TechCrunch Industry News

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been top of mind for brands for more than a decade to ensure their websites and products capture as many eyeballs as possible by ranking high up on search results pages. But search is changing, and as consumers increasingly turn to AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Music streaming service SoundCloud has launched a merch marketplace called SoundCloud Store. The store will sell SoundCloud-themed items, but will also act as a service for artists to put out their own designs. The first edition of the store features designs from Wiz Khalifa, Denzel Curry, wolfacejoeyy, Bk The Rula, and Armani White. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adcho...

The irony was not lost on her. Growing up the daughter of a racing car enthusiast father, Danielle Walsh had become — in her late 20s — the head of HSBC’s ‘Future Cities’ project, the global banking giant’s effort to serve clients’ climate change mandates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

While Amazon has continued releasing Echo devices, including an upgraded Spot announced last month, the company has taken its foot off the gas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Avi Schiffmann, the founder and CEO of Friend, told TechCrunch over email that the purchase has already paid for itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rocket Lab surpassed $100 million in quarterly revenue for the first time, a 71% increase from the same quarter of last year. This is just one of several shiny accomplishments executives showed off to investors on Thursday — and a good omen for the space company’s medium-term ambitious plans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Count Spotify and Epic Games among the Apple critics who are not happy with the iPhone maker’s newly revised compliance plan for the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). Shortly after Apple announced the updated version on Tuesday, including loosened restrictions along with the addition of two more fees, Spotify shared a statement with TechCrunch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podc...

The U.K.’s antitrust regulator has confirmed that it’s carrying out a formal antitrust investigation into Amazon’s ties with Anthropic, after Amazon recently completed a $4 billion investment into the AI startup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky suggested on Tuesday’s Q2 earnings call with investors that the company will soon expand into new products and services, including co-hosting, a relaunch of Airbnb’s “experiences,” guest services, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ride-hail giant Lyft will pilot a new feature called Price Lock that will let a rider purchase a monthly subscription “that caps the price for a specific route at a specific time,” according to CEO David Risher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Figure 02 is outfitted with speakers and microphones to speak and listen to people at work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uber reported strong second-quarter results, with gross bookings and net profit both up decently. But the company has chosen to highlight the success of its autonomous vehicle effort, likely to assuage investors concerned about incoming competition from Tesla, which aims to reveal its first robotaxi in October. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When a company is the size of Amazon, a lot of bad actors will come after it and its customers, which makes defending the network a monster job. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A scathing rebuke by the U.K. data protection watchdog reveals what led to the compromise of tens of millions of U.K. voters' information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In spite of a drop for the quarter, iPhone remained Apple’s most important category by a wide margin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Following the recent lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against music generation startups Udio and Suno, Suno admitted in a court filing on Thursday that it did, in fact, train its AI model using copyrighted songs. But it claimed that doing so was legal under the fair-use doctrine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google Cloud is giving Y Combinator startups access to a dedicated, subsidized cluster of Nvidia graphics processing units and Google tensor processing units to build AI models. It’s part of Google Cloud’s effort to cozy up with promising early-stage AI startups, in hopes some of them will evolve into massive, compute-hungry business Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adcho...

Commercial space station company Vast is building a private microgravity research lab as part of its wider Haven-1 station plans. The module is set to launch no earlier than the second half of 2025, the company said Thursday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Badoo, Bumble, Grindr, happn, Hinge and Hily all had the same vulnerability that could have helped a malicious user to identify the near-exact location of another user, according to the researchers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has passed in the Senate after Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pushed the internet bill to a vote. Proposed in 2022, KOSA requires that online platforms take reasonable steps to protect users from harm, and could become the most significant children’s online safety legislation to take effect since COPPA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.c...

Zoe sends customers at-home testing materials to collect blood or feces to test blood fat, blood sugar, and gut microbiome health. Following those results, the company scores every food (on a scale from 0 to 100), so people can make better choices of what to eat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We say something “goes viral” because we tend to think of rumors and disinformation spreading the way that an infection spreads. But these days it may be more accurate to say something “goes nuclear,” according to a new paper that models disinfo as a form of fission reaction Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Samsung is still foldables’ 500-pound gorilla, but the company successes have made the category significantly less lonely in recent years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Zapp is launching its urban electric two-wheeler in India in 2025 as it plans to expand globally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Exclusive: The Minnesota-based spyware maker Spytech snooped on thousands of devices before it was hacked earlier this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices