timef 04/18/2026
- Anthropic’s relationship with the Trump administration seems to be thawing techcrunch.com2026-04-18 22:56:48
Despite recently being designated a supply-chain risk by the Pentagon, Anthropic is still talking to high-level members of the Trump administration.
- The App Store is booming again, and AI may be why techcrunch.com2026-04-18 21:00:00
New data from Appfigures shows a swell of new app launches in 2026, suggesting AI tools could be fueling a mobile software boom.
- Once close enough for an acquisition, Stripe and Airwallex are now going after each other techcrunch.com2026-04-18 13:20:11
For most of its life, Airwallex and Stripe have mostly operated in different geographies, selling to different buyers. That's changing.
- Sam Altman’s project World looks to scale its human verification empire. First stop: Tinder. techcrunch.com2026-04-18 06:34:02
World, which has raised eyebrows (but also a lot of interest) with its Orb-centered anonymous verification project, is looking to expand its influence via a bevy of new partnerships.
- Kevin Weil and Bill Peebles exit OpenAI as company continues to shed ‘side quests’ techcrunch.com2026-04-18 04:38:17
Kevin Weil and Bill Peebles are leaving OpenAI as the company shuts down Sora and folds its science team, signaling a sharp pivot away from consumer moonshots toward enterprise AI.
- Man who hacked US Supreme Court filing system sentenced to probation techcrunch.com2026-04-18 04:16:13
Nicholas Moore hacked into three U.S. government networks using stolen credentials, and then bragged about it and posted victims' personal data on Instagram under the handle @ihackedthegovernment.
- Sources: Cursor in talks to raise $2B+ at $50B valuation as enterprise growth surges techcrunch.com2026-04-18 03:17:26
Returning backers a16z and Thrive are expected to lead the round.
- “Tokenmaxxing” is making developers less productive than they think techcrunch.com2026-04-18 02:42:45
There's a lot more code—but it's a lot more expensive and requires a lot more rewriting.
- Hackers are abusing unpatched Windows security flaws to hack into organizations techcrunch.com2026-04-18 01:48:46
A security researcher published details of three security vulnerabilities in Windows Defender, and the code used to exploit them. Now, hackers are taking advantage of the vulnerabilities in real life attacks, according to a cybersecurity firm.
- Zoom teams up with World to verify humans in meeting techcrunch.com2026-04-18 01:15:00
Zoom will show a badge on verified participants' tile
- Gigs turns your concert history into a personal live music archive techcrunch.com2026-04-18 00:55:45
New iPhone app Gigs uses AI to turn old tickets, screenshots, and emails into a personal concert archive with stats, memories, and more.
- Chef Robotics escaped the robot cooking graveyard and says it’s thriving — here’s why techcrunch.com2026-04-18 00:15:50
The company, which deploys AI-guided robot arms for food production, says it is looking to expand its services to provide for a broader array of customers.
- Are we tokenmaxxing our way to nowhere? techcrunch.com2026-04-17 21:00:00
The gap between AI insiders and everyone else is widening, and the spending, suspicion, and even new vocabulary are starting to show it. While OpenAI is busy buying up everything from finance apps to talk shows, a certain shoe company just rebranded as an AI infrastructure play, and Anthropic unveiled a model it says is too powerful to release publicly …but apparently not too […]
