Penguin Random House, the trade publisher, is adding language to the copyright pages of its books to prohibit the use of those books to train AI. The Bookseller reports that new books and reprints of older titles from the publisher will now include the statement, “No part of this book may be used or reproduced […]

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Drone-maker DJI filed a lawsuit Friday against the U.S. Department of Defense over its inclusion on a DoD list of “Chinese military companies.” A DJI spokesperson said the company filed the suit after “attempting to engage with the DoD for more than sixteen months” and deciding “it had no alternative other than to seek relief […]

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Mira Murati, the OpenAI CTO who announced her departure last month, is raising VC funding for a new AI startup, according to Reuters. This startup will reportedly focus on building AI products based on proprietary models and could raise more than $100 million in this round. When she left, Murati wrote on X that OpenAI […]

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As founders plan for an increasingly AI-centric future, Gusto co-founder and head of technology Edward Kim said that cutting existing teams and hiring a bunch of specially trained AI engineers is “the wrong way to go.” Instead, he argued that nontechnical team members can “actually have a much deeper understanding than an average engineer on […]

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Uber and Lyft need to do more to support disabled passengers, especially those who are blind or visually impaired, according to protesters who gathered outside the companies’ headquarters on October 15. Wired spoke to protesters who shared stories about drivers passing them by or refusing to let them bring their guide dogs on a ride. […]

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AI search engine Perplexity is in fundraising talks and hopes to raise around $500 million at an $8 billion valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal. If a deal happens with those terms, it would more than double Perplexity’s valuation from its $3 billion valuation when it raised from SoftBank over the summer. The WSJ […]

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Software engineers, developers, and academic researchers have serious concerns about transcriptions from OpenAI’s Whisper, according to a report in the Associated Press. While there’s been no shortage of discussion around generative AI’s tendency to hallucinate — basically, to make stuff up — it’s a bit surprising that this is an issue in transcription, where you’d […]

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The Mac mini will be getting an upgrade this week, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The mini is Apple’s desktop computer (really just a small gray box) positioned between the consumer iMac and the company’s professional-grade desktops. The new mini is reportedly getting smaller — nearly the size of an Apple TV set-top box. It […]

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The popularity of an Instagram video can affect its actual video quality: According to Adam Mosseri (the Meta executive who leads Instagram and Threads), videos that are more popular get shown in higher quality, while less popular videos get shown in lower quality. In a video (via The Verge), Mosseri said Instagram tries to show […]

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OpenAI’s next flagship model might not represent as big a leap forward as its predecessors, according to a new report in The Information. Employees who tested the new model, code-named Orion, reportedly found that even though its performance exceeds OpenAI’s existing models, there was less improvement than they’d seen in the jump from GPT-3 to […]

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Bankrupt cryptocurrency company FTX filed 23 lawsuits Friday against Anthony Scaramucci (pictured above), his hedge fund SkyBridge Capital, and other organizations, including Crypto.com and the Mark Zuckerberg-backed lobbying group Fwd.us. These lawsuits are an attempt to claw back money for FTX’s creditors following the company’s collapse. FTX claims that the money targeted in these suits […]

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After a chip manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) was found inside a Huawei processor, the U.S. Department of Commerce has ordered the company to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers, according to a report in Reuters. Huawei faces significant trade restrictions from the U.S., so the pause on shipments is supposed […]

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The company captures real-time customer behavior so companies can see who is genuine, and who is fraudulent, and identify the root cause of customer friction.

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The service will launch in both the U.S. and Australia beginning early in 2022 and will be free for customers who pay on time.

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Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. It’s Friday, which means the whole crew was aboard for this particular episode. We had Grace and Chris behind the scenes, and Mary Ann, Natasha and Alex on the mics. And, frankly, we […]

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Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review! Last week, we took a break from contextualization for some guides to consumption. This week, we’re looking at what’s happening in the mind of one Jack Dorsey. You can get this in your inbox from the newsletter page, and follow my tweets @lucasmtny. the big thing While […]

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Late last year, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down from his position in order to give his full attention to his other company, Square (now called Block), which had become increasingly invested in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency — just like Dorsey himself. Now we’re starting to see the results of Block’s embrace of crypto, as […]

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Companies across the board are fighting to recruit and retain employees as the war for talent rages on. Employee benefits are no longer viewed as a cookie-cutter, standard set of offerings — rather, they are valuable tools employers can use to differentiate themselves from competitors and attract top candidates. Forma, which just changed its name […]

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How will all of these BNPL-focused providers fare with Apple pounding its way into their market?

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Mandolin, the digital fan engagement platform, launched two new products today with the aim of assisting artists with turning fans into superfans and maximizing revenue. Fan Navigator helps artists collect fan data and teaches them how to engage fans with digital experiences. Mandolin’s Fan Pages also drive fan engagement with a page for the artist […]

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Block, the company behind Square and Cash App, now supports Apple’s Tap to Pay for iPhone feature for merchants. Existing Square users or new businesses wanting to use Square can now use their iPhones to receive payments while using the fintech company’s financial management software. The Jack Dorsey-led company said that merchants can open the […]

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A plan which would see a corporate entity trademark the term “Web5” has been put to rest after much backlash. Late Tuesday night, TBD, the Bitcoin-focused division of Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block (formerly Square), announced an ill-thought-out plan to trademark the term, which refers to its vision for a decentralized, privacy-focused iteration of the […]

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Fintech giant Square says its services are coming back online after a daylong outage left small business owners unable to process payments. The Block-owned company had, up until Friday morning on the U.S. West Coast, been battling a prolonged outage that had downed its services since Thursday afternoon. In a new posting on its status […]

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Square said there was “no evidence” a cyberattack caused an outage that left customers and small businesses unable to use the payment giant’s technology on Thursday through early-Friday. The payments technology giant said in a post-mortem of the daylong outage that the outage was caused by a DNS issue. DNS, or domain name system, is […]

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MobileCoin, the startup known for building Signal’s crypto payments feature, has appointed a new CEO as it works on expanding its encrypted money transfer service to global users in need of a more modern remittance solution. Sara Drakeley is taking the helm as MobileCoin’s new chief executive officer. Replacing her previous role as the firm’s […]

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Jack Dorsey’s Block (the company formerly known as Square) announced today that it is releasing its hardware Bitcoin wallet, Bitkey, in 95 countries. However, users can only preorder the device at the moment, with shipping starting in early 2024. The device will cost $150 USD. Block’s pitch to Bitcoin holders is that using a self-custodial […]

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Block, the company behind Square, Cash App and other services, announced a new program today allowing merchants using Square’s solutions to convert a percentage of their daily sales to bitcoin. The feature, rolling out in the U.S. starting today, will transfer 1-10% of Square sellers’ daily sales to their personal Cash App account. This amount […]

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We’re T-minus 24 hours until the TechCrunch Disrupt early bird flies south and takes up to $1,300 in savings with it. If you’re serious about realizing your startup dreams, you need to be kind to your bottom line. Disrupt is packed with many long-tail opportunities, but this one ends in just 24 hours. Buy your […]

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It takes a veritable army to make TechCrunch Disrupt — which takes place October 18–20 in San Francisco — the well-oiled experience that savvy startuppers have come to know and love. And we couldn’t do it nearly as well without our incredible volunteers. If you’re looking for a no-budget way to experience Disrupt up close […]

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We see how hard early startup community members work to build their dreams. You’re all wicked busy, and that’s why we’re extending our early-bird pricing on passes to TechCrunch Disrupt, taking place on October 18–20 in San Francisco. You get one extra week to save up to $1,300, so shake your tail feathers and buy […]

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We’re coming down to the wire, folks. Your chance to save early-bird pricing on passes to TechCrunch Disrupt ends this Friday. Our three-day flagship tech startup conference offers superior ROI at full price, but why spend more when you don’t have to? To-do today: Buy your early-bird pass to TechCrunch Disrupt by Friday, August 5 […]

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Building a successful startup requires an enormous amount of talent, hard work, money and, frankly, a bit of luck. Translation: You need to grab hold of every opportunity you can to make it happen. Well, heads up, early-stage founders. Your opportunity to join our inaugural cohort — the Startup Battlefield 200 — ends tomorrow. Don’t […]

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Time is running out on one of the biggest opportunities in Disrupt history. We stop accepting applications to the Startup Battlefield 200 tonight, August 5, at precisely 11:59 p.m. PDT. No more deadline extensions, no last-minute exceptions. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Lollygagger alert: Drop what you’re doing and go apply to the Startup Battlefield 200 right […]

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It’s not the crime, it’s the cover up… The scandal-hit company formerly known as Facebook has fought for over four years to keep a lid on the gory details of a third party app audit that its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally pledged would be carried out, back in 2018, as he sought to […]

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A multi-year investigation into TechCrunch’s parent entity Yahoo — looking at compliance with key transparency requirements of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), including in relation to cookie banners displayed on its media properties — has taken a step forward today after Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced that it has submitted a […]

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Yahoo is taking a nearly 25% stake in advertising network Taboola. In exchange for this move, Taboola is becoming Yahoo’s native advertising partner through a 30-year commercial agreement. If you’re not familiar with Taboola, you may have seen its content recommendation widgets on popular news websites, such as USA Today, Insider and The Weather Channel. […]

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Taboola expects to get bigger, more profitable and more self-sustaining than before thanks to Yahoo.

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Yahoo is laying off 20% of its staff, impacting 1,600 employees in its ad tech business. Yahoo is the parent company to TechCrunch. Employees were notified on Thursday that 12% of the company (1,000 employees) would be laid off before the end of the day. In six months, another 8% — or 600 people — […]

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Yahoo today announced that it has acquired Wagr, a three-year-old social sports betting startup based out of Nashville. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. TechCrunch, whose parent company happens to be the now Apollo-owned Yahoo, covered Wagr way back at its inception in 2020 at one of its early investor’s demo days. We noted […]

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Yahoo is introducing new AI tools for Yahoo Mail that are aimed at helping users save time and money, the company announced on Monday. The rollout includes upgrades to several of Yahoo Mail’s existing AI features, and introduces a new Shopping Saver tool. Yahoo is TechCrunch’s parent company. The new Shopping Saver tool surfaces gift […]

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Yahoo, otherwise known as the company that pays my salary (full disclosure: Yahoo owns TC), today announced that it’s spinning off Vespa, the big data serving engine, into an independent venture. Jon Bratseth, previously a VP architect in the big data and AI group at Yahoo and one of the main contributors to Vespa, has […]

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Yahoo is acquiring Artifact, the AI-powered news app from Instagram’s co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the company announced on Tuesday. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Artifact will no longer operate as a stand-alone app, and its AI-powered personalization technology will be integrated across Yahoo, including the Yahoo News app in […]

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News that Yahoo is buying Artifact stirred the technology watercooler yesterday. Artifact was an interesting app, employing AI to help its users find and consume more, and more targeted news. It had some devoted fans, but never reached the sort of scale that would have made it an attractive long-term project. So, the Instagram founders […]

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Yahoo’s AI push isn’t over just yet. The company, also TechCrunch’s parent, recently launched AI-powered features for Yahoo Mail, including its own take on Gmail’s Priority Inbox and AI summaries of emails, and today it’s rolling out an AI-powered version of its Yahoo News app, leveraging technology it acquired from its latest acquisition, Artifact. Still, […]

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Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our short-form week-starter in which we go over the weekend, look to the week ahead, talk about some neat funding rounds and dig into what is stuck on our minds. So, by section then: […]

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Weezy — an on-demand supermarket that delivers groceries in as fast as 15 minutes — has raised $20 million in a Series A funding led by New York-based venture capital fund Left Lane Capital. Also participating were U.K.-based fund DN Capital, earlier investors Heartcore Capital and angel investors, notably Chris Muhr, the Groupon founder. Although […]

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Coupang early investor Ben Sun shares an inside look into the growth of the Korean e-commerce giant and explains how founder Bom Kim led a pivot when the company was already an established business.

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Well that was quick. U.K.-based hyper fast grocery delivery startup Weezy — which only raised a pre-seed for its 15-minute delivery services of supermarket fare last year (after founding the biz in 2019) — has been bagged by Turkish 10-minute delivery app Getir. It’s the latest slice of consolidation to hit Europe’s hyper competitive on-demand […]

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A host of major European tech founders and investors are today backing the launch of OneUkraine, a new charity providing sustainable humanitarian relief for the Ukrainian people. OneUkraine will be supporting Ukrainians at home and abroad, delivering humanitarian aid, and aiming to rebuild the tech and broader infrastructure of Ukraine by SMEs and startups on […]

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Chicago-based Groupon today laid off more than 500 of its employees — 15% of its 3,416-person headcount — according to posts from former employees on social media. The reduction impacted workers in teams including merchant development, sales, recruiting, engineering, product and marketing. Groupon confirmed the layoffs to TechCrunch after the publication of the story. “Our […]

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