A teenage Minecraft YouTuber raised $1,234,567 for a meme prediction market called Giggles. It broke me.
Justin Jin’s company Giggles – which he describes as “putting a trading app and TikTok together” – started as a joke.
The Download: AstroTurf wars and exponential AI growth
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. Is fake grass a bad idea? The AstroTurf wars are far from over. In 2001, Americans installed just over 7 million square meters of synthetic turf. By 2024, that number was 79 million square meters—enough to carpet all of Manhattan and then some. The…
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4 days left to save close to $500 on TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 passes
4 days left to save up to $482 on your TechCrunch disrupt 2026 ticket. These low rates will disappear on April 10 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Register here.
Trump administration plans to cut cybersecurity agency’s budget by $700 million
The budget proposal would force CISA to operate with a significantly lower budget than previous years, citing the government’s claims that the election misinformation programs were used to “target the President.”
Why a former AirPods engineer is now building heat pumps
Merino Energy has simplified the heat pump dramatically in a quest to make them cheaper and easier to install.
The AI gold rush is pulling private wealth into riskier, earlier bets
On a recent episode of Equity, we talked to Arena Private Wealth to explore a growing trend: family offices bypassing VCs to gain direct exposure to AI startups, turning them from passive investors into active participants.
Adobe launches Acrobat Spaces, a free AI-powered study tool for students
Adobe Acrobat Spaces is a free tool for students to use AI and create different kind of study material from documents
Waymo opens robotaxi service in Nashville, partners with Lyft
Waymo now operates commercial robotaxi services in 11 cities, with various methods to hail.
Hermeus raises $350M to build autonomous hypersonic fighters
The defense aviation startup is coming off two successful flight demonstrations, and with the next one, it’s aiming to go supersonic.
The Download: AI’s impact on jobs, and data centres in space
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. The one piece of data that could actually shed light on your job and AI Within Silicon Valley’s orbit, an AI-fueled jobs apocalypse is spoken about as a given. Now even economists who have…
Spotify’s prompted playlist feature will now work for podcasts, too
Spotify will now allow users to input natural language prompts to create podcast playlist.