As well as being a major cause of premature death worldwide, hypertension, also known as high blood pressure, is a major risk factor for stroke, coronary artery disease, and heart failure, and is a contributing factor to dementia. It also affects an estimated 1.3 billion people; up to 95% of cases are due to lifestyle […]

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The tech world took a major double take this year when a security startup called Wiz founded out of Israel just four years earlier became the subject of a record-breaking, $23 billion acquisition attempt by Google — an offer the startup boldly proceeded … to refuse. Really? Yes, really. We will be talking to Assaf Rappaport, […]

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Enterprise spending on cloud services continues to go up, up, up — to the tune of $675 billion this year — thanks to organizations’ firm embrace of software-as-a-service, the popularity of distributed working, and the arrival of compute-intensive tech like AI. A startup called PointFive believes it has found a better way to get a […]

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As Samsung unveiled its new Galaxy S24 line today, Google announced a series of new AI features that are launching for Android Auto, which is the secondary interface that brings the look and functions of a smartphone, like navigation and messaging, to your vehicle’s infotainment screen. Google says that with the help of AI, Android […]

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Abel creates AI that uses body cam footage and other data to fill out consuming police reports. For research, founder Daniel Francis shadowed the police.

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On Wednesday, social network X (formerly Twitter) updated its Privacy Policy to indicate that it would allow third-party “collaborators” to train their AI models on X data, unless users opt out. While X owner Elon Musk trained xAI’s Grok AI chatbot on X user data, leading to an investigation by the EU’s lead privacy regulator, […]

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X is rolling out its controversial update to the block feature, allowing people to view your public posts even if you have blocked them.

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TechCrunch found that X's AI chatbot produced incorrect results about the U.S. presidential election, even as votes were still being cast.

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The decline of X (formerly Twitter) under Elon Musk has boosted engagement with alternative social networks like Bluesky, Threads, and Mastodon, but it has also challenged early adopters who now have too many places to post. Naturally, some entrepreneurs are working to solve this problem with apps that let you cross-post to multiple platforms at […]

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TikTok on Thursday debuted a new feature that will more closely connect its app, which already influences which songs top the charts, to the streaming services where users discover and play their favorite music. With the launch of a new “Share to TikTok” feature, music fans will be able to directly share tracks from both […]

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Private equity firm Apollo Global Management this morning announced that it has completed its acquisition of Yahoo (formerly known as Verizon Media Group, itself formerly known as Oath) from Verizon. The deal is worth $5 billion, with $4.25 billion in cash, plus preferred interests of $750 million. Verizon will be retaining 10% of the newly […]

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The pandemic hasn’t been easy for anyone, but the food service industry has been hit particularly hard. More than 90,000 restaurants and bars have closed, leaving workers unemployed in an already precarious industry. And those who kept their jobs faced the stressful demands of customer-facing work in a pandemic. In response to the changed industry […]

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Yahoo announced six new members of its board of directors today, about a year after the internet brand was acquired by private equity firm Apollo for $5 billion [Disclosure: TechCrunch is part of Yahoo]. The new appointees include Jessica Alba, actress and founder of The Honest Company; Aryeh Bourkoff, founder and CEO of the independent […]

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There is no shortage of platforms out there to sell your old stuff. From thredUp and The RealReal to Facebook Marketplace to eBay, the tech world has long sought to capitalize on the generally wasteful attitude of consumerism over the last half century. But lurking among these platforms is a group not often thought about, […]

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) decreased its forecast for U.S. coal exports following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and the resulting closure of the Port of Baltimore. In its April Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA reduced its forecasts for U.S. coal exports for April by 33% and for May by 20% from previous forecasts.

U.S. exports of ethane and ethane-based petrochemicals reached an all-time high of 21.6 million metric tons (MMmt) in 2023, up 135% since the United States began exporting ethane in 2014 and 17% more than in 2022, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The rapid expansion of U.S. ethane and ethane-based petrochemical exports has been fueled by the growth in domestic ethane production, which has increased with the country's natural gas production and the buildout of export and production infrastructure.

U.S. fuel ethanol exporters are on track to export a record amount of the fuel in 2024. The increase in exports this year has largely been driven by demand in countries with biofuel blending mandates and cheaper-than-usual U.S. fuel ethanol prices.

In our latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), we forecast that electricity generation from U.S. hydropower plants in 2024 will be 13% less than the 10-year average, the least amount of electricity generated from hydropower since 2001. Extreme and exceptional drought conditions have been affecting different parts of the United States, especially the Pacific Northwest, which is home to most U.S. hydropower capacity.

Online language learning continues to be a huge opportunity for startups, with the most engaging experiences meeting a surge of interest from consumers looking for more productivity out of the hours that they spend on their smartphones. In one of the more recent developments, a language learning app called EWA — which has built a […]

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The hackers who reportedly hit more than 130 organizations last year and stole the credentials of almost 10,000 employees are still targeting several tech and video game companies, according to a report obtained by TechCrunch. The report, prepared by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, calls the hackers “Scattered Spider.” In a previous publicly available report, the company […]

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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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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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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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New code introduced in the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system could make it more difficult for both police and thieves to unlock iPhones. 404 Media reported Thursday that law enforcement officials were warning each other that phones being stored for forensic examination seemed to be rebooting themselves — something that security experts confirmed […]

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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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Groupon has laid off another 500 employees in a bid to cut costs, the company said in an SEC filing last week. The e-commerce company had cut 500 jobs — nearly 15% of its workforce then — in August 2022. The company said this new set of layoffs will be spread across the first two […]

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A dozen years ago, Groupon shot to fame popularizing the online group buying format, confidently rejecting a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google and instead going public with a $17.8 billion market cap. The company today says it has 14 million active users, but almost consistently for the last decade, its financial position has been […]

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Adyen lost $13 billion in market cap last month when investors scrambled to sell shares after the payments company missed quarterly revenue targets. But it’s not the only one facing the music in fintech. Shares in SumUp, a privately-held European payment technology business that focuses on point-of-sale transactions, are currently being sold in inside sales […]

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After three years in development, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) has released a set of standards that are game-changing for shareholders and the profession, says PwC.

For members of Australia's start up community, Adelaide is fast growing the reputation of a national entrepreneurial hub.

The sale of New South Wales' and Queensland's utility assets will be among the most eagerly anticipated power deals globally in 2015, according to a PwC report released today.

PwC has appointed the former CEO of Transdev Australasia, Jonathan Metcalfe, to lead the public transport practice.

The workplace gender gap is at its widest among the expat community with only one in four Australian females currently working overseas, PwC People Business Partner Jonathan Dunlea said today while launching a new report.

The key to Japan's economic future lies in growing it's engagement with the countries on its doorstep, according to a PwC report released today.

Australia’s four major banks delivered combined underlying cash earnings of $15.5 billion for the first-half to March 2015.

The pace and scale of disruption in the power and utilities sector is happening faster than expected.

Australian small businesses can unlock an additional $49.2 billion in output over the next ten years by making better use of existing technology, PwC analysis commissioned by Google released today shows.

PwC’s asset management leader, Ken Woo, said Japan’s commitment to creating a regional market for managed funds represents a ‘tipping point’ in terms of momentum for the initiative.

A new PwC survey has found that 70 per cent of major Australian companies are planning to enter new joint ventures or strategic alliances to drive growth from the Chinese market.

PwC partner and financial services leader Julie Coates said the Federal Government's response to the Financial System Inquiry Report was encouraging.

The number of detected cyber security incidents in Australia was the highest worldwide in the last 12 months with an increase of 109 percent, compared to a 38.5 percent increase globally.

2016 could be the high-water mark for Australian power and renewables deals following a strong year for transactions in 2015, according to PwC's energy, utilities and mining leader Mark Coughlin.

PwC has been appointed as a Skills Service Organisation by the Federal Department of Education and Training to work with Industry Reference Committees to develop modern and relevant training packages.