June 20, 2025

The Download: talking dirty with DeepSeek, and the risks and rewards of calorie restriction

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. It’s pretty easy to get DeepSeek to talk dirty AI companions like Replika are designed to engage in intimate exchanges, but people use general-purpose chatbots for sex talk too, despite their stricter content…

March 2024

VR headsets can be hacked with an Inception-style attack

March 11, 2024
In the Christoper Nolan movie Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character uses technology to enter his targets’ dreams to steal information and insert false details into their subconscious.  A new “inception attack” in virtual reality works in a similar way. Researchers at the University of Chicago exploited a security vulnerability in Meta’s Quest VR system that allows…

Ready Player One creator debuts “Open,” a metaverse battle royale experience

March 11, 2024

Earlier this year, Readyverse Studios – co-founded by blockchain tech company Futureverse and Ernest Cline, the mind behind the sci-fi franchise Ready Player One – announced “The Readyverse,” an interactive platform for metaverse games and experiences. Readyverse Studios partnered with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) to help bring the popular novel to the metaverse across web3. […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Worldcoin fails to get injunction against Spain’s privacy suspension

March 11, 2024

Controversial eyeball scanning startup Worldcoin has failed to get an injunction against a temporary suspension ordered Wednesday by Spain’s data protection authority, the AEPD. The authority used emergency powers contained in the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to make the local order, which can apply for up to three months. It said it […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Bitcoin’s newest all-time high of $72,700 doesn’t mean high prices are here to stay

March 11, 2024

The crypto scene continues to remain so hot that bitcoin is hitting one new high after another. It surpassed $72,700 on Monday. This was initially driven by the approval of spot bitcoin ETFs, but is now being pushed higher ahead of a “halving” event, which will limit the amount of new supply put into circulation […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.