April 23, 2025

Roundtables: Brain-Computer Interfaces: From Promise to Product

Recorded on April 23, 2025 Brain-Computer Interfaces: From Promise to Product Speakers: David Rotman, editor at large, and Antonio Regalado, senior editor for biomedicine. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have been crowned the 11th Breakthrough Technology of 2025 by MIT Technology Review‘s readers. BCIs are electrodes implanted into the brain to send neural commands to computers, primarily to assist…

April 2025

Mystery will may reveal Zappos founder’s final wishes

April 24, 2025
According to the WSJ, a recently discovered will suggests late Zappos co-founder Tony Hsieh had concrete plans for his fortune despite previous beliefs that he died without leaving instructions for an estate that’s estimated to be worth $1.2 billion. Among other things, the document, signed in 2015 and included in a recent court filing, contains […]

IBM affected by DOGE cuts, downplays impact during Q1 earnings call

April 23, 2025
Tech and consulting giant IBM was not immune to the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cuts. IBM had 15 of its federal contracts cancelled due to DOGE-related cuts during the first quarter of 2025, according to reporting from Reuters and Bloomberg. These cuts amount to $100 million in future payments, per Bloomberg. Federal contracts represent […]

IBM effected by DOGE cuts, downplays impact during Q1 earnings call

April 23, 2025
Tech and consulting giant IBM was not immune to the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cuts. IBM had 15 of its federal contracts cancelled due to DOGE-related cuts during the first quarter of 2025, according to reporting from Reuters and Bloomberg. These cuts amount to $100 million in future payments, per Bloomberg. Federal contracts represent […]

Windsurf slashes prices as competition with Cursor heats up

April 23, 2025
AI coding assistant startup Windsurf cut its prices “across the board” it announced on Monday, touting “massive savings” for its users as competition with its rival Cursor intensifies. Windsurf said it’s getting rid of its complex system of “flow action credits,” which charged developers for actions its AI did in the background. It’s also cutting […]

Tesla begins ‘FSD Supervised’ ride-hail tests with employees in Austin, Bay Area

April 23, 2025
Tesla has started testing its autonomous ride-hail service with employees in Austin and the Bay Area ahead of the company’s planned robotaxi launch this summer. “FSD Supervised ride-hailing service is live for an early set of employees in Austin & San Francisco Bay Area,” the company posted Wednesday on X. FSD stands for “Full Self-Driving,” […]

Government censorship comes to Bluesky, but not its third-party apps … yet

April 23, 2025
Government censorship has found its way to Bluesky, but there’s currently a loophole thanks to how the social network is structured. Earlier this month, Bluesky restricted access to 72 accounts in Turkey at the request of Turkish governmental authorities, according to a recent report by the Freedom of Expression Association. As a result, people in Turkey can […]

OpenAI seeks to make its upcoming open AI model best-in-class

April 23, 2025
Toward the end of March, OpenAI announced its intention to release its first “open” language model since GPT‑2 sometime this year. Now, details about that model are beginning to trickle out from the company’s sessions with the AI developer community. Sources tell TechCrunch that Aidan Clark, OpenAI’s VP of research, is leading development of the open model, […]

Here are the 19 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2025

April 23, 2025
Last year was monumental for the AI industry in the U.S. and beyond. There were 49 startups that raised funding rounds worth $100 million or more in 2024, per our count at TechCrunch; three companies raised more than one “megaround,” and seven companies raised rounds $1 billion in size or larger. How will 2025 compare? […]

Netflix aims to be a trillion-dollar company, says co-CEO

April 23, 2025
At Semafor’s 2025 Word Economy Summit on Wednesday, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said he believes Netflix’s long-term goal to achieve a $1 trillion market capitalization is possible if the streaming giant continues to perform well.  Sarandos said, “In the previous five years, we’ve doubled our revenue, we grew profits 10 times, and we grew our […]