TechCrunch Industry News

Some users on X are turning to Grok for fact-checking, raising concerns among fact-checkers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s a controversy brewing over “AI-generated” studies submitted to this year’s ICLR, a long-running academic conference focused on AI. At least three AI labs — Sakana, Intology, and Autoscience — claim to have used AI to generate studies that were accepted to ICLR workshops. At conferences like ICLR, workshop organizers typically review studies for publication Learn more about your ad choices....

The Citizen Lab said it believes several governments may be customers of spyware maker Paragon Solutions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Waymo has been given permission to map roadways at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) via a temporary permit — the first step in the Alphabet company’s bid to unlock a potentially lucrative use case for its robotaxis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you’ve ever spent way too long scrolling through endless feeds about nothing, you may have been advised to touch grass. It’s a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, basically telling you to log off and go outside. But one developer took the concept to the next level. Rhys Kentish launched an iOS app last week called Touch Grass, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social network Bluesky recently published a proposal on GitHub outlining new options it could give users to indicate whether they want their posts and data to be scraped for things like generative AI training and public archiving. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meta won a legal victory this week against Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former employee who recently published a memoir of her time at the company titled “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. bipartisan lawmakers say the U.K. order gagging Apple from disclosing the demand is unconstitutional. Also, SoftBank is marching ahead on its ambitions to build out a major AI operation in its home market of Japan, on its own steam and in strategic partnership with others like OpenAI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amidst geopolitical tensions and volatile markets, the question of Europe’s ability to weather the storms ahead, especially as President Trump seems intent on having his pound of tariffs from the continent, is looming large. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the same way that genome sequencing determines the genetic makeup of an organism, Bryan Johnson — the investor and founder behind the Don’t Die movement – wants to start “foodome” sequencing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A rush of agentic AI solutions is hitting the enterprise market, and now one of the bigger players in automation has scooped up a startup in the space in hopes of taking a bigger piece of that business Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cybersecurity firm Lookout found several samples of a North Korean spyware it calls KoSpy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elliot Wolf, the executive producer and son of “Law & Order” creator Dick Wolf, is entering a new venture aimed at engaging true crime fans.  He, along with co-founders Andrew Adashek (CEO) and Noah Rosenberg (CTO), are developing Wolf Games, a new startup that leverages AI to generate daily murder mystery games. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Zolve, a neobanking startup targeting global citizens seeking credit, has raised $251 million in a new round to expand into Canada and launch loans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reshape Energy is betting on a more integrated approach to accelerate the decarbonization of the built environment. Founded in Munich, Germany back in May 2024, the startup is led by a team with expertise scaling energy businesses, including the German division of Octopus energy and energy price comparison platform Verivox. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

ServiceNow said on Monday that it has agreed to acquire Moveworks, which develops enterprise-focused automation and AI tools. ServiceNow will pay $2.85 billion for Moveworks in a mix of cash and stock. The former expects the deal to close in the second half of 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Russian crypto exchange Garantex has yet to directly address the international law enforcement operation that resulted in the seizure of its domains, and criminal charges against two of its administrators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Just weeks after Google said it would review its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the Google for Startups Founders Fund webpage is peppered with changes. Most notably Google is now using past tense to describe all of its fund programs for underrepresented founders.  This is a change that took place after December. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Scale AI is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Labor for compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the rise of AI companions who serve as online friends or romantic interests, experts are questioning how the technology affects our real-world social connections and relationships. According to Kasley Killam, author of the social health-focused book “The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoice...

Private search engine DuckDuckGo is leaning further into the generative AI opportunity. The non-tracking search engine has been dabbling with expanding the role of AI assistance in its product for the past year, including launching a chatbot-style interface last fall — available at Duck.ai. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An international coalition of law enforcement agencies seized the official website of Garantex, which has previously been sanctioned by the U.S. and E.U. governments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic has quietly removed from its website several voluntary commitments the company made in conjunction with the Biden Administration in 2023 to promote safe and “trustworthy” AI. The commitments, which included pledges to share information on managing AI risks across industry and government and research on AI bias and discrimination, were deleted from Anthropic’s transparency Learn more abou...

Ryan Breslow is once again the CEO of Bolt, the fintech company told TechCrunch on Wednesday. Bolt shared a communication that recently went out to investors in which Breslow wrote that “following a challenging few years,” he had been reinstated as Bolt’s CEO with “unanimous approval” of the board of the one-click checkout company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoic...

Venture investment to startups founded by women in Europe declined 12% in 2024, but it was in line with the 11% decrease in venture investment overall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices