Character AI, a startup that lets users chat with different AI-powered characters, is now testing games on its desktop and mobile web apps to increase engagement on its platform. The games are available to Character AI’s paid subscribers and a limited set of users on the free plan. For this initial release, the company developed […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Bluesky on Friday published its moderation report for the past year, noting the sizable growth the social network experienced in 2024 and how that affected its Trust & Safety team’s workload. It also noted that the largest number of reports came from users reporting accounts or posts for harassment, trolling, or intolerance — an issue […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew responded to comments made by Donald Trump regarding Friday’s Supreme Court ruling to ban the app in the U.S. In a video posted on TikTok, Chew said, “On behalf of everyone at TikTok and all our users across the country, I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The Federal Aviation Administration is requiring Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to investigate what went wrong on their respective mega-rocket test flights this week. The regulator said both companies must perform what’s known as a “mishap investigation.” These probes involve the companies and the FAA working together to understand what went wrong, […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
OpenAI says it trained a new AI model called GPT-4b micro with Retro Biosciences, a longevity science startup trying to extend the human lifespan by 10 years, according to the MIT Technology Review. Retro, which is backed by Sam Altman, has been working with OpenAI for roughly a year on this research, according to the […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Amazon added around 100 new renewable projects last year.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. This week’s newsletter is about startups, but it is also about Big Tech companies expanding their reach, both through acquisitions and through investments. Most interesting startup stories […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Google says it has begun requiring users to turn on JavaScript, the widely used programming language to make web pages interactive, in order to use Google Search. In an email to TechCrunch, a company spokesperson claimed that the change is intended to “better protect” Google Search against malicious activity, such as bots and spam, and […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The US government has also sanctioned the hacker responsible for December's US Treasury hack
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The theft of a PowerSchool engineer's passwords prior to the breach raises further doubts about the company's security practices.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Bumble announced today that founder Whitney Wolfe Herd is returning as CEO after stepping down from the position in 2023. Wolfe Herd will succeed Lidiane Jones, the company’s current CEO who has left for “personal reasons,” Bumble explained. Jones, the former CEO of Slack, will continue her role at Bumble until the transition takes effect […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Instagram announced a timely update to its video feature Reels this morning, alongside the news that the Supreme Court upheld the law that will ban TikTok in the U.S. on January 19. The update, says Meta, will make it easier for users to discover the content that friends and followers are liking on the platform […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Just ahead of today’s Supreme Court ruling — which saw the nation’s highest court uphold the law banning TikTok in the U.S. as of January 19 — Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he had a “very good” phone call with China’s President Xi Jinping, which included discussion of TikTok. In addition, the president-elect […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Rivian and the Department of Energy have finalized a $6.6 billion loan announced in November with just a few days left until Donald Trump’s inauguration. The company will use the loan to help build out its planned factory in Georgia, east of Atlanta, with construction beginning in 2026. The first R2 SUVs are scheduled to […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Instabase, a company that creates software for extracting and processing unstructured data from myriad document types, has raised $100 million in a Series D round of funding. The announcement comes as companies struggle under a deluge of data — data that can unlock key business insights. Indeed, most of the data that companies generate is […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The Supreme Court has upheld the law that will effectively ban TikTok on Sunday, January 19. The decision marks the end of TikTok’s months-long legal fight against a law that essentially forces the ByteDance-owned app to shut down unless it divests its U.S. operations on national security grounds. As of Sunday, it will be illegal […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Surprise! Donald Trump’s big, audacious ambition to buy Greenland from Denmark has a tech angle. Ken Howery, named as U.S. President-elect Trump’s pick to be the next ambassador to the country (and thus chief broker of any deal), is one more part of the rich seam of tech people running through Trump’s upcoming administration. Part […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The European Commission (EC) says it has requested information from Elon Musk’s X related to the algorithms that determine the content it recommends to users. The EC wants to determine how those algorithms may or may not be compliant with the Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes key obligations on online platforms operating across the […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
The order bans the automaker from selling consumers' information to data brokers for five years.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
A new AI orchestration startup from the founders of Lithuanian unicorn Nord Security is setting out to help enterprises put their AI projects into production, with an initial focus on bringing greater visibility, security, and adaptability to large language models (LLMs). Nexos.ai, as the startup is called, is the handiwork of Tomas Okmanas (pictured above) […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
