food and small packages at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. Dot is designed to look friendly and even cartoonish — painted bright red, with big LED eyes and a mouth that swings open to reveal where it holds your food — though some would argue it’s slightly creepy. Also, Adobe’s popular video editing app Premiere is available on iPhone starting today, following the company’s announcement of its plans to release the app on mobile earlier this month. The Android version of the app is under development, Adobe says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed SB 53, a first-in-the-nation bill that sets new transparency requirements on large AI companies. The bill, which passed the state legislature two weeks ago, requires large AI labs, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google DeepMind, to be transparent about safety protocols. It also ensures whistleblower protections for employees at those companies. Also, a Faraday Future electric SUV caught fire at the startup’s Los Angeles headquarters early Sunday morning, leading to an explosion that blew out part of a wall. The fire was extinguished in 40 minutes, and no injuries were reported. Damage to the building, which is a smaller two-story structure next to the larger portion of the headquarters, was severe enough that the city’s Department of Building and Safety has “red tagged” it, meaning it may need structural work before it can be occupied again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Automotive giant Honda and lunar startup Astrobotic are teaming up to explore how a regenerative fuel cell system could help keep the lights on during long nights on the Moon. On Monday, the companies partnered up to study whether Honda’s regenerative fuel cell can be integrated into Astrobotic’s LunaGrid, a scalable power service built around solar arrays. The two will conduct “illumination studies” at potential lunar south pole landing sites, and evaluate system scalability as well as hardware and software integration. Also, the U.K. government has confirmed it will guarantee a commercial bank loan of one and half billion pounds, which is equivalent to two billion dollars for carmaking giant Jaguar Land Rover after a hack forced the company to shut down its carmaking production lines and left downstream suppliers at risk of bankruptcy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier noted that video game companies are moving towards consolidation and that the deal could reflect EA executives’ broader concerns over the future of the industry. Following a period of rapid growth in the 2010s and during the pandemic, Schreier said gamers in recent years have “tended to stick with old favorites rather than purchasing new titles.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In its latest bid to boost semiconductor production in the U.S., the Trump administration is reportedly considering a ratio-based approach that would penalize domestic manufacturers with tariffs if they don’t produce enough chips. A wider leadership shake-up at Hyundai’s electric air taxi startup Supernal is underway just a few weeks after it paused work on its vehicle program and its CEO and CTO left, TechCrunch has learned. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that essentially approves the sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations to an American investor group in order to keep the social media app operational in the country. Vice President JD Vance said that the deal would value TikTok US at “around $14 billion.” In a move no one asked for, Meta is introducing “Vibes,” a new feed in the Meta AI app and on meta.ai for sharing and creating short-form, AI-generated videos. Think TikTok or Instagram Reels, but every single video you come across is essentially AI slop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For decades, Silicon Valley has valorized the college dropout. Founders like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg left school early to build companies and they became billionaires. That ethos was later institutionalized through initiatives like the Thiel Fellowship, which famously pays promising students $100,000 to leave college and start companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In exchange for renegotiating the repayment period of a two point two six billion dollars Department of Energy loan, the Trump administration is asking for as much as 10% equity in Lithium Americas, a company in which GM is a major investor. YouTube will finally allow you to hide the pop-up recommendations that appear at the end of videos, the company announced on Wednesday. Now, when you see an end screen, you can tap a new “Hide” button in the top-right corner of the video player to hide the pop-ups from the current video you’re watching. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices