Debates over AI benchmarks and how theyre reported by AI labs are spilling out into public view. This week, an OpenAI employee accused Elon Musks AI company, xAI, of publishing misleading benchmark results for its latest AI model, Grok 3. One of the co-founders of xAI, Igor Babushkin, insisted that the company was [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology could fire as many as 500 staffers, according to multiple reports cuts that further threaten a fledgling AI safety organization. Axios reported this week that the US AI Safety Institute (AISI) and Chips for America, both part of NIST, would be gutted by layoffs targeting probationary employees [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The beauty of podcasting is that anyone can do it. Its a rare medium thats nearly as easy to make as it is to consume. And as such, no two people do it exactly the same way. There are a wealth of hardware and software solutions open to potential podcasters, so setups run the gamut [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Weve all been there. A favorite item is suddenly unavailable for purchase. Couldnt the manufacturer have given you advance warning? Whether owing to low sales, changing habits, production costs, or even because something is a little wrong with your favorite product (shh), discontinued items are part of life. In a weekend piece, the New York [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Welcome back to Week in Review. This week were looking at the internal chaos surrounding HPs $116 million acquisition of AI Pin maker Humane; Mira Muratis new AI venture coming out of stealth; Duolingo killing its iconic owl mascot with a Cybertruck; and more! Lets get into it. Humanes AI pin is dead. The hardware [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The General Services Administration, the agency that manages buildings owned by the federal government, is planning to shut down its entire network of electric vehicle chargers, according to a report in The Verge. The GSA reportedly operates a network of hundreds of EV chargers with a total of 8,000 plugs that can be used to [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Apple has been steadily working to expand the world of the Apple TV+ series Severance, through online materials, e-books, podcasts, and other content and so have its fans. Taking advantage of its platform power, the Cupertino tech giant has been able to easily distribute supplemental material that adds to the shows storytelling abilities, offering [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Social media giants Meta and X approved ads targeting users in Germany with violent anti-Muslim and anti-Jew hate speech in the run-up to the countrys federal elections, according to new research from Eko, a corporate responsibility nonprofit campaign group. The groups researchers tested whether the two platforms ad review systems would approve or reject submissions [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

For years, Meta employees have internally discussed using copyrighted works obtained through legally questionable means to train the companys AI models, according to court documents unsealed on Thursday. The documents were submitted by plaintiffs in the case Kadrey v. Meta, one of many AI copyright disputes slowly winding through the U.S. court system. The defendant, [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Coinbase on Friday said the SEC has agreed to drop the lawsuit against the company with prejudice, meaning it cannot be filed again. The move, which is still subject to the approval of the SECs Commissioners, is yet another signal that the Trump administration plans to be more friendly to crypto than the SEC was [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Apple on Friday released its first developer beta for iOS 18.4, which adds a new Priority Notifications feature, powered by Apple Intelligence. The addition aims to help users manage their notifications by prioritizing important alerts and minimizing distractions from less important ones. These priority notifications are displayed in a separate section on the phones Lock [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang said the market got it wrong when it comes to DeepSeeks technological advancements and its potential to negatively impact the chipmakers business. Instead, Huang called DeepSeeks R1 open source reasoning model incredibly exciting while speaking with Alex Bouzari, CEO of DataDirect Networks, in a pre-recorded interview that was released [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OpenAI is forecasting a major shift in the next five years around who it gets most of its computing power from, The Information reported on Friday. By 2030, OpenAI expects to get three-quarters of its data center capacity from Stargate, a project thats expected to be heavily financed by SoftBank, one of OpenAIs newest financial [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Norwegian robotics firm 1X unveiled its latest home robot, Neo Gamma, on Friday. The humanoid system will succeed Neo Beta, which debuted in August. Like its predecessors, the Neo Gamma is a prototype designed for testing in the home environment. Images of the robot show it performing a number of household tasks like making coffee, [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

This week, Sakana AI, a Nvidia-backed startup thats raised hundreds of millions of dollars from VC firms, made a remarkable claim. The company said it had created an AI system, the AI CUDA Engineer, that could effectively speed up the training of certain AI models by a factor of up to 100x. The only problem [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Meta is expanding in India, despite recent layoffs of what the tech giant controversially deemed low performers. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The criminal trial against fintech startup founder Charlie Javice began on Friday, with lawyers laying out their opening arguments, Reuters reported. Lawyers reiterated their original claims and defenses from the lawsuit filed by JPMorgan Chase against Javice in December of 2022. The financial services giant alleges that Javice had helped fake millions of customers in [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Recipe app developers just got new competition. On Friday, Apple introduced a soon-to-launch feature for Apple News+ subscribers called Apple News+ Food, a new section that will allow users to search, discover, save, and easily cook recipes from dozens of existing News+ publishing partners. Its set to roll out as part of iOS 18.4 and [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Apple Intelligence is heading to the Vision Pro as part of an upcoming operating system update. Apple confirmed on Friday that its generative AI platform will arrive on the extended reality headset as part of visionOS 2.4. A beta version of the software is currently available for developers. The public version is set for an [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Welcome to Startups Weekly your weekly recap of everything you cant miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. Startup life is a story of births and deaths. This week confirmed this, and it confirmed that unicorn rounds are not dead. Most interesting startup stories from [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Crypto exchange Bitby disclosed a breach that that amounts to a loss of $1.4 billion, the largest crypto theft of all time. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub compared using CO2 in enhanced oil recovery to fracking, the technology that sent U.S. oil and gas production skyrocketing. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Tiny Michigan biotech startup CircNova has raised a $3.3 million seed round for its technology that uses AI to target so-called circular RNA. The development holds promise as a new method to quickly develop therapies for conditions that currently have no drug treatments. The new funding is also a victory lap for co-founder and CEO [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Global investing in fintech startups is starting to see an uptick. Just this week, KPMG issued its Pulse of Fintech report for the second half of 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2024, investment climbed to $25.9 billion from $18 billion in the third quarter, according to KPMG. Granted, this is not the enthusiasm of [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As they gain in popularity, AI coding assistants such as GitHub Copilot may appear to be boosting productivity. But in reality, they could be causing overall code quality to decline. Thats the top-line finding from a new report released by software engineering platform GitClear, which analyzed 211 million code lines from 2020 to 2024. According [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

AI Innovators, seize your moment! Have insights that could inspire 1,200 AI founders, investors, and enthusiasts eager to advance the future of AI? Take center stage, influence the AI conversation, and exchange ideas at TechCrunch Sessions: AI on June 5 at UC Berkeleys Zellerbach Hall. Were gathering top AI visionaries from the startup world to [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

In an unprecedented step, Apple caved to a reported U.K. governments demand to prevent users from using end-to-end encryption in iCloud. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Chinese AI lab DeepSeek plans to open source portions of its online services code as part of an open source week event next week. DeepSeek will open source five code repositories that have been documented, deployed and battle-tested in production, the company said in a post on X on Thursday. Code repositories are storage locations [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A leaker allegedly published the leaked internal messages after the group allegedly targeted Russian banks 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

From idea to IPO where are you on your startup journey? If any of that sounds like you or if youre in between stages and ready to level up TechCrunch All Stage 2025 (formerly Early Stage) is the place to be. Join 1,200 founders to exchange ideas and meet the right VC [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

You read that headline correctly! The best deals for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 tickets are about to end in just 7 days. Save up to $1,130 on individual passes and up to 30% on group tickets. Dont wait these offers end on February 28 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Join us in celebrating 20 years of [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

YouTube is close to announcing a new lower-priced premium lite version of its subscription service, Bloomberg reports. The new tier is expected to launch in the United States, Australia, Germany, and Thailand soon. The tier will give users access to YouTubes library of podcasts and how-to clips without ads, Bloomberg notes. Premium lite will be [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency is firing nearly half of a small government team that regulates autonomous vehicles, the Washington Post reported. The firings are part of a broader 10% reduction at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as a result of firings of probationary workers and buyout offers, the Post reported, citing [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OpenAI said on Friday that it is rolling out Operator, its so-called AI agent that can perform tasks on behalf of users, for ChatGPT Pro subscribers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the U.K., and more countries. OpenAI said Operator will be available in most places where ChatGPT is available, apart from [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Rivian said Thursday it plans to launch a hands-off version of its driver assistance system for highway driving in a few weeks, and said an eyes-off version in 2026. The hands-off system will let Rivian compete with companies like Ford and General Motors, which have both launched similar systems in the past few years. (Ford [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Solar and wind together now represent nearly a quarter of electricity demand and nearly 10% of all energy consumption in the U.S. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Despite a still tight venture capital market, new unicorns are still being created every month. Using data from Crunchbase and PitchBook, TechCrunch tracked down the newly VC-backed startup minted unicorns so far this year (as of the end of January). These include healthcare companies like Hippocratic AI and satellite space companies like Loft Orbital. This [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Rivians costcutting measures have gotten it a lot closer to profitability, but the company is warning that 2025 could still be a challenging year especially because of the whorl of uncertainty caused by the new Trump Administration. The company announced Thursday its fourth quarter and full-year 2024 financial results, and along with it, shared [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The CEO of controversial facial recognition startup Clearview AI has resigned, he confirms to TechCrunch. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

This simple guide helps you identify and remove common consumer-grade spyware apps from your Android phone. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A study by the Pew Research Center found that Americans views of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg skew more negative than positive. While Zuckerberg has sparked chatter in Silicon Valley with his sudden interest in high fashion, the Meta CEO is less popular than President Trumps right-hand man, Elon Musk, the report found. While about [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Using stalkerware is creepy, unethical, potentially illegal, and puts your data and that of your loved ones in danger. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Electric trucking startup Nikola is hoping to sell what remains of its whole business as early as April, lawyers for the company told a judge Thursday during the first hearing of its bankruptcy case in Delaware. The lawyers claimed Nikola already has at least three interested buyers (who they did not name) and that the [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A bug in the Android and iPhone monitoring operations allows anyone to access private data exfiltrated from a victim's device. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Meta announced in a blog post on Thursday that its now accepting sign-ups for its Community Notes program on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. The announcement follows Meta news last month that its going to end its third-party fact-checking program and is instead moving to a Community Notes model similar to the one at X. In [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Road rage has been around for a while. A newer phenomenon thats cropping up is EV charging rage the feeling when a fellow EV owner cuts the line to grab one of the only working charge ports. Its common enough that people posted altercations between EV drivers on social media and forums. In at [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free just click TechCrunch Mobility! Fifteen years ago, I started writing about a little EV startup that was trying to survive even as others failed in the clean tech boom-and-bust cycle. Back [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

On a cool morning last November, 800 people gathered before sunrise in a South Burlington hangar to witness the maiden flight of Beta Technologies first electric aircraft to be built on its new scaled production line. Kyle Clark, Betas enigmatic founder and CEO, piloted the Alia CX300 one of the startups two aircraft models [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Federal Trade Commission announced on Thursday that it will launch a public inquiry into censorship by tech platforms, soliciting comments from people who feel they have been demonetized, banned, or otherwise censored due to their speech or affiliations. Tech firms should not be bullying their users, said FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson in a statement. [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Amazon Chime, the tech giants underwhelming alternative to Zoom and Google Meet, is shutting down for good. The company on Wednesday confirmed it will end support for Chime, including its Business Calling features, on February 20, 2026. As part of this transition, Amazon stopped accepting new Chime accounts as of February 19, 2025. From now [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.