timef 02/06/2025

Andreessen Horowitz is defending its decision to hire Daniel Penny, according to an investor memo seen by The New York Times.  The venture capital firm caused a stir earlier this week after it announced it would hire Penny, who was acquitted last year of choking a homeless man to death in the New York City […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OpenAI on Thursday launched data residency in Europe, allowing European organizations to meet local data sovereignty requirements while using the AI company’s products. Data residency refers to the physical location of an organization’s data, as well as the local laws and policy requirements imposed on that data. Most tech giants and cloud providers offer European […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

TrueFoundry, a startup offering enterprises a platform to deploy compound AI systems at scale, as raised $19 million in a Series A round led by Intel Capital. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Fizz, the college social app, is looking for ways to enhance and expand its platform, and a recent new hire is poised to help drive these ambitions. The company has brought on David Vasquez, who previously served as TikTok’s head of creator monetization and a product lead for TikTok Shop, as Fizz’s new head of […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Ride-hail giant Lyft has partnered with AI startup Anthropic to build an AI assistant that handles initial intake for customer service inquiries for both riders and drivers.  It’s the first phase of a broader collaboration between the two companies to use Anthropic’s services to research and test new Lyft products and build software internally. The […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Supply chains have had a tumultuous few years, beginning in 2020, when COVID-19 upended legacy global supply chains. More recently, the “TikTok-ification” of retail has companies like Shein and Temu creating new products constantly as consumer demands change at the same rapid pace. Pendulum aims to help companies better plan for supply and demand in […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

In a move that could make OpenAI’s chatbot a more appealing option over incumbents such as Google, the company is now allowing anyone use ChatGPT web search without having to log in. While OpenAI had previously allowed users to ask ChatGPT questions without signing in, responses were restricted to the chatbot’s last training update. Then […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

British engineering company IMI has disclosed a cybersecurity incident just days after rival firm Smiths reported it was targeted by hackers.  IMI, a Birmingham-based firm that designs and manufactures products for industrial automation, transport, and climate control, said in a filing with the London Stock Exchange on Thursday that it is “currently responding to a […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

After consumer protection scrutiny dialled up on fast-fashion giant Shein in the European Union on Wednesday, the bloc’s executive announced Thursday that it’s sent a fresh request for information (RFI) to the ecommerce platform under the Digital Services Act (DSA), a pan-EU online governance framework. The Commission oversees larger platforms’ compliance with a subset of […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As cancer rates in the West, and globally, tack upwards due to lifestyle and environmental pollution, so does the need for the nuclear isotopes used in detecting those cancers in a medical setting. But with many reactors built in the 70s and the 80s scheduled for shut down, the materials used are becoming rarer and […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Indian food delivery group Zomato plans to rename itself as Eternal, a strategic shift as its quick commerce unit Blinkit becomes a significant driver of future growth. The Gurugram-based company, which joined India’s benchmark BSE Sensex in December, said on Tuesday the name change would better reflect its expanding business portfolio that includes quick commerce […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Presto is helping connect fleets and charging networks so drivers can find working chargers quickly. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Cultivated chicken doggie snacks have gone on sale at a U.K. pet food retailer, Pets at Home. The retailer also happens to be a major investor in Meatly, the startup producing the meat ingredient contained in dog food brand The Pack’s Chick Bites, as the slaughter-free, low carbon treats are billed. (Other ingredients in the […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

When you think about platforms in the construction industry, chances are you’re thinking about concrete platforms designed to support steel beams and tall pillars. Munich-based startup Comstruct wants to design a different platform to digitize the construction industry — a software platform. And the startup is announcing a $12.5 million Series A round led by GV […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The race is on to build a new generation of healthcare software to replace legacy hospital systems that in some cases may not have been updated in decades. A startup out of Munich, Germany called Avelios has ambitions to build a new kind of end-to-end administrative system, leaning into more modern tooling using AI and […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Emblem, a relatively new European VC firm based in Paris, is announcing the final closing of its first fund. Eighteen months after the first closing, the Emblem team managed to secure €80 million in total (around $85 million at current exchange rates). This is no small feat in the current funding environment. According to Atomico’s […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Modern product engineering requires the production of highly accurate digital simulations, allowing engineers to create prototypes and understand the real-world performance of materials. Currently, legacy software platforms from companies like IBM and Dassault are generally employed, but — now powered by Generative AI — startups are joining the arena.  One such is Trace.Space, coming out of […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Every Sunday, NPR host Will Shortz, The New York Times’ crossword puzzle guru, gets to quiz thousands of listeners in a long-running segment called the Sunday Puzzle. While written to be solvable without too much foreknowledge, the brainteasers are usually challenging even for skilled contestants. That’s why some experts think they’re a promising way to […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Boston Dynamics Wednesday announced a partnership designed to bring improved reinforcement learning to its electric Atlas humanoid robot. The tie-up is with the Robotics & AI Institute (RAI Institute), earlier known as The Boston Dynamics AI Institute. Both organizations were founded by Marc Raibert, a former MIT professor who served as Boston Dynamics’ CEO for […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

And it's the latest in an ongoing saga over the company's future ownership. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Sonos announced that it has laid off 200 people in a letter posted to its site Wednesday. The news follows a 100-person layoff in August. Both rounds arrive in the wake of a disastrously botched update to the Sonos app that alienated broad swaths of the premium audio hardware firm’s extremely loyal fanbase. The new […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

AI researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington were able to train an AI “reasoning” model for under $50 in cloud compute credits, according to a new research paper released last Friday. The model known as s1 performs similarly to cutting-edge reasoning models, such as OpenAI’s o1 and DeepSeek’s r1, on tests measuring math […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Scout Motors’ plan to eschew traditional dealerships and sell EVs directly to consumers is running into legal trouble. A group of Volkswagen and Audi dealers filed a lawsuit this week against Scout Motors, the EV that spun out of Volkswagen. The lawsuit, which was first reported by Automotive News, seeks to block Scout’s direct-to-consumer sales […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A clearer picture of Bench's downfall is emerging thanks to new bankruptcy filings, which show the accounting startup burned $135 million before collapsing. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A complete list of all the known layoffs in tech, from Big Tech to startups, broken down by month throughout 2024. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Field service engineers may not be the first group of customers that come to mind when you think about lucrative opportunities in B2B technology. But that same blind spot speaks of the opportunity in the space for those who are stepping up and targeting “the job site.” One of the players in that space, XOi  […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google will no longer have diversity hiring targets and will review its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, according to an email sent to employees seen by the Wall Street Journal.  Google now joins other tech companies rolling back DEI practices, especially as DEI practices come under fire from conservative groups. Amazon and Meta have also […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Elon Musk's DOGE has taken control and accessed large swathes of Americans' private information held by the U.S. federal government. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Amazon may be gearing up to release a next-gen, AI-powered Alexa experience, according to Reuters. Per the outlet’s report, Amazon plans to preview an upgraded version of Alexa, the company’s smart home assistant that runs on a number of first- and third-party devices, at an event on February 26. The revamped Alexa is said to […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

WhatsApp said users in several European countries were targeted with Paragon spyware, according to the Italian government. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

During a recent press appearance, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that he’s observed the “IQ” of AI rapidly improve over the past several years. “Very roughly, it feels to me like — this is not scientifically accurate, this is just a vibe or spiritual answer — every year we move one standard deviation of IQ,” […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

For decades, the US healthcare system has struggled to address the diet-related chronic illnesses affecting nearly half of all adults. That changed in recent years with the discovery of Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs that help people lose weight. While insurance covers these medications, doctors frequently require patients to see a nutritionist as part of […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Ransomware payments fell by more than one-third in 2024 as an increasing number of victims refused to negotiate with hackers. In a report published Wednesday, crypto forensics firm Chainalysis said that while ransomware gang leak sites posted more victims than in previous years during 2024, fewer victims gave in to the hackers’ demands. Chainalysis reported […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Stripe has closed on its $1.1 billion purchase of stablecoin platform Bridge – marking the payment giant’s largest acquisition to date and tangible push into crypto. Co-founded in 2022 by Coinbase and Square alumni Zach Abrams and Sean Yu, San Antonio, Texas-based Bridge built an API that helps companies accept stablecoins. The pair raised $58 […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

U.S. Democratic Representative Mark Pocan plans to introduce a bill designed to ban “special government employees” like Elon Musk from having federal contracts so they can’t steer spending towards their own self-interest.  The proposed bill is called the ELON MUSK Act, which stands for Eliminate Looting of Our Nation by Mitigating Unethical State Kleptocracy.  “No […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The latest target of Paragon spyware openly questions if he was targeted by the Italian government. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Enterprise HR platform Workday is the latest tech company to announce layoffs in recent weeks. Silicon Valley-based Workday laid off 1,750 employees on Wednesday, as originally reported by Bloomberg and confirmed independently by TechCrunch. That total represents approximately 8.5% of headcount. Unlike many other tech companies, including Meta and Microsoft, Workday has not held drastic […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

AI is heating up, and we’re diving in! TechCrunch Sessions: AI is officially open for registration. Secure your spot now and save up to $300 on select tickets before prices rise From startup founders to AI investors to aspiring innovators — TC Sessions: AI is where the entire AI ecosystem comes together. Whether you’re building, […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Founders and investors, it’s time! TechCrunch Early Stage has evolved into TechCrunch All Stage 2025, returning to Boston on July 17. Get your tickets now and save up to $310 on select ticket types, securing your spot at the best rates. Register here for your All Stage ticket at unbeatable prices. All Stage covers all […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google launched its much-anticipated new flagship AI model, Gemini 2.0 Pro Experimental, on Wednesday. The announcement was part of a series of other AI model releases. The company is also making its “reasoning’ model, Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, available in the Gemini app. Notably, Google is releasing these AI models as the tech world remains […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.