timef 05/07/2025

Uber has committed $100 million to Chinese robotaxi firm WeRide as they expand to 15 more cities.

Uber has committed $100 million to Chinese robotaxi firm WeRide as they expand to 15 more cities.

Amazon is making a sizable investment to support new and existing Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers in Chile. The tech conglomerate announced on Wednesday that it will pour more than $4 billion into building an AWS infrastructure region of data centers in Chile by the end of 2026. The investment will go toward establishing three […]

The cybersecurity company said it will lay off 5% of its global workforce.

“Day 25 of starting over my whole entire life,” Raegan Lynch narrates over a short video. “Right now, I’m wandering around the city I just moved to, in a country I’d never seen, all by myself after my relationship ended, and I had to leave my old life behind.” It’s a pretty enticing hook, which […]

French AI startup Mistral is releasing a new AI model, Mistral Medium 3, that’s focused on efficiency without compromising performance. Available in Mistral’s API priced at $0.40 per million input tokens and $20.80 per million output tokens, Mistral Medium 3 performs “at or above” 90% of Anthropic’s costlier Claude Sonnet 3.7 model on “benchmarks across […]

Spotify on Wednesday announced an update to its app designed to give users more control over their listening experience and recommendations. The refreshed experience introduces a handful of new features that will roll out gradually to Spotify users and Premium subscribers, including those to help you manage your Queue, your current listening experience, aid with […]

Ford is raising the price of the all-electric Mustang Mach-E SUV and popular entry-level Maverick pickup by as much as $2,000 due to the import taxes President Donald Trump is placing on vehicles made in Mexico, according to Reuters. Higher prices could make it harder for traditional automakers like Ford to sell their EVs. Ford […]

The program’s signature yellow labels appear on appliances and electronics for sale throughout the U.S.

The program’s signature yellow labels appear on appliances and electronics for sale throughout the U.S.

Games drove the creation of GPU processors back in the 1990s, so it’s only fitting that artificial intelligence — the technology that GPUs are used to power nowadays — is making its way into nearly every aspect of video game design. In keeping with that trend, on Wednesday a startup called Sett — which is […]

Photo and video editing platform VSCO has launched an AI-powered collaborative moodboard to expand how its products are used by photographers and artists.

Rubrik co-founder Soham Mazumdar has a new data startup called Wisdom AI. It offers an agentic data analyst that works with structured, unstructured, even “dirty” data.

Tech executives have long talked about how AI is going to revolutionize the advertising industry. In particularly, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been quite vocal about how exactly he wants his company to lead the transformation. Speaking onstage at Stripe’s annual Sessions conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Zuckerberg laid out his plans to automate […]

Breathe has developed a suite of tools that it says helps automakers and others get the most out of their batteries.

After hinting at a new AI-powered search experience during its recent earnings call, Netflix officially unveiled the feature at its tech and product event on Wednesday.  This new search experience will utilize OpenAI’s ChatGPT to provide users with a conversational discovery experience. Users can enter their preferences using natural phrases like “I want something funny […]

Netflix announced on Wednesday that it’s currently testing a short-form video feature, signaling that even a streaming giant with over 300 million subscribers is concerned about losing viewers’ time spent on mobile to apps like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels. The company debuted the feature at its first-ever product and tech event, where it […]

Kapor Capital’s managing partner Ulili Onovakpuri said yesterday that she is leaving the firm.  Onovakpuri started as a principal at Kapor Capital more than a decade ago, and rose through the ranks to become managing partner, and eventually (with Brian Dixon) took over the reins from the firm’s co-founders Mitch Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein.  […]

As “vibe coding” gains in popularity and tech companies push devs in their employ to embrace generative AI tools, a platform that scans for vulnerabilities in AI-generated code has raised a fresh round of funding. Ox Security, which models risk across both AI- and human-produced code, on Wednesday announced that it closed a $60 million […]

Mitsubishi Motors is in talks with Taiwan-based Foxconn's EV division to source an EV model for the Australia and New Zealand markets.

Amazon Web Services is building a new AI-powered code generation tool codenamed “Kiro,” Business Insider reported, citing internal documents it had viewed. The tool can use prompts and existing data to generate code in “near real-time” by connecting with AI agents, the report said. The tool is said to have web and desktop apps, multimodal […]

OpenAI currently has a deal to share 20% of revenue with Microsoft, but the AI company expects to cut that share to 10% by 2030, The Information reported.

Marathon Venture Partners, a venture firm in Athens that prides itself on being “day one partners to Greek tech partners,” just closed its newest fund with €75 million in capital commitments, according to partner Panos Papadopoulos. The vehicle brings the firm’s total assets under management to €175 million — a meaningful amount for an eight-year-old, […]

A team at Hugging Face has released a freely available, cloud-hosted computer-using AI “agent.” But be forewarned: it’s quite sluggish and occasionally makes mistakes. Hugging Face’s agent, called Open Computer Agent, is accessible via the web and can use a Linux virtual machine preloaded with several applications, including Firefox. Similar to OpenAI’s Operator, you can […]

Rivian said in its earnings report Tuesday it will likely deliver fewer vehicles this year than previously forecasted due to President Trump’s tariffs and other regulatory changes, making it the latest automaker to be affected by the new administration’s chaotic economic policies. The company said Tuesday it expects to deliver between 40,000 and 46,000 EVs […]

The five-year legal battle between the Meta-owned company and the most notorious spyware maker in the world ends with a huge win for WhatsApp.

If you’re a Substack publisher who prefers not to turn on your camera while livestreaming, you’re in luck.  Substack announced on Tuesday that it’s launching an audio-only livestream feature for publishers who want a lower-pressure way to connect with their followers. This is also ideal for those who wish to remain anonymous.  To use the […]

Like many leaders in tech, Arvind Krishna, the CEO of IBM, thinks federal R&D funding for AI and related technologies should be increased — not the other way around. “We have been an extremely strong advocate — and this is both the company and me personally — on that federally funded R&D should be increased,” […]

Rivian says it will likely deliver fewer vehicles this year than previously forecasted due to President Trump’s tariffs and other regulatory changes, making it the latest automaker to be affected by the new administration’s chaotic economic policies. The company said Tuesday it expects to deliver between 40,000 and 46,000 EVs by the end of 2025. […]

Redditors around the world were scandalized last week after learning that a team of researchers released a swarm of AI-powered, human-impersonating bots on the “Change My View” subreddit. The large-scale experiment was designed to explore just how persuasive AI can be. The bots posted over 1,700 comments, adopting personas like abuse survivors or controversial identities […]

Creator platform Patreon has quietly rolled out an updated version of its app that now allows users to make purchases via the web, in the wake of the Apple-Epic court ruling that forced Apple to allow app developers to include links to alternative forms of payment without being subject to Apple’s commission. Previously, on version […]

Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company owned by Amazon, paused its driverless testing program for more than a week and issued a voluntary recall of its software following a crash in Las Vegas, according to the company and a filing with federal safety regulators. The April 8 crash, which involved an unoccupied Zoox vehicle and a […]

We’re ecstatic to announce that Kisson Lin, founder and CEO of Tanka, will be joining us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI for a provocative — and instructive — interview titled “Your Next Co-Founder Will Be AI.” She’s among the many excellent speakers joining the event June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, and there’s still plenty […]

FutureHouse, an Eric Schmidt-backed nonprofit that aims to build an “AI scientist” within the next decade, has released a new tool that it claims can help support “data-driven discovery” in biology. The new tool comes just a week after FutureHouse launched its API and platform. The tool, called Finch, takes in biology data (primarily in the […]

Thanks to a recent ruling that ordered Apple to stop charging a 27% commission on purchases through iPhone apps, Amazon’s Kindle iOS app now has a “Get book” button that makes it easier to buy titles. “We regularly make improvements to our apps to help ensure we are providing customers the most convenient experience possible,” Amazon […]

Uber announced its third partnership with a Chinese autonomous vehicle company this week, revealing the ride-hail and delivery giant’s appetite for global domination in the emerging robotaxi sector. Uber said Tuesday it would work with Guangzhou-based Pony AI, which late last year went public on the Nasdaq at a $5.25 billion valuation, to launch robotaxis […]

OpenAI said on Monday it is pursuing a new restructuring plan after conversations with Delaware and California’s attorneys general, both of whom were closely watching as OpenAI tried to break free of its odd corporate structure. Currently, OpenAI’s nonprofit board governs the organization’s for-profit operations. Under the new plan, OpenAI’s for-profit arm will become a […]

Nearly three years after unveiling the concept version of the flagship Cadillac Celestiq EV, GM has finally released the real thing: a $360,000 electric vehicle that oozes luxury and a come-gawk-at-me exterior designed to lure in passersby. But is this bespoke EV enough for Cadillac to regain its position as the “Standard of the World?” […]

Particle, the startup behind an AI-powered newsreader that aims to help publishers, not just steal their work, is bringing its product to the web. On Tuesday, the company announced the launch of the new Particle.news website that connects news consumers with headlines and AI summaries from a variety of sources, plus the ability to delve […]

Finom, an Amsterdam-based digital bank for small- and medium-sized businesses, has raised €92.7 million (roughly $105 million) in a growth investment from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund, the company tells TechCrunch exclusively. The capital infusion “will be used exclusively and only for growth” and not for operational expenses or product development, Kos Stiskin, Finom’s chairman […]

Google’s iOS app is getting a new “Simplify” feature that uses AI to make complex or technical text on the web easier to understand, all without leaving a web page. Simplify features a prompt refinement approach developed by Google Research, and uses Gemini to make complicated text more digestible, without losing key details. Google says […]

NewLimit, a startup that aims to increase how long people can live a healthy life by genetically programming their cells, has raised $130M.