TechCrunch Industry News

Meta, the parent of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is the second-biggest driver of internet usage globally. Its properties — and their billions of users — account for 10% of all fixed and 22% of all mobile traffic. Meta’s investments into artificial intelligence stand to boost that usage even further. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new paper from the Federal Trade Commission found that many smart device makers fail to disclose to consumers how long they will provide software updates for their products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

India-based audio platform Pocket FM has more than 200,000 hours of content on the service. However, the company’s CEO, Rohan Nayak, believes that the platform still has room to grow in terms of creating original content and expanding its library to multiple genres and sub-genres. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.S. Department of Commerce today confirmed it has awarded $7.865 billion to chip giant Intel under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act, a federal statute signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022 to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

London is putting the brakes on the mess of e-bikes that litter the streets of the city. Today, the local transportation authority, Transport for London, announced a new enforcement policy that will restrict parking for the tens of thousands of e-bikes rented on-demand from companies like Lime, HumanForest and Dott. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s not exactly a secret that Apple has explored the possibility of building a television. Before his death in 2011, co-founder Steve Jobs famously told biographer Walter Isaacson that he’d “finally cracked it,” but no full-fledged Apple TV (as opposed to the Apple TV set-top box) has emerged in the years since; The Australian government has withdrawn a bill that would have fined online platforms...

Meet the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W, a tiny board designed around a microcontroller that lets you build hardware projects at scale. Raspberry Pi is once again using the RP2350, its own, well-documented microcontroller. But what is a microcontroller again? As the name suggests, microcontrollers let you control other electronic components or devices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices....

Brave announced on Thursday that it’s introducing an AI chat mode for follow-up questions based on initial queries on Brave Search. Earlier this year, the company launched “Answer with AI” summaries that appear above search results after you submit a query to give you an easy-to-read answer in response to a question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Thursday he is opening an investigation into the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) to determine whether the trade group’s members conspired to boycott “certain social media platforms.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI may be the hottest thing since sliced bread. But that doesn’t mean it’s getting easier to develop and run. According to a recent Boston Consulting Group poll, 74% of organizations are struggling to derive value from their AI investments Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Several AI-based study tools are capitalizing on a “PDF to Brainrot” trend, which will read the text of a document you upload over “oddly satisfying” videos, like ASMR clips of mixing paint and cutting soap, or gameplay footage from Minecraft and Subway Surfers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kim Kardashian’s new beaux is a Tesla bot named Optimus. The fashion mogul got some hands-on experience with Tesla’s bipedal, human-shaped robot, which is not yet available to the general public. In Kardashian’s videos with the robot — posted to X and her Instagram story; Volkswagen of America has a new CEO: Rivian’s recently departed chief commercial officer Kjell Gruner. The appointment comes ju...

The U.K. government is not ruling out further beefing up existing online safety rules by adding an Australian-style ban on social media for under 16s technology secretary, Peter Kyle, has said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Generative AI has upended how we write things… or even if we write at all. Now a startup wants to be the main character in the next chapter of that story: AI that replaces the role of the publisher. Spines is a self-publishing platform that claims that — thanks to being powered by artificial intelligence Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After building out Google Lens to help users shop online more easily, Google is now updating the product to help people shop when they’re in a physical store by offering product insights, price comparisons, and local inventory availability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Roblox will not let users under the age of 13 message others outside of games and experiences on the platform, the company said Friday. Roblox also announced a series of other built-in protections for young users, such as age-gating certain experiences, along with enhanced parental controls.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bluesky is having a moment — a moment that’s already stretched on for nearly three months. Over the summer, the social media app saw a wave of new signups in Brazil after X (formerly Twitter) was temporarily banned there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you’re an hourly worker, the number of go-to options you have for finding new jobs is shrinking a little. JobGet — a Boston startup that operates an hourly job-hunting site with social features built in, a la LinkedIn — is acquiring Snagajob, one of its rivals in the U.S. market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social networking rivals continue to benefit from the user exodus from X. Spill, the social app founded by two former Twitter employees, released a statement claiming it has also seen a jump in users after the U.S. Presidential election, following similar news by Bluesky, which gained more than 2 million users during that time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spotify announced on Wednesday that it will start paying podcast hosts who make popular videos on its streaming platform, as the company looks to take on YouTube’s dominance in the video podcast space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

PayPal is launching a few features that let users in groups pool money with friends or family, to collectively pay for trips, travels, gifts, and anything else. The company is launching this feature in the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Italy, and Spain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Many feared that the 2024 election would be affected, and perhaps decided, by AI-generated disinformation. While there was some to be found, it was far less than anticipated. But don’t let that fool you: the disinfo threat is real — you’re just not the target. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The future of aircraft may look very similar to today’s superficially — but under the hood (or sitting next to the tailfins) they will likely be quite different. That’s the future NASA is hoping to nurture with five research awards worth $11.5 million. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Red Hat, the IBM-owned open source software firm, is acquiring Neural Magic, a startup that optimizes AI algorithms to run on commodity processors. The transaction is subject to applicable regulatory reviews and other customary closing conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s an AI chip battle brewing among the major cloud vendors. Google’s Trillium, a custom chip for training and running AI models, recently entered preview, and Microsoft’s Maia is expected to follow in short order. Not to be outdone, Amazon Web Services has AI chips, too: Trainium, Inferentia, and Graviton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices