Japanese car giants Honda and Nissan are working out the details of a major merger that could create the worlds third-largest automaker, as the companies look to survive in an industry faced with uncertainty. The Tesla-led shift toward electric vehicles, and Chinas increased importance in the automotive market, have companies like Honda and Nissan feeling [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

This glossary includes the most common terms and expressions TechCrunch uses in our security reporting, and explanations of how and why we use them. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Yet another major investment is going down in the travel sector, underscoring its ongoing rebound after the Covid-19 pandemic. Prosus, the tech conglomerate controlled by Naspers, is paying $1.7 billion to acquire Despegar, one of the biggest online travel agencies in Latin America, to scale up its operations in the region. Despegars board of directors [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov said Monday that the company is now profitable. Durov said the chat apps total revenue surpassed $1 billion in 2024. The company, which launched its premium subscription service in 2022, now has 12 million paid users. Durov also said that the app is finishing the year with more than $500 million [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A US judge ruled that the Israeli spyware maker breached hacking laws by using WhatsApp to infect devices with Pegasus 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, is testing out a standalone iOS app for its chatbot, Grok, which was available only to X users until now. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

X is raising prices for its top-tier subscription service by 37.5%, marking the largest price increase since the platforms acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022. The Premium+ service will cost $22 monthly in the U.S., up from $16, effective December 21, according to a company statement. Annual subscriptions will increase to $229 from $168. X [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Incoming president Donald Trump has confirmed reports that Sriram Krishnan, until recently a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), will serve as senior policy advisor for AI at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Trump said in a statement that Krishnan will help shape and coordinate AI policy across government, working with [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Two big defense tech players, Palantir and Anduril, are talking to tech companies including SpaceX, OpenAI, Saronic, and Scale AI about forming a consortium to bid on Pentagon contracts, according to a report in the Financial Times. The goal, the FT says, is to challenge the dominance of prime defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

With a US TikTok ban scheduled to take effect in less than a month, President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday that hed like to keep the app around, according to Reuters. Were going to have to start thinking because, you know, we did go on TikTok, and we had a great response with billions of views, [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OpenAI announced a new family of AI reasoning models on Friday, o3, which the startup claims to be more advanced than o1 or anything else its released. These improvements appear to have come from scaling test-time compute, something we wrote about last month, but OpenAI also says it used a new safety paradigm to train [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Autonomous vehicle technology and electrification startups were once the darlings of the VC and corporate world. The two technologies promised billions of dollars in revenue and a new pathway for automakers to make money beyond building and selling cars. Those VC-money-printing days have been over for AVs for a while now, with a few [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

LLM models are already capable of diagnosing scientific outputs, but, until now, had no physical agency to actually perform experiments. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OpenAIs efforts to develop its next major model, GPT-5, are running behind schedule, with results that dont yet justify the enormous costs, according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal. This echoes an earlier report in The Information suggesting that OpenAI is looking to new strategies as GPT-5 might not represent as big [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Welcome back to Week in Review. This week, were looking at OpenAIs last and biggest announcement from its 12 Days of OpenAI event; Apples potential entrance into the foldable market; and why Databricks is choosing to wait to go public. Lets get into it. P.S. Were off for the holidays! Week in Review [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google has offered up its own proposal in a recent antitrust case that saw the US Department of Justice argue that Google must sell its Chrome browser. US District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled in August that Google had acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search, with the DOJ then proposing a number [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Climate tech is about a decade old, and people are itching for a rebrand. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Becoming a venture capitalist has become the latest status symbol In Hollywood. Everyone from Olivia Wilde to Emma Watson is investing in startups. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

On November 15, Peter Wang posted a message requesting ideas for a new incubator and fund to support experimental projects built on the burgeoning Bluesky/AT Protocol ecosystem. Four weeks later, Skyseed emerged with an initial commitment of $1 million. This turnaround, a speed underscored by the fact that the fund doesnt even have a website [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Sam Altman dismissed what he called a conspiracy theory from a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Struggling electric van startup Canoo has placed its remaining employees on what its calling a mandatory unpaid break through at least the end of the year, according to an email obtained by TechCrunch. The company told employees they are being locked out of Canoos systems at the end of the day Friday, according to the [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

On the first day of Y Combinator the founders of PearAI got cancelled. They used the hate to launch a new product, raise $1 million. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

LockBit is believed tobe responsible for at least $500 million in ransom payments alone. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Friday proposed a new national framework that could make it easier for companies to deploy at scale autonomous vehicles without traditional manual driving controls like steering wheels, pedals, and sideview mirrors. The guidelines also require AV companies to share a whole lot more safety data with the [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

ChatGPT, OpenAIs text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 has been a big year for OpenAI, from its [] 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. This week was full of news, likely because it is also the last real week of 2024. Which is another way for us to say goodbye for [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Chip company Nvidia gets the green light from the European Union to complete its acquisition of Run:ai. The EU came to a unanimous decision today that Nvidia could go ahead with its acquisition of Israeli GPU orchestration platform Run:ai, according to reporting from Bloomberg. The European Commission determined that if the merger went through other [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google said Friday that the company is expanding Geminis latest in-depth research mode to 40 more languages. The company launched the in-depth research mode earlier this month, allowing Google One AI premium plan users to unlock an AI-powered research assistant of sorts. The in-depth function works in a multi-step method, from creating a research plan [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

In the first half of 2024 alone, more than $35.5 billion was invested into AI startups globally. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OpenAI saved its biggest announcement for the last day of its 12-day shipmas event. On Friday, the company unveiled o3, the successor to the o1 reasoning model it released earlier in the year. o3 is a model family, to be more precise as was the case with o1. Theres o3 and o3-mini, a smaller, [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

There is a new venture fund in town. Swizzle Fund, founded by Jessica Kamada, former COO of the marketing agency Bamboo, has raised just a little more than $5 million for its Fund I, according to an SEC filing. There was no target raise amount. The firm, which quietly opened in 2023, is an early-stage [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Lerer Hippeau, one of New York's most prolific and A-list VC firms, has filed to raise its ninth fund, according to an SEC filing made Wednesday. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The newest online-only school greenlighted by the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools comes with a twist: The academic curriculum will be taught entirely by AI. Charter schools independently operated but publicly funded typically get greater autonomy compared to traditional public schools when it comes to how subjects are taught. But Unbound Academys [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The cyberattack on Ascension ranks as the third-largest healthcare-related breach of 2024. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Four employees have sued Rivian in separate lawsuits this year over allegations they were harassed, in some cases by top executives, and that the companys leadership did little to address their concerns, according to a TechCrunch review of court records. Rivian has also reached settlements in three other harassment and discrimination cases, TechCrunch has learned. [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Cybersecurity experts, who work with human rights defenders and journalists, agree that Apple is doing the right thing by sending notifications to victims of mercenary spyware and at the same time refusing to forensically analyze the devices. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

What happens when a chemical engineer, whos previously built a hydrogen-powered drone, becomes a venture capitalist? Energy Revolution Ventures, thats what. The VC has now closed an $18 million Seed and Series A fund to invest in deeptech, such as energy storage, carbon capture, and, yes, hydrogen technologies. Marcus Clover, Co-Founder and Partner at ERV [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Principle Venture Partners will write early-stage checks anywhere from $100,000 to single digit millions. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

AI creates a dilemma for companies: Dont implement it yet, and you might miss out on productivity gains and other potential benefits; but do it wrong, and you might expose your business and clients to unmitigated risks. This is where a new wave of security for AI startups come in, with the premise that these [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Robin Capital the Germany-based, Solo GP-led VC fund by former entrepreneur Robin Haak has hit its final close of Robin Fund One at 13 million. Combined with its additional growth-focused investment vehicle of 2m, the fund now has a total of 15 million to play with. In the realm of European Solo GPs, [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The writing was on the wall, seemingly. Sequoia Capital partner Matt Miller announced on Wednesday that hes leaving the powerhouse outfit after a 12-year career to build his own new firm focused on European founders. He added he will remain a venture partner with Sequoia and maintain his board seats while fleshing out the specifics [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Rapido restricted access to the exposed portal soon after TechCrunch contacted the company. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.