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

Feds accuse Uber of charging customers for subscriptions without consent

April 21, 2025
The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit Monday against Uber, alleging the ride-hail and delivery giant charged customers for its Uber One subscription service without their consent. The lawsuit also claims Uber failed to deliver the savings promised in its subscription service and made it unreasonably difficult for users to cancel despite its “cancel anytime” […]

Bezos-backed EV startup pitched investors on ‘Transformer’-like customization

April 21, 2025
Jeff Bezos-backed Slate Auto has planted multiple concept versions of its EV on the streets of California. It’s a marketing tactic that teases the secretive startup’s strategy to sell a “Transformer”-like vehicle, people familiar with the company’s internal discussions told TechCrunch. This unconventional real-world tease comes days before Slate’s April 24 launch event at Long […]

Tariff turmoil may have killed the tech M&A market’s comeback

April 21, 2025
The tech market doesn’t need to be soaring up and to the right to foster healthy M&A activity. Deals can get done even in down markets. But can M&A thrive in an uncertain market? That’s a harder question. The venture market soured in 2022 as fundraising and exits largely dried up. Since then, venture investors […]

A16z acqui-hires VC tech podcaster Erik Torenberg, who joins as new partner

April 21, 2025
Andreessen Horowitz’s hiring spree continues. On Monday, Erik Torenberg announced that the giant VC firm had acquired his Turpentine podcast, with him joining as a general partner. Torenberg’s podcast focuses mostly on interviewing VCs at a variety of firms about their approach to investing. Recent guests include Accel’s Andrew Braccia, Seven Seven Six’s Alexis Ohanian, […]