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Beams secures $9M Series A to digitize UK home renovation market

Home renovation projects can be unpredictable for both customers and builders. Meanwhile, small contractors barely use modern software and home renovation giants, like IKEA, tend to trundle on with dated legacy software. UK startup Beams thinks it can solve this conundrum and has now raised a $9 million Series A funding round to crack the […]

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India’s digital payments strategy is cutting out Visa and Mastercard

As digital payments morph into strategic assets, India is offering a template for other nations seeking to reduce dependence on Western payment networks. Regulators around the world are notching up scrutiny on Visa and Mastercard over the fees they charge merchants, but India has chosen a different path: Creating rival payment networks that are increasingly […]

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X is rolling out labels for parody accounts

X said today that it will now label parody or satire profiles to differentiate them from other accounts. In the past, users, including news presenters, have mistaken posts from parody accounts as authentic statements made by the actual people or entities. X said that the label would be visible on both accounts and posts. “We’re […]

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Every smartphone in LA accidentally received a wildfire evacuation alert

As wildfires rage for the third consecutive day through parts of Los Angeles, now including the Hollywood Hills, several neighborhoods have been forced to evacuate for safety purposes. But on Thursday afternoon, a wildfire evacuation alert was mistakenly sent to the smartphone of every resident in Los Angeles County, a region with more than 9 […]

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This security system shoots paintballs at intruders

Doorbell cameras are standard fare these days. More and more people have invested in connected security systems, as the technology has become both cheaper and more user friendly. There’s one important thing these system won’t do, however: shoot people and animals with paintballs. That is, however, pretty much the Eve PaintCam’s whole M.O. Carrying the […]

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Tesla launches new-look Model Y in China

Tesla has revealed a new-look Model Y meant for the Chinese and other Asian-Pacific markets, marking the first major update to the SUV since its launch in 2020. The redesign comes as Tesla finished 2024 having delivered fewer vehicles than it did in 2023. It was the first year-over-year drop since the company started selling […]

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Hippocratic AI raises $141M for creating patient-facing AI agents

Hippocratic AI, a startup building AI solutions that can handle non-diagnostic patient-facing tasks, secured a massive $141 million Series B at a valuation of $1.64 billion led by Kleiner Perkins, the company announced Thursday. The funding comes nine months after Hippocratic AI raised a $53 million round from General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz and five […]

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Nvidia’s AI avatar sat on my computer screen and weirded me out

Nvidia unveiled a prototype AI avatar at CES 2025 that lives on your PC’s desktop. The AI assistant, R2X, looks like a video game character, and it can help you navigate apps on your computer. The R2X avatar is rendered and animated using Nvidia’s AI models, and users can run the avatar on popular LLMs […]

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ICON, a builder of 3D-printed homes last valued around $2 billion, cuts about 25% of staff

ICON Technologies Inc., which builds homes using 3D printing, is laying off 114 people, according to a WARN letter filed with the Texas Workforce Commission. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the news to TechCrunch, providing a statement that ICON had “recently made a difficult decision to re-align” its team and team size “to focus […]

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Apptronik’s Apollo humanoid robot gets to work at CES 2025

CES 2025 has been a mixed bag for humanoid robots. The form factor had a watershed moment, as images of the top players flanked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during his Monday keynote. Of these, Agility’s Digit also showed up alongside a miniature conveyer belt at a closed-access Nvidia booth. It was a nice return for […]

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TikTok tells LA staff impacted by wildfires to use personal/sick hours if they can’t work from home

Wildfires are currently devastating the greater Los Angeles area, burning over 45 square miles, torching over 1,300 structures, and putting nearly 180,000 people under evacuation orders as of Thursday. And yet, TikTok’s LA-based employees are being told to either continue their work from home or use their personal/sick days if that’s not possible, while the […]

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ChatGPT’s newest feature lets users assign it traits like ‘chatty’ and ‘Gen Z’

Update: Some users report that the new options have disappeared. It’s possible they went live prematurely. OpenAI is introducing a new way for users to customize their interactions with ChatGPT, the company’s AI-powered chatbot. Some users on X on Thursday reported that ChatGPT’s existing custom instructions menu on the web has been revamped with new […]

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Autonomous vehicles are having a moment and other vibes from CES 2025

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Hey hey, it’s a new year! I’ve missed you these past two weeks. But I’m back, and in Las Vegas for CES 2025. As always, announcements from […]

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CES 2025: Where have all the US automakers gone? 

The old chestnut passed around by industry watchers for the past decade was that CES — one of the world’s largest consumer tech trade events — had turned into an auto show. Maybe even the most important auto show of the year. And there was ample evidence of that. GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra […]

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Google folds more AI teams into DeepMind to ‘accelerate the research to developer pipeline’

As it looks to accelerate the pace of its AI development, Google is further streamlining the teams building its AI services, platforms, and tools. On Thursday, Logan Kilpatrick, who leads product for Google’s AI Studio developer platform, said in a post on X that Google’s AI Studio team and the team developing the API for […]

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These are CES 2025’s least repairable and sustainable gadgets, according to iFixit

The Razzies, the Darwins — not all awards are good. Sure, CES is a time to celebrate the year’s weirdest and most wonderful consumer electronics, but thankfully we’ve got iFixit around to throw a little cold water on the fair. As we enter the penultimate day of the event, the repair stalwart presents its “Worst […]

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DoorBox debuts its new and improved smart delivery box at CES 2025

Millions of packages are stolen each year. DoorBox aims to change how packages are delivered with its smart package box that features a theft-proof design with live camera feeds and an alarm that activates automatically if the box is tampered with.  After selling 2,000 units of its initial version, which offered manual functionality, the startup […]

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