February 9, 2025

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admits that AI’s benefits may not be widely distributed

In a new essay on his personal blog, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company is open to a “compute budget,” among other “strange-sounding” ideas, to “enable everyone on Earth to use a lot of AI” and ensure the benefits of the technology are widely distributed. “The historical impact of technological progress suggests that most […]

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

Technology

The race to get next-generation solar technology on the market

January 15, 2024
In Swift Solar’s lab, more than a dozen pairs of elbow-length rubber gloves hover horizontally in midair, inflated like arms. The gloves are animated by gaseous nitrogen and jut out of waist-high, glass-walled enclosures, designed to keep the workspaces dry and airtight to protect the delicate solar materials inside.  In a corner, technician Roger Thompson…

CES has almost fully succeeded in chasing sex-tech off its show floors

January 14, 2024

CES has long been a launchpad for innovation and cutting-edge technology. However, at this year’s event, there was a conspicuous void: the near-absence of sex tech. Despite being an industry that caters to a universal human experience, sex tech has always had an uneasy association with CES. This year, its conspicuous absence begs the question: […]

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

How to pick a name for your AI startup

January 12, 2024

in this world of exploding innovation in the AI industry, a great name paired with a great product will make your technology rise above.

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Download: heat pumps, and getting drugs to the brain

January 12, 2024
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. Heat pumps: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2024 We’ve entered the era of the heat pump. Heat pumps are appliances that can cool and heat spaces using electricity. Many buildings today are still heated with…

The innovation that gets an Alzheimer’s drug through the blood-brain barrier

January 12, 2024
This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here. Therapies to treat brain diseases share a common problem: they struggle to reach their target. The blood vessels that permeate the brain have a special lining…

Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out’ tech now works with employee badges

January 11, 2024

Amazon’s computer vision and sensor-powered Just Walk Out retail technology, which allows customers to shop at stores and then skip the cashier line when it’s time to check out, is now expanding to corporate domains with support for employee badges as the payment mechanism. The retail giant announced today the launch of “badge pay,” a […]

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

UK insurtech Hyperexponential raises $73M and eyes US expansion

January 11, 2024

Hyperexponential, a London-based insurance technology (insurtech) startup that serves the property-casualty (P&C) insurance industry with “decision intelligence” for pricing, has raised $73 million in a Series B equity round of funding. Boston-based venture capital (VC) firm Battery Ventures led the round, with participation from existing investor Highland Europe and Andreessen Horowitz (A16z). Founded in 2017, […]

© 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.