timef 02/20/2026

The layoffs affect hundreds of full-time workers in the US, according to an internal memo obtained by TechCrunch.

AI expands access to filmmaking for resource-constrained creators. But as efficiency becomes the industry’s north star, creativity risks being overwhelmed by a deluge of low-effort, AI-generated content.

Nominations for TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200 are open. Pitch at Disrupt 2026 in October in front of top VCs and the full TechCrunch audience. Nominate your startup or for one that's deserving.

Peak XV says most of its new capital will target India as the firm prioritizes AI, fintech and cross-border bets while navigating recent partner departures.

The lowest ticket rates of the year for TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 ends next Friday, February 27. Save up to $680 on your pass. Register now before prices increase.

How to watch Super Rugby Pacific for free. Live stream the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific for free from anywhere in the world.

The technology promises to replace several parts of the grid with one device that’s both controllable and updatable.

Watch the Six Nations for free. Live stream England vs. Ireland in the 2026 Six Nations for free from anywhere in the world.

The company said on Friday that users between 18 and 24 years of age account for nearly 50% of all messages sent by Indians to ChatGPT, and users under 30 accounted for 80% of usage in the country.

Agibot stages live televised gala with over 200 humanoid robots in Shanghai, featuring synchronized dancing, martial arts and acrobatic performances.

How to watch T20 World Cup for free. Live stream New Zealand vs. Pakistan in the 2026 T20 World Cup for free from anywhere in the world.

The MTG Avatar: The Last Airbender Collector Booster Box drops to a record-low $346.16 at Amazon, letting you save over $100.

As of Feb. 20, the Lego Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Mos Espa Podrace set is on sale at Amazon for $55.99, 30% off its list price of $79.99.

Epilogue’s adorable GB Operator plug-in gizmo is a must-have for collectors of retro Nintendo Game Boy games.

Logitech G435 Lightspeed wireless gaming headset falls to $39.99 at Amazon — 50% off, and its best price of the year.

The OpenAI mafia: 15 of the most notable startups founded by alumni

The Boldr Kelvin heater looks cool and promises energy savings and far-infrared heat. Too bad it also heats backward.

How to watch Super League for free. Live stream the 2026 Super League for free from anywhere in the world.

This would be an unprecedented escalation against a U.S. company.

Massive data centers for generative AI are bad for the Earth. How about launching them into orbit?

Abu Dhabi-based tech company G42 has partnered with U.S.-based chipmaker Cerebras to deploy eight exaflops of compute through a new system in India

"The Pitt" cinematographer Johanna Coelho reveals her process of creating one of the most immersive shows on television.

As of Feb. 20, the purple JBL Endurance Race 2 are on sale at Amazon for $47.44, 41% off their list price of $79.95

Inside Dewar’s cavernous whisky warehouses, man’s best mechanical friend—a Boston Dynamics robot dog with an ethanol sensor for a nose—is on the hunt for leaky barrels.

Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen land on the Switch eShop for $19.99 ahead of Pokémon Day 2026, with pre-load support and classic Kanto gameplay.

How to watch AFL for free. Live stream the 2026 AFL for free from anywhere in the world.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested with a paparazzi photo to end all paparazzi photos. And Stephen Colbert has thoughts.

Presearch’s “Doppelgänger” is trying to help people discover adult creators rather than use nonconsensual deepfakes.

As of Feb. 20, Best Buy has slashed $1,100 off the price of the Samsung 65-inch Class S84F OLED 4K TV as part of its Deal of the Day, dropping its price from $1,999.99 to $899.99.

How to watch MotoGP for free. Live stream the 2026 MotoGP World Championship for free from anywhere in the world.

If you have multiple email accounts, your Gmail setup may soon need some reorganizing.

Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are booming, and so is a fight among regulators, lawmakers, and advocates over their legality.

Answers to each clue for the Feb. 20, 2026 edition of NYT's The Mini crossword puzzle.

Amazon finally updated the Kindle Scribe, and it's now a much faster and better looking e-reader. But we still don't love its price.

Michael Silevitch leads a research center dedicated to protecting busy public spaces. Last April, he was instructed to “end all work” immediately.

Tech workers are increasingly worried that the artificial intelligence they are building will replace them. But some are optimistic that it is just one more tool to work with.

House Democrats are demanding answers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and urging it to halt rumored changes they say could undermine its mission.

The Olympics often provide a moment of unity and celebration during times of geopolitical uncertainty. But blind nationalism didn’t win at the 2026 Winter Games.

Scientists have used the James Webb Space Telescope to study Uranus' unique upper atmosphere and magnetic field over the course of a day.

Lock in three years of IONOS Web Hosting Plus for $49.97 and build, scale, and secure unlimited blogs or websites with reliable uptime and strong performance.

Get lifetime access to Sterling Stock Picker for $55.19 and unlock AI-driven stock insights, personalized guidance, and a done-for-you portfolio builder.

The pledge marks a sharp jump from General Catalyst's earlier $500 million–$1 billion India earmark.

Neo's new Residency program invests $750,000 in an uncapped SAFE for startups and provides a $40,000 no-strings-attached grant for college students.

Hints and answers to today's Hurdle all in one place.

Documents say customs officers in the US Virgin Islands had friendly relationships with Epstein years after his 2008 conviction, showing how the infamous sex offender tried to cultivate allies.

The New York Times' latest game, Pips, brings domino fun to your desktop. How to play Pips as well as hints in case you get stuck.

Connections: Sports Edition is a New York Times word game about finding common sports threads between words. How to solve the day's puzzle.

Connections is a New York Times word game that's all about finding the "common threads between words." How to solve the puzzle.

The NYT Strands hints and answers you need to make the most of your puzzling experience.

Here's the answer for "Wordle" #1707 on February 20 as well as a few hints, tips, and clues to help you solve it yourself.

See the Moon phase expected for February 20, 2025 as well as when the next Full Moon is expected.

The Fulu Foundation, a nonprofit that pays out bounties for removing user-hostile features, is hunting for a way to keep Ring cameras from sending data to Amazon—without breaking the hardware.

Gemini 3.1 Pro promises a Google LLM capable of handling more complex forms of work.

Nvidia is working with investors, nonprofits, and venture firms to build earlier ties with India's fast-growing AI founder ecosystem.

A staffer of the Incognito dark web market was secretly controlled by the FBI—and still allegedly approved the sale of fentanyl-tainted pills, including those from a dealer linked to a confirmed death.

Compare 25+ top AI models side by side and get unlimited lifetime access to ChatPlayground AI for $74.97 with code SAVE4.

The FBI says hacks that trick ATMs into spitting out cash on demand are rising, with hundreds of attacks in the past year alone netting hackers millions in stolen bills.

As Snap readies the public release of its long-awaited VR glasses, one of the key executives on the project has left the company.

Adult performer Siri Dahl had her legal name and birthdate exposed by Elon Musk's AI bot Grok. She didn't hold back in punching back.

Cellebrite, which makes phone unlocking and hacking tools, stopped sales to countries that allegedly abused its tools. But after new allegations in Jordan and Kenya, the company has changed its approach.

'Wired' magazine writes about a Silicon Valley 'gay mafia' with some unusual imagery. The internet does its thing.

Last day to nominate for the 2026 Joseph C. Belden Innovation Award has been extended through February 27. Don't miss your chance to win scaling perks.

Things are business as usual at the IRS.

Google said it prevented 1.75 million bad apps from going live on Google Play during 2025, a figure that's down from previous years.

Redwood Materials says its new energy storage business is the fastest growing unit within the company.

The CEOs of Read AI and Lucidya told TechCrunch at Web Summit Qatar that they see AI tools replacing tasks, rather than workers.

The Executive Branch has a reported membership list that includes Trumpworld elites like David Sacks. A WIRED review of corporate filings reveals an under-the-radar player: a notorious former DC police officer.

YouTube is testing conversational AI on smart TVs, allowing viewers to ask the assistant questions related to the video they're watching on the big screen.

The robots will be unloading totes full of auto parts from an automated warehouse tugger.

How to watch ice hockey for free. Live stream USA vs. Slovakia in men's ice hockey for free from anywhere in the world.

Fallout, Neighbors, and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters are just a few of the TV shows we’re swooning over for February.

On TikTok, Chinese manufacturers are advertising signal-blocking weapons with the breezy cadence of consumer lifestyle advertising.

Reporter Zoë Bernard spent months talking to 51 people (31 of them gay men) to map out a subculture that's been an open secret in Silicon Valley for years: gay men, at the upper echelons of tech, quietly raising up their own networks the way powerful people have always done.

Elon Musk's company town already has a volunteer fire department, and is forming a Starbase Police Department. Now it wants its own court, too.

Workers describe a deteriorating culture at Block, the company behind Square and Cash App, where layoffs continue and employees are expected to use AI tools daily.

These compact Edifier speakers may not be the fanciest, but they'll blow your monitor's built-in speakers out of the water.

The Boston startup uses AI to translate and verify legacy software for defense contractors, arguing modernization can’t come at the cost of new bugs.

The AI search startup once predicted advertising would be a massive business. Now it's betting on a smaller, more valuable audience.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai had some interesting things to say at the AI Impact Summit in India.

Split View, PDF annotations and 'Save to Chrome' features come to the Chrome browser.

Google says the Gemini 3.1 Pro reasoning model outperforms Claude and ChatGPT on Humanity's Last Exam and other key benchmarks.

How to watch NBA for free. Watch Boston Celtics vs. Golden State Warriors in the NBA for free from anywhere in the world.

How to watch NBA for free. Watch Detroit Pistons vs. New York Knicks in the NBA for free from anywhere in the world.

A small group of users in the U.S. will start to see search results that include interactive product carousels with pricing, images, and direct where-to-buy links.

India is hosting a four-day AI Summit this week that will be attended by executives from major AI labs and Big Tech, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, and Cloudflare, as well as heads of state.

"Toy Story 5" hits theaters June 19.

Panera Bread confirms cybersecurity incident exposing customer contact information as class-action lawsuits are filed and hackers leak 760-megabyte archive of stolen data.

The DJI Osmo Pocket 3 is on sale for $439, down from the normal price of $499. That's a 13% discount.

Six months ago, Amazon announced a new robot initiative for its warehouses. That is no longer happening.

Google has reportedly rolled out a major change for Maps users who aren't logged in to an account.

Can you crack Mashable's latest puzzle? "Crime 101"s Chris Hemsworth and Halle Berry play our new mash-up game.

The move comes a few months after Meta shut down Messenger’s stand-alone desktop apps for Windows and Mac.

"If you are interested in helping shape and deliver the next chapter of Palantir’s work across DHS, please reach out,” a Palantir executive wrote to employees about the massive purchasing agreement.

In "Pressure," Brendan Fraser plays Dwight D. Eisenhower in the hours leading up to D-Day. The film hits theaters May 29.

The governor of New York pulled a robotaxi expansion proposal that was viewed as a win for Waymo.

Save 25% on your first year of streaming on BritBox through the Prime Video add-on subscription after a seven-day trial.

Meta's CEO was questioned over the addictive nature of its social media apps like Instagram, and other teen harms.

"House of the Dragon" Season 3 premieres in June. Watch the teaser trailer.

The Petlibro Automatic Pet Feeder (5 liter) is on sale at Amazon for $69.99, down from the list price of $99.99. That's a 30% discount.

If completed, the project would be among the largest and most expensive natural gas power plants.

How to watch ice hockey for free. Live stream Canada vs. Finland in men's ice hockey for free from anywhere in the world.

The 13-inch Apple M4 MacBook Air is on sale for just $849 at Amazon, but it's going out of stock quick. Grab it for $150 off while you can.

The LG 27-inch Ultragear OLED gaming monitor is on sale for $499.99 at Amazon. That's $400 off and its lowest price on record.

Meta is working on a smartwatch and is aiming to launch it in 2026, a new report claims.

What is Raya? And other FAQs about the dating app, answered

Romance scams happen when scammers pretend to be someone they're not on a dating site in hopes to steal money from victims.