timef 02/21/2025

Chinese AI lab DeepSeek plans to open-source portions of its online services’ code as part of an “open source week” event next week. DeepSeek will open-source five code repositories that have been “documented, deployed and battle-tested in production,” the company said in a post on X on Thursday. Code repositories are storage locations for software […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A leaker allegedly published the leaked internal messages after the group allegedly targeted Russian banks © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

You read that headline correctly! The best deals for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets are about to end in just 7 days. Save up to $1,130 on individual passes and up to 30% on group tickets. Don’t wait — these offers end on February 28 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Join us in celebrating 20 years of […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

From idea to IPO — where are you on your startup journey? If any of that sounds like you — or if you’re in between stages and ready to level up — TechCrunch All Stage 2025 (formerly Early Stage) is the place to be. Join 1,200 founders to exchange ideas and meet the right VC […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

YouTube is close to announcing a new lower-priced “premium lite” version of its subscription service, Bloomberg reports. The new tier is expected to launch in the United States, Australia, Germany, and Thailand “soon.” The tier will give users access to YouTube’s library of podcasts and how-to clips without ads, Bloomberg notes. Premium lite will be […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is firing nearly half of a small government team that regulates autonomous vehicles, the Washington Post reported. The firings are part of a broader 10% reduction at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as a result of firings of probationary workers and buyout offers, the Post reported, citing […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OpenAI said on Friday that it is rolling out Operator, its so-called AI agent that can perform tasks on behalf of users, for ChatGPT Pro subscribers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the U.K., and more countries. OpenAI said Operator will be available in most places where ChatGPT is available, apart from […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Rivian said Thursday it plans to launch a hands-off version of its driver assistance system for highway driving “in a few weeks,” and said an “eyes-off” version in 2026. The hands-off system will let Rivian compete with companies like Ford and General Motors, which have both launched similar systems in the past few years. (Ford […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Solar and wind together now represent nearly a quarter of electricity demand and nearly 10% of all energy consumption in the U.S. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Despite a still tight venture capital market, new unicorns are still being created every month. Using data from Crunchbase and PitchBook, TechCrunch tracked down the newly VC-backed startup minted unicorns so far this year as of the end of January. Those include healthcare companies like Hippocratic AI and satellite space companies like Loft Orbital.  This […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Rivian’s cost–cutting measures have gotten it a lot closer to profitability, but the company is warning that 2025 could still be a challenging year – especially because of the whorl of uncertainty caused by the new Trump Administration. The company announced Thursday its fourth quarter and full-year 2024 financial results, and along with it, shared […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The CEO of controversial facial recognition startup Clearview AI has resigned, he confirms to TechCrunch. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

This simple guide helps you identify and remove common consumer-grade spyware apps from your Android phone. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A study by the Pew Research Center found that Americans’ views of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg skew more negative than positive. While Zuckerberg has sparked chatter in Silicon Valley with his sudden interest in high fashion, the Meta CEO is less popular than President Trump’s right-hand man, Elon Musk, the report found. While about […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Using stalkerware is creepy, unethical, potentially illegal, and puts your data and that of your loved ones in danger. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Electric trucking startup Nikola is hoping to sell what remains of its whole business as early as April, lawyers for the company told a judge Thursday during the first hearing of its bankruptcy case in Delaware. The lawyers claimed Nikola already has at least three interested buyers (who they did not name) and that the […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A bug in the Android and iPhone monitoring operations allows anyone to access private data exfiltrated from a victim's device. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Meta announced on Thursday that it’s now accepting sign-ups for its Community Notes program on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. The announcement follows Meta news last month that it’s going to end its third-party fact-checking program and is instead moving to a Community Notes model similar to the one at X. In a blog post, Meta […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Road rage has been around for a while. A newer phenomenon that’s cropping up is EV charging rage — the feeling when a fellow EV owner cuts the line to grab one of the only working charge ports. It’s common enough that people posted altercations between EV drivers on social media and forums. In at […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Fifteen years ago, I started writing about a little EV startup that was trying to survive even as others failed in the clean tech boom-and-bust cycle. Back […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

On a cool morning last November, 800 people gathered before sunrise in a South Burlington hangar to witness the maiden flight of Beta Technologies’ first electric aircraft to be built on its new scaled production line. Kyle Clark, Beta’s enigmatic founder and CEO, piloted the Alia CX300 — one of the startup’s two aircraft models […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Federal Trade Commission announced on Thursday that it will launch a public inquiry into “censorship by tech platforms,” soliciting comments from people who feel they have been demonetized, banned, or otherwise censored due to their speech or affiliations. “Tech firms should not be bullying their users,” said FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson in a statement. […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Amazon Chime, the tech giant’s underwhelming alternative to Zoom and Google Meet, is shutting down for good. The company on Wednesday confirmed it will end support for Chime, including its Business Calling features, on Feb. 20, 2026. As part of this transition, Amazon stopped accepting new Chime accounts as of Feb. 19, 2025. From now […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Apple has brought the iPhone 16e to offer a more affordable option within the iPhone 16 lineup, targeting emerging markets including India. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Afore Capital, a firm that claims to be the largest dedicated pre-seed investor, was founded on the idea that the first check into a new startup should be larger than what most accelerators and early-stage investors were offering. When Afore raised its third $150 million fund in 2022, the firm wrote checks ranging from $1 […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The list included Elon Musk’s xAI, as well as a good number of other AI startups. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Hours after the acquisition was announced, several Humane employees received job offers. Others were not so lucky. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Cherryrock Capital, founded by ex-TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot, announced Wednesday the closing of its $172 million Fund I with an all-star limited partner list that includes JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, MassMutual, Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, Reid Hoffman, Mellody Hobson, and Sheryl Sandberg.  Brown-Philpot told Bloomberg that the fund actually closed in January.  The firm launched […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Figure founder and CEO Brett Adcock Thursday revealed a new machine learning model for humanoid robots. The news, which arrives two weeks after Adcock announced the Bay Area robotics firm’s decision to step away from an OpenAI collaboration, is centered around Helix, a “generalist” Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model. VLAs are a new phenomenon for robotics, leveraging […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Instagram is introducing a new way for creators to work with brands to make money by recommending products. On Thursday, Meta introduced an addition to its Partnership Ads called Testimonials, which allows creators to get paid via written endorsements, shared as comments on the brand’s social media posts and advertisements. The new ad format is […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

On Thursday, Spotify announced that it now accepts audiobooks narrated using ElevenLabs’ AI voice technology. Given that ElevenLabs is currently among the most recognized AI audio providers, this new partnership is expected to boost the quantity of AI-narrated audiobooks on the platform. To upload an audiobook narrated by AI, authors need to download the file […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The California agency said National Public Data failed to register in the state as a data broker. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As TikTok’s future in the U.S. remains uncertain, Substack tries to lure creators to its platform by doubling down on video. The company announced on Wednesday that it’s now allowing creators to monetize their videos on the platform, and letting them publish video posts directly from the Substack app. Previously, creators have been able to […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The AI observability platform has raised $70 million in Series C funding. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.