Commercetools — a “headless commerce” platform that provides APIs to companies building online storefronts — saw a major boost in its business just a few years ago, raising money at whopping $1.9 billion valuation as the world went shopping online in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and businesses rushed to improve their e-commerce operations. […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The boom in ecommerce post-pandemic meant shops moved online. However, some merchants ended up with dozens of separate app providers to accommodate everything from supply chains, inventory, and marketing. The founders of Shop Circle realized this and either built or bought many such apps. The company has now raised $60 million in a Series B […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is more bullish about Nvidia's sales than ever, despite a market panic last month induced by China's DeepSeek.

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Meta’s Oversight Board, the company’s independent group created to help with sensitive policy decisions, is preparing to weigh in on CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent changes to how Facebook, Instagram, and Threads handle hate speech, Engadget reported. Zuckerberg announced an overhaul of its content moderation policies in January, shortly before the inauguration of U.S. President Donald […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Amazon shared an impressive vision of an “agentic” future on Wednesday — one in which the company’s improved Alexa, Alexa+, handles countless mundane tasks, from booking restaurants to finding appliance repairmen. If Amazon can deliver, it could be the first out to the gate with a comprehensive, consumer-focused agent tool. The company hopes to marry […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

In a newly issued executive order (EO), the Trump administration has instructed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Elon Musk-advised initiative to reduce federal spending, to create a “centralized technological system” in every agency to record contract and grant awards. As part of the ramp-up of these systems, agency employees who approved individual contract […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Former North Carolina congressman Patrick McHenry announced Wednesday that he landed a job with VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. He will be a senior advisor. His post on X said little about what the job entails, except to be advocating for startups (which a16z likes to call “little tech”) with policymakers. Andreessen Horowitz did not immediately […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Millie, a California-based maternity clinic, founded by Anu Sharma, announced the raise of a $12 million Series A by investors including RH Capital, TMV, and Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures.  Sharma was inspired to launch the company after the birth of her daughter in 2019. She faced pregnancy complications and, as the child of a […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Avride sidewalk bots will start delivering restaurant orders and groceries in central Tokyo this week through a partnership with e-commerce giant Rakuten, the latest commercial expansion by the Yandex spinout into Northeast Asia. The Austin-based autonomous vehicle startup is one of four projects under Nebius Group, a Netherlands-based company formerly called Yandex NV that sold […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Companies around America have started cutting DEI programs and eliminating DEI commitments from public documents in response to legal and political threats from the Trump administration. Just a few weeks ago, Attorney General Pam Bondi instructed the Department of Justice to “investigate, eliminate, and penalize,” DEI programs deemed illegal in private sector companies that receive […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

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. The generative AI models receiving the most attention now can be broadly divided into two types: […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Bybit has already paid more than $4 million to bounty hunters who helped trace and freeze some of the stolen funds.

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

ElevenLabs, an AI startup that just raised a $180 million mega-funding round, has been primarily known for its audio-generation prowess. The company took a step in another technological direction by launching its first stand-alone speech-to-text model called Scribe. The startup, valued at $3.3 billion, has aided many other companies in providing speech-to-text services through its […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google announced on Wednesday that it has received FDA clearance for the Pixel Watch 3’s “Loss of Pulse Detection” feature and will be launching it in the U.S. at the end of March. The feature can detect when a user’s heart stops beating due to an event like primary cardiac arrest, respiratory or circulatory failure, […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Dating app Hinge launched a new feature called “Match Note” on Wednesday, allowing users to privately share information with matches that they haven’t shared publicly on their profile.  Users can add a Match Note by going to their profile, similar to how they can add a text prompt. The note is always visible to new […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

At Amazon’s annual Devices & Services event on Wednesday, the company introduced Alexa+, an enhanced version of its voice assistant, now powered by generative AI.  During the demonstration, Amazon showcased how users can share documents with Alexa+, allowing it to recall important details and answer questions about those documents. Mara Segal, director of Alexa, provided […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Amazon is not giving up on making its Alexa a virtual shopping assistant. On Wednesday, the company announced that Alexa+, its revamped Alexa experience, will be able to help consumers grocery shop from home using more natural conversations and requests. The feature will work with Amazon Fresh or any other grocery partner working with Amazon, […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Amazon’s new and improved Alexa experience, Alexa+, starts at $19.99 per month, or free for Amazon Prime subscribers. It’ll roll out in early access beginning next month in the U.S., and then will come to a wider group of users in waves over the subsequent months, Amazon said. Echo Show 8, 10, 15, and 21 […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As part of the reveal of Amazon’s new AI-powered Alexa+ assistant, the tech giant announced that it’s launching two new features designed for kids called “Explore with Alexa” and “Stories with Alexa.” The features, which leverage Alexa’s new AI capabilities, will be available to Amazon Kids+ subscribers. The company demonstrated the new features at a […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Amazon says that Alexa+, the new and improved Alexa unveiled on Wednesday, is powered by a “model agnostic” system that always uses the “best” AI model for a given task. On stage at a New York City press event, Amazon VP Daniel Rausch explained that Alexa+ draws on Bedrock — the company’s cloud platform designed […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.