TechCrunch Industry News

-Roblox CEO Dave Baszuki joined the Hard Fork podcast to discuss the gaming platform’s new age verification feature — but he seemed to get frustrated at the number of questions focused on child safety. -A new feature seemingly revealed many right-wing “America First” accounts are actually based outside the United States. But the data seems questionable. -Major insurers including AIG, Great America...

Altman and Ive tease a simple AI device aimed at calm, distraction-free computing, launching within two years. Also, DOGE members are reportedly worried that they could face prosecution for some of their activities conducted while under the leadership of Elon Musk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reuters reports that the executive order has been put on hold. If signed, the order would probably face significant opposition, including from Republicans who previously criticized the proposed moratorium on state regulation. Waymo continues to expand its reach, with the robotaxi company posting Friday that it’s now “officially authorized to drive fully autonomously across more of the Golden State...

-Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike denied it had been hacked following claims from a hacker group, which leaked screenshots from inside CrowdStrike's network. -X's new feature will show where users are based, how they're connected to X, and how many times they've changed their username. -Two Trump-appointed FCC officials voted to undo the telecom industry's cybersecurity rules. One Democratic commis...

According to Grok, Elon Musk can out slug the MLB's greatest power hitters... except Ohtani. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google is upgrading its image generation model with new editing chops, higher resolutions, more accurate text rendering, and the ability to search the web. Also, the fire that broke out at the Oswego, NY Is the second major fire -- and the third overall -- in the last few months at the Novelis plant, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Written by: Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai The story of the Ghost in the Shell’s main villain the Puppet Master hinted at a future where governments use hackers for espionage, at a time when most of the world had never connected to the internet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has resigned from OpenAI’s board days after Congress released an extensive cache of emails with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which included details of intimate affairs. OpenAI is pushing deeper into retail, with Target set to debut a new ChatGPT-powered app for shoppers in coming weeks. The news follows OpenAI’s move last month to start adding ded...

Constellation Energy will use the loan to refurbish a reactor it idled in 2019. Microsoft has agreed to buy the power once the facility reopens in 2028. Also, Hugging Face co-founder and CEO Clem Delangue says all the attention is on LLMs, but smaller, specialized models will make sense in many use cases going forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Zap’s Fuze-3 device has been firing pulses of plasma at the company’s headquarters in Seattle, and the results of those experiments will ultimately inform the design of the company’s future demonstration plants. The Fuze-3 device was able to compress a soup of charged particles to more than two hundred thirty two thousand PSI and heat it to more than 21 million degrees Fahrenheit. Also, Stack Over...

One year ago, e-commerce giant Amazon kicked off its new online car sales business with Hyundai. Now, Ford is joining in with a certified used car twist. Also, Facebook's new content protection tool extends to Instagram too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The company has been quietly changing how it talks about who its internet customers will be before it announced a big name change last week. Also, a federal jury in California ruled Friday that Apple must pay medical device maker Masimo $634 million for infringing a patent on blood oxygen monitoring technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The group chat is available to Free, Plus, and Team users on both mobile and web platforms. OpenAI says the pilot is designed to explore how people use group conversations in ChatGPT. Also, in a video announcing the release of beehiiv, Tyler Denk, the co-founder and CEO of beehive, said that what makes newsletter platforms powerful is ownership. “Owning your audience, distribution, brand, and even...

Chad: the Brainrot IDE is an actual product that pairs vibe coding with brainrot activities like gambling, Tinder and games. Also, orders of the Besties Tequila were supposed to be fulfilled by end of summer but were delayed again and again due to the bottle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jack Dorsey backs diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine's video archive of 6-second, looping videos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

These palm-sized robots use ultrasound signals to navigate harsh conditions in search and rescue missions. Also, the autocomplete will help users create more effective prompts for AI apps, resulting in fewer back-and-forths. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.S. is far ahead of Europe in the race for large AI models, at least in funding. But the picture is different for the application layer, global VC firm Accel highlighted in its 2025 Globalscape report. Also, Australia's intelligence chief warned that Chinese hackers are trying to break into its networks, sometimes successfully, to "pre-position" for sabotage ahead of an anticipated invasion o...

Robyn wants to position it self as an empathetic chatbot and not as a companion or a therapy app. Also, Yann LeCun, a chief AI scientist at Meta, is planning to leave the company to build his own startup, which will focus on continuing his work on world models. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The platform has attracted an eclectic user base. More than half of Fortune 500 companies are using Lovable to "supercharge creativity," according to Osika, who insisted retention remains strong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Government surveillance vendors want us to believe their spyware products are only used in limited and targeted operations against terrorists and serious criminals. That claim is increasingly difficult to justify, given the broad range of victims — journalists, activists, and now political consultants — that have come forward. AI isn't all or nothing, and even good bets can turn sour if you aren't...

After Tesla shareholders approved a new compensation package that could be worth $1 trillion, CEO Elon Musk appears to be celebrating with a normal weekend on his social media platform X. Also, if you watched all the way to the end of the new Apple TV show “Pluribus,” you may have noticed an unusual disclaimer in the credits: “This show was made by humans.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

A recent letter from OpenAI reveals more details about how the company is hoping the federal government can support the company's ambitious plans for data center construction. Also, a rough week for tech stocks might signal a loss of investor confidence in artificial intelligence. And while Apple’s iPhone already supports texting, calling emergency services, and contacting roadside assistance via...

A newly identified Android spyware targeted Galaxy devices for close to a year, including users in the Middle East, researchers exclusively tell TechCrunch. In addition, the congressional research office confirmed a breach, but did not comment on the cause. A security researcher suggested the hack may have originated because CBO failed to patch a firewall for more than a year. Learn more about you...

The proposal received more than 75% approval. Musk can earn the $1 trillion in shares over the next 10 years if Tesla hits a number of milestones. Plus Musk said he expects Tesla to be able to put all the Cybercabs it builds on the road, and thanked Waymo for 'paving the path.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is warning Peloton users to stop using the affected bikes immediately. Also, Snap said today that it has signed a deal with AI-powered search engine Perplexity to power a new chatbot. As part of the deal, Perplexity will pay Snap $400 million in cash and equity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices