timef 03/04/2025

Colossal Biosciences, known for its outlandish goal to resurrect the woolly mammoth by 2028, is claiming steady progress. It’s evidence: Genetically engineering mice to have mammoth-like fur. To engineer the woolly mouse, the company’s scientists found mouse versions of mammoth genes and then used CRISPR to edit mice embryos, Dr. Beth Shapiro, chief science officer […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OpenAI on Monday announced a consortium, NextGenAI, focused on supporting AI-assisted research at top universities. NextGenAI, whose 15 founding academic partners include Harvard, the University of Oxford, and MIT, will be funded with $50 million in research grants, compute funding, and API access from OpenAI, the company said. Students, educators, and researchers will be eligible […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Venture investment to startups founded by women in Europe declined 12% in 2024, but it was in line with the 11% decrease in venture investment overall. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Poland’s space agency (POLSA) says it is working to restore services following a cybersecurity incident. POLSA, the Polish government agency responsible for the country’s space activities, said in a post on X that it had “immediately disconnected” its network from the internet after detecting the cyberattack on Sunday. POLSA’s website remains offline at the time […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Apple has introduced new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air models with the M3 chip. The new iPad Air can be pre-ordered starting Tuesday, and will launch on March 12. While the new iPad Air supports Apple Intelligence, it doesn’t feature Apple’s newest chip which is the M4. However, Apple says the iPad Air with M3 […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Cross-border trade could be getting a lot more tricky with the wave of new tariffs getting introduced across different markets. Today in a timely piece of news, a London-founded startup called Swap — which is building tools for e-commerce companies to better navigate the cross-border trading world — is announcing $40 million in funding to […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As more people turn to AI chatbots like ChatGPT to look things up on the internet, the way companies approach their online presence has to change. Scrunch AI wants to help enterprises better prepare for a world in which more AI bots and agents visit their website than humans do. Scrunch AI says its platform […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Agents are the next big thing in AI. Some define these “agents” differently from others, but the general idea is, they’re AI-powered tools that can perform tasks autonomously. The agent hype has reached a fever pitch, but one startup was relatively early to the game: LlamaIndex. Founded by former Uber research scientists, Jerry Liu and […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Despite clouds of uncertainty looming over the economy and geopolitics, people still want to travel. To meet that demand, Mews, an Amsterdam-founded ‘unicorn’ building an SaaS platform for hotel management, has raised a fresh $75 million. The funding is coming at a crossroad in the travel industry. On one hand are positive signals. Analysts at […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Uber users in Austin now have a choice between a Waymo robotaxi and a human driver. The two companies officially launched Tuesday the “Waymo on Uber” robotaxi service in Austin as part of a partnership that has deepened in recent months. The launch comes just days before SXSW, the annual tech, music, film, and comedy […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch brought a sales pitch to Mobile World Congress on Tuesday, urging delegates at the world’s biggest telecoms confab in Barcelona to invest in building data center infrastructure and “becoming hyperscalers” to boost the regional AI ecosystem. “We would welcome more domestic effort in making more data centers,” he said during an on-stage […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Sequoia-backed Mach Industries, the defense tech founded by 21-year-old Ethan Thornton, landed a contract with the U.S. Army and has plans for its first factory, Thornton told TechCrunch. The factory will be 115,000 square feet in Huntington Beach, California, where Mach’s headquarters is located, CEO Thorton said. While that sounds like an expensive zip code […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

While Venmo or Splitwise are effectively ‘debt collector’ tools, which require one person to pay a full bill and then request funds from others, neither have cracked bill-splitting at the moment of payment. European startup Cino, which has come up with just such a product, has now raised €3.5m in a Seed funding round led […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Big tech companies aren’t sleeping on quantum chips: Amazon Web Services introduced Ocelot; Microsoft, Majorana; and Google, Willow. But although all of these can be considered to be breakthroughs, quantum startups often focus on more practical advancements — and they are making progress. Founded in 2020, Dutch startup QuantWare is one of these, which claims […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The drive to decarbonize our economies through electrification and clean energy continues to generate momentum around battery technologies, as storage has a key role to play in enabling the green transition. While renewables are clean sources of energy compared to burning fossil fuels, their power output isn’t always consistent. In the case of solar — […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Trump Administration has fired a number of National Science Foundation employees who had been handpicked for their expertise in AI, threatening the agency’s ability to sustain key AI research, Bloomberg reported. One of the affected departments inside NSF, called the Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships, was instrumental in funneling government grants focused on […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

At least we can watch AI play Mario. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Three key investors have left General Catalyst amidst a series of recent changes at the firm, which now describes itself as an ‘investment and transformation company,’ TechCrunch has learned. The departed managing directors include Deep Nishar and Kyle Doherty, who co-led General Catalyst’s late-stage strategy known as Endurance, and Adam Valkin, one of the three […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google Gemini users can now access the AI chatbot directly from the iPhone’s lock screen, thanks to an update released on Monday first spotted by 9to5Google. Users can now call up Gemini Live, Google’s relatively real time voice feature for its AI chatbot, before they unlock their phone by adding a Gemini widget to their […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Singapore just arrested 3 men for allegedly smuggling Nvidia chips. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Passes, a direct-to-fan monetization platform for creators backed by $40 million in Series A funding, has been sued for allegedly distributing Child Sexual Abuse Material (also known as CSAM). While its guidelines do not allow for creators to post nude photos or videos, as opposed to competitors like OnlyFans, a creator has sued Passes, alleging […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Two sharply different visions of AI were platformed on stage at the Mobile World Congress trade show on Monday. The true believer’s case for the technology’s potential — to merge with and transform human life for the better — was offered up by futurist and singularity priest Ray Kurzweil, who also has a research role […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The author of California’s SB 1047, the nation’s most controversial AI safety bill of 2024, is back with a new AI bill that could shake up Silicon Valley. California state Senator Scott Wiener introduced a new bill on Friday that would protect employees at leading AI labs, allowing them to speak out if they think […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google announced Monday a series of changes to its widgets system on Android that will make it easier for app developers to reach their users. Widgets, which offer at-a-glance views of an app’s most important information — like the day’s weather or upcoming meetings on your calendar — are a key aspect of Android home […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Fintech startup Ramp has crossed $700 million in annualized revenue as of January of this year, according to a source familiar with the company’s internal operations. The company had crossed $100 million in annualized revenue before its third birthday in March 2022, passed $300 million by August 2023, and now effectively more than doubled that […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

On June 5, TechCrunch Sessions: AI will kick off — and you can be a part of the industry-changing conversations that will be taking place. We have an open invitation for members of the AI community to lead breakout sessions and discussions with over 1,200 startup founders, VC leaders, and AI aficionados attending our newest event, […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google has open-sourced an AI model, SpeciesNet, designed to identify animal species by analyzing photos from camera traps. Researchers around the world use camera traps — digital cameras connected to infrared sensors — to study wildlife populations. But while these traps can provide valuable insights, they generate massive volumes of data that take days to […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The ransomware attack is affecting Lee's ability to pay outside vendors, including freelancers and contractors, TechCrunch has learned. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Podcast recording and editing platform odcastle is now joining other companies in the AI-powered, text-to-speech race by releasing its own AI model called Asyncflow v1.0. An API for developers will also be available, allowing them to directly integrate the text-to-speech model in their apps. Thanks to the new model, the company is able to offer […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google Colab has integrated Google Labs' Data Science Agent to help data scientists and ML engineers quickly clean their data and get insights on the datasets they upload. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Reddit co-founder and investor Alexis Ohanian has joined billionaire Frank McCourt’s bid to acquire TikTok as a strategic adviser specializing in social media, Reuters reports. “He has that broad portfolio of experience … of where social media was and, I think, a keen understanding of where it’s evolving,” McCourt told Reuters. “Where he can help […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

“There’s scarcely a part of the company that is unaffected by AI,” said Vishal Sharma, Amazon’s VP of Artificial General Intelligence, today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. He also dismissed the idea that open-source models might reduce compute needs and demurred over the question of whether European companies would change their GenAI strategies in […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Expense management startup Ramp has nearly doubled its valuation to $13 billion after a $150 million secondary share sale, the company announced Monday morning. New and existing backers including VC Stripes, GIC, Avenir Growth, Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, 137 Ventures and Definition Capital bought the secondaries from employees and early investors. […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

AI startup Anthropic today announced that it raised $3.5 billion at a $61.5 billion post-money valuation, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The Series E, which also had participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, General Catalyst, Jane Street, Menlo Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures, brings the company’s total […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Chipmaker TSMC said that it aims to invest “at least” $100 billion in chip manufacturing plants in the U.S. over the next four years as part of an effort to expand the company’s network of semiconductor factories. President Donald Trump announced the news during a press conference Monday. Trump said that the new cash will […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has been at the center of controversy in the U.S. for four years now due to concerns about user data potentially being accessed by the Chinese government. Just this past month, the app experienced a temporary outage in the U.S. that left millions of users in suspense before […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The reported policy shift comes as the U.S. government signals a change in its threat assessment of Russia © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Critics said the new terms implied Mozilla was asking users for the rights to whatever data they input or upload through Firefox. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.