TechCrunch Industry News

UNESCO calls water pollution one of the main challenges facing societies, with 2 million tonnes of sewage entering the world’s water each day. Oxyle wants to help solve the crisis with a new wastewater treatment that removes micropollutants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Toxic and hateful comments on YouTube have been a constant headache for the company, creators and users. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

China’s abrupt easing of its zero-COVID policy last week has led to a spike in cases and rising fears of the virus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sunday was a landmark day for both commercial and public space ventures, with NASA’s Orion capsule returning to Earth just hours after the launch of a privately funded and built lunar lander by Japanese company ispace. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uber is suing the New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission, which last month approved a fare hike for ride-hail apps and taxi drivers amid a post-pandemic driver shortage, rising operational costs and higher inflation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Microsoft is to acquire a 4% stake in the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), the company that owns the London Stock Exchange as well as a several other businesses including financial market data company Refinitiv. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Roblox is adding two new ways for people who spend time in its virtual worlds to find old friends and make new ones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Thursday, Disney+ launched its first-ever ad-supported plan, “Disney+ Basic,” in the U.S. at $7.99 per month, which is the same price as the previous ad-free plan before Disney raised the price to $10.99/month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s an ever-growing list of wearables that track people’s health, but what about a vehicle that monitors one’s blood pressure and heart rate with smart sensors and algorithms? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kenyan edtech Zeraki, a scale-up that is building digital learning and school data analytics platforms, has raised $1.8 million seed funding in a round led by Acumen Fund, for product catalog growth and regional expansion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uber and Motional, the Hyundai-Aptiv joint venture focused on commercializing self-driving technology, have launched a robotaxi service in Las Vegas — the first step in the companies’ 10-year plan to co-scale across major North American cities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google announced today that it’s making it easier for users to drill down on a search and explore related topics. Search currently has a few filters to help you refine and separate your search results between videos, news, images or shopping results. Now, the search giant is going to start showing users a scrollable list […]Google Search’s new topic filters make it easier to refine results and exp...

Apple has talked a big game about its future plans to break into the automotive market. But a report from Bloomberg says that Apple has had to scale back its plans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kapu, a social commerce startup, coming out of stealth today having raised $8 million seed funding, is hoping to help lessen the burden of buying food for Kenyan consumers, many of whom are grappling with the sky-rocketing food prices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

French VC firm Partech has closed another seed fund dedicated to early-stage tech startups — the fund is called Partech Entrepreneur IV. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s probably not a secret to those doing a lot of focused work in the space, but when it comes to generative AI, it’s quickly becoming apparent that how a user interfaces with generative models and systems is at least as important as the underlying training and inference technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

India won’t enforce a cap on the market share for players operating on the homegrown payments network until December 31, 2024 in a surprising move that analysts say is a major a win for Google Pay and Walmart’s PhonePe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Much of the company’s sales are outside the UK today, with U.S. “Hueligans,” the company’s loyal fans, representing Huel’s second-biggest market. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Web3 developer platform Fleek has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Polychain Capital, the company shared exclusively with TechCrunch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

European Central Bank officials alleged on Wednesday that bitcoin is “rarely used for legal transactions." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

According to Corning in-house research, “84% of consumers across three of the largest smartphone markets – China, India, and the United States — cite durability as the number one purchasing consideration behind brand itself.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pearpop, a marketplace for social collaborations, announced today that it has raised an extension to its 2021-era Series A funding round. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Israeli urban trip planning app Moovit unveiled a new feature Tuesday that allows users to follow a transit line’s movements along the map in real time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.S. government said it is banning telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from several prominent Chinese brands in an effort to protect the nation’s communications network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Search any major Chinese city on Twitter, and you will see a cascade of spam tweets showing porn, escort services, and gambling content that are published every few seconds, making it impossible to get any legitimate results. There has been a “significant uptick” in these tweets over the last three days, according to a China-focused […]Great Wall of porn obscures China protest news on Twitter by R...