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What’s behind ballooning video game budgets?

Why does it cost some companies hundreds of millions of dollars to develop a popular video game? A couple weeks ago, The New York Times blamed the never-ending quest to deliver more photo-realistic graphics— and it suggested the industry is beginning to see diminishing returns, leading to layoffs and studio closures. However, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier […]

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Everything you missed at CES 2025

Welcome back to Week in Review. I missed you! This week, we’re diving into all the gadgets and announcements out of this year’s CES, Meta’s decision to roll back its fact-checking program, TikTok’s response to employees affected by the California wildfires, and more! Let’s do this. CES 2025 came and went this week. The event […]

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I got soaked driving the Arc Sport electric boat

I did not go to CES 2025 with the goal of getting drenched by Lake Mead’s chilly January waters. But when I discovered Los Angeles-based boat startup Arc had brought its new sport boat to Las Vegas, I figured it was worth the risk. It was. The Arc Sport was a joy to drive, even […]

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Matt Mullenweg deactivates WordPress accounts of contributors planning a fork

Automattic CEO and WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg has deactivated the accounts of several WordPress.org community members, some of whom have been spearheading a push to create a new fork of the open source WordPress project. While community criticism of WordPress’s governance isn’t new, the latest brouhaha kicked off back in September when Mullenweg publicly chastised WP […]

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Snappy aquires swag-gifting startup Covver as it seeks to roll-up players

It’s now broadly accepted that customers and employees who receive corporate gifts end up appreciating the brand much more, and for not a lot of outlay. The market for this has thus exploded. One market player, the New York-based Snappy, which has raised over $125 million to date, is now acquiring Covver, a corporate merchandise […]

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Microsoft accuses group of developing tool to abuse its AI service in new lawsuit

Microsoft has taken legal action against a group the company claims intentionally developed and used tools to bypass the safety guardrails of its cloud AI products. According to a complaint filed by the company in December in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, a group of 10 unnamed defendants allegedly used […]

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Mark Zuckerberg defends Meta’s latest pivot in three-hour Joe Rogan interview

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended his decision to scale back Meta’s content moderation policies in a Friday appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Zuckerberg faced widespread criticism for the decision, including from employees inside his own company. “Probably depends on who you ask,” said Zuckerberg when asked how Meta’s updates have been received. The key updates […]

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These startups are making smarter canes for people with visual impairments

The white cane for the 21st century. While many tech companies have increasingly worked to make technology more accessible for the blind and visually impaired, canes haven’t benefited much from these advances. London-born WeWalk takes a more traditional approach to the white cane. Beyond the bulkier handle, not much sets the company’s product apart visually […]

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Bench customers are now being forced to hand over their data or risk losing it, they say

After accounting startup Bench abruptly shut down on December 27 and was bought in a fire-sale by Employer.com, Bench customers are now learning they can’t easily just take their financial data and leave.  And some are very unhappy about it, three customers told TechCrunch. To recap: When Bench, a startup based in Canada that raised […]

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Amazon curbs some DEI programs

Amazon is now the latest company to curb some of its DEI programs, Bloomberg reports, after Meta announced that it, too, is ending its diversity efforts earlier on Friday.  An internal memo that was sent to staffers said that the company was looking to wind down outdated programs and materials as part of a review […]

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TikTok ban: How both sides made their case to the Supreme Court and what the justices asked

On Friday, the nation’s highest court heard arguments on whether to uphold or block a law that could effectively ban TikTok​ in the U.S. The bill, signed into law by President Biden in April 2024, gives TikTok’s parent company ByteDance until January 19 to divest its U.S. operations or face a ban in the country. […]

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New OpenAI job listings reveal the company’s robotics plans

OpenAI disbanded its robotics department. Then, it brought it back. Now, through a social media post from its hardware director and newly published job descriptions, OpenAI is revealing more about its plans for the revived team. In a post on X on Friday, Caitlin Kalinowski, who joined OpenAI to lead hardware last November from Meta’s […]

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VCs say AI companies need proprietary data to stand out from the pack

AI companies across the globe raised more than $100 billion in venture capital dollars in 2024, according to Crunchbase data, an increase of more than 80% compared to 2023. It encompasses nearly a third of the total VC dollars invested in 2024. That’s a lot of money funneling into a lot of AI companies. The […]

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Lenovo’s latest form factors prove PCs can still be fun

Large corporations aren’t known for taking risks. This is as true in the world of consumer hardware as anywhere. Annual updates are largely incremental, with small changes to things like screen resolution or image quality. It’s a phenomenon that Lenovo is more than happy to buck when it showcases the latest updates to its PC […]

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How to delete Facebook, Instagram, and Threads

In the wake of Meta’s decision to remove its third-party fact-checking system and loosen content moderation policies, Google searches on how to delete Facebook, Instagram, and Threads have been on the rise. People who are angry with the decision accuse Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of cozying up to the incoming Trump administration at the expense […]

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Riding in a Zoox robotaxi at CES 2025: Everything that went right and wrong

A construction zone. A car crash. A double-parked truck. A motorcycle cop with its red, white, and blues deployed.  My one-hour trip along the Las Vegas Strip in a custom-built Zoox robotaxi during CES 2025 wasn’t a dull one. A second, shorter ride the following evening proved less eventful. And in both rides, the Zoox […]

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Hugging Face settles suit with AI startup FriendliAI, which had accused it of patent infringement

Hugging Face, the AI developer platform, has settled a lawsuit against Korean AI startup FriendliAI, which had accused Hugging Face of infringing on one of its patents. Per a filing on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Delaware, FriendliAI reached a “confidential agreement” with Hugging Face on January 8 and […]

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