TechCrunch Industry News

Over the years, numerous startups have gained traction by designing, making and selling standing desks as part of a workspace innovation trend to promote better health, and a lot of executives swear by them, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, who once called sitting “the new cancer.”; Social network X has so far limited its AI chatbot Grok (built by Elon Musk’s other company xAI) to its premium, paying...

A founder who was an early mover in the race to build autonomous vehicles has raised $15 million for his next act: a startup that claims its AI can write enterprise software on its own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What’s the secret to success? It isn’t any of the trends that so many founders in Silicon Valley subscribe to. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The PRESS Act would protect a journalist's sources, and gained unanimous bipartisan support when passed by the House in January. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic today announced that it’s teaming up with Palantir, the data-mining company, and Amazon Web Services to provide U.S. intelligence and defense agencies access to Anthropic’s Claude 3 and 3.5 family of AI models. The news comes as a growing number of AI vendors, for strategic and revenue-related reasons, look to ink deals with U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Tuesday it will be taking action against the online cash app and neobank Dave, which it says used “misleading marketing to deceive consumers.” At issue is how Dave marketed $500 cash advances to consumers that it rarely offered. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By now, there’s hardly a coder in the world who isn’t using an AI copilot in some way. But using GitHub Copilot or Cursor. AI to ask technical questions and get debugging help could be just the beginning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It seems Lyft is hoping to catch up to Uber’s string of autonomous vehicle partnerships. Lyft announced Wednesday three separate partnerships — with startup May Mobility, automated driving company Mobileye and smart dashcam firm Nexar — all aimed at establishing a foothold in the emerging autonomous vehicle market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Move cautiously and red-team things” is sadly not as catchy as “move fast and break things.” But three AI safety advocates made it clear to startup founders that going too fast can lead to ethical issues in the long run. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Most AI benchmarks don’t tell us much. They ask questions that can be solved with rote memorization, or cover topics that aren’t relevant to the majority of users. So some AI enthusiasts are turning to games as a way to test AIs’ problem-solving skills. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Go to TechCrunch.com for more tech stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Can the U.S. meaningfully regulate AI? It’s not at all clear yet. Policymakers have achieved progress in recent months, but they’ve also had setbacks, illustrating the challenging nature of laws imposing guardrails on the technology. In March, Tennessee became the first state to protect voice artists from unauthorized AI cloning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google Maps is getting new features powered by Gemini, Google’s generative AI model. On Thursday the company announced incoming updates that will allow Google Maps users in the U.S. to tap into AI to help them find new places to visit and answer questions about different locations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two mobile operating systems currently comprise nearly 100% of the global smartphone market. Building one is hard, and for most phone makers, there are better uses of resources, especially when Android is right there for the taking Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Space executives took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt on Monday to talk about the challenges and opportunities of building out dual-use technology, or tech that has both a defense and a commercial use case.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The European Union has expanded its scrutiny of online marketplaces by opening a formal proceeding on Chinese low cost ecommerce platform, Temu, under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Commission announced Thursday. Enforcers of the online governance framework will now dial up their oversight of Temu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new startup setting out to combat the scourge of deepfakes and spoofed evidence in the age of AI is showing off its wares on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 this week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meet Luna, a health and well-being app for teen girls that is designed to help them navigate teenhood. The app lets teens ask questions about their health and wellness and get responses from experts. It also lets them track their periods, moods, and skin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The focus of the new $100 million fund, Crosscut’s sixth, will include energy and power, space and underwater exploration, advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, and security and defense. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Buzzy calendar apps tend to make a big splash and disappear after a while. Sometimes they get acquired, sometimes the company pivots to something else. That’s not the case with Fantastical, a popular calendar app for macOS, iOS, and other Apple platforms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

McDonald’s ice cream machines have developed a lousy reputation for being broken when you visit the restaurant, largely due to strict copyright laws that only permit specially licensed technicians to legally repair them. The manufacturers have to license each technician, and they put locks on the McFlurry machines to prevent others from repairing them; A federal jury ruled Friday that Masimo smart...

World models, also known as world simulators, are being touted by some as the next big thing in AI. AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs has raised $230 million to build “large world models,” and DeepMind hired one of the creators of OpenAI’s video generator, Sora, to work on “world simulators.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Scout Motors, the Volkswagen Group spinoff, unveiled Thursday two EVs it hopes will hook American customers with modern-meets-rugged styling that downplays digital and embraces the mechanical. The catch? The company will also offer variants to its all-electric Scout Traveler SUV and Scout Terra Truck that will come equipped with a built-in gas-powered generator. Learn more about your ad choices. V...

The war in Ukraine has shown that warfare changes by the day. It’s also clear that the tech used to make war today is costly: While larger countries can afford legions of tanks, helicopters, and precision-strike systems, smaller nations find themselves scrambling for cheaper ways to defend themselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brands often rely on scraping the web and monitoring social media to understand what customers are saying about them and get insights for product development. Cafeteria is a startup that wants to connect brands to their most opinionated customers: teens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices