Waymo is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including video from interior cameras tied to rider identities, to train generative AI models, according to an unreleased version of its privacy policy found by researcher Jane Manchun Wong.  The draft language reveals Waymo may also share this data to personalize ads, raising fresh questions about […]

Google is bringing multimodal search to AI Mode, its Google Search experiment that lets users ask complex, multi-part questions and follow-ups to dig deeper on a topic. Users who have access to AI Mode can now tap the feature to ask questions about photos they’ve uploaded or taken with their camera. The new image-analyzing functionality […]

In a recent memo to employees, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke made a bold policy change: teams must demonstrate why AI can’t perform a job before they’re permitted to ask for more headcount and resources. “Before asking for more headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI,” Lütke […]

Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser said that the company did not factor in possible tariffs from the U.S. when deciding on the pricing for its Nintendo Switch 2 console, according to Wired. Nintendo unveiled its highly anticipated Switch 2 last week and announced that the console would be released on June 5, priced at […]

Los Angeles-based startup Moonvalley, which is developing AI tools for video creation, has raised a fresh $43 million in venture capital, according to an SEC filing. The filing lists 11 unnamed investors and comes roughly a week after Moonvalley launched its first AI video-generating model, Marey. Moonvalley previously raised $70 million in seed funding from backers […]

A UK surveillance court said the backdoor order targeting Apple iCloud can be heard partly in public.

Overwhelmed with trying to keep up with the different AI models you can use to make content? A startup called Krea is looking to solve this problem specifically for designers and other visual creatives, and it has now raised $83 million for its platform, which it believes will make working with generative AI a lot […]

IBM on Monday said it has acquired Hakkoda, a data and AI consultancy based in New York. The acquisition would “further expand” IBM’s ability to bring consultants and AI to clients, particularly customers in industries like financial services, public sector, and healthcare and life sciences, said Mohamad Ali, SVP and head of IBM’s consulting business, […]

Thirteen years ago, when Chris Farmer founded early-stage venture firm SignalFire with data analysis at the core of its investment strategy, many were skeptical about the approach — conventional wisdom dictated that nascent companies didn’t have enough data to make investment algorithms effective. “This was a very radical idea, and everyone thought I was crazy,” […]

OpenAI is said to have discussed acquiring the AI hardware startup that former Apple design lead Jony Ive is building with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. According to The Information, OpenAI could pay around $500 million for the fledgling company, called io Products. Ive, who left Apple in 2019 to start his own design firm called […]

"Don't do crime," the ransomware gang's dark web leak site reads.

Peter Diamandis, a futurist with degrees from both MIT and Harvard, has spent much of the past two decades evangelizing a vision of an abundant future driven by exponential technologies that will lengthen our lives. The serial entrepreneur and founder of organizations like the XPRIZE Foundation and Singularity University has also cultivated close ties with […]

One of the new flagship AI models Meta released on Saturday, Maverick, ranks second on LM Arena, a test that has human raters compare the outputs of models and choose which they prefer. But it seems the version of Maverick that Meta deployed to LM Arena differs from the version that’s widely available to developers. […]

The British Broadcasting Corporation has filed a complaint with a U.K. antitrust regulator complaining that aggregators like Apple News and Google News minimize credit for the stories they feature. Apple Insider reports that the BBC is asking the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority to require Apple and Google to more prominently credit news sources. And […]

How did Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg get added to a Signal group chat with Trump administration officials discussing their plans for an airstrike in Yemen? The simplest explanation: National Security Adviser Mike Waltz had Goldberg saved as a contact in his phone and accidentally added him. Indeed, when Waltz first claimed that Goldberg’s phone number […]

Microsoft has released a browser-based playable level of the classic video game Quake II. This functions as a tech demo for the gaming capabilities of Microsoft’s Copilot AI platform — though by the company’s own admission, the experience isn’t quite the same as playing a well-made game. You can try it out for yourself, using […]

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) plans to host a hackathon next week focused on the creation of a “mega API” that will provide access to taxpayer data, according to Wired. Wired says the hackathon is being organized by two DOGE staffers at the Internal Revenue Service — Gavin Kliger and Sam Corcos, who’s […]

Meta has released a new collection of AI models, Llama 4, in its Llama family — on a Saturday, no less. There are four new models in total: Llama 4 Scout, Llama 4 Maverick, and Llama 4 Behemoth. All were trained on “large amounts of unlabeled text, image, and video data” to give them “broad […]

Elisabeth Diana, head of communications at human resources platform Deel, is no longer with the company, according to her LinkedIn profile. Bloomberg first reported the news that Diana had resigned from Deel, which was recently accused of planting a spy at rival company Rippling. TechCrunch reached out to Diana but had not heard back at […]

The big screen adaptation of video game mega-franchise Minecraft brought in $58 million on Friday, putting it on track for a $135 million opening weekend domestically — or potentially even more. That would give “A Minecraft Movie” the biggest opening of the year, beating out “Captain America: Brave New World” (which earned $88.8 million during […]