July 3, 2025

The Download: AI agents hype, and Google’s electricity plans

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. Don’t let hype about AI agents get ahead of reality —Yoav Shoham is a professor emeritus at Stanford University and cofounder of AI21 Labs. At Google’s I/O 2025 event in May, the company…

Technology

Houseparty’s founder launches Towns, an open source group chat app that comes with a blueprint

February 23, 2023

After launching a pair of well-loved but ultimately star-crossed social apps, Ben Rubin is going all-in on decentralization. Rubin previously founded Meerkat and Houseparty — apps that pioneered mobile livestreaming and group video chat, respectively — shaping massive social trends in their earliest stages. After working on Slashtalk, an “anti-meeting tool” for the workplace, Rubin […]

Houseparty’s founder launches Towns, an open source group chat app that comes with a blueprint by Taylor Hatmaker originally published on TechCrunch

The Download: hydrogen’s potential, and Twitter’s terrorism accusations

February 23, 2023
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. When hydrogen will help climate change—and when it won’t.  Hydrogen is often heralded as a climate hero because when it’s used as a fuel in things like buses or steel production, there are…

Spotify is testing playlists that could be unlocked by NFT holders

February 23, 2023

Unlocking exclusive access has been a long-held promise of a lot of NFT-based communities. And now, Spotify is helping some of them realize that claim with token-gated playlists. According to a series of tweets by Kingship, a metaverse band signed to Universal Music Group (UMG), the streaming company is piloting playlists that could be unlocked […]

Spotify is testing playlists that could be unlocked by NFT holders by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Chain Reaction raises $70M, emerges from stealth to launch chips designed to compute encrypted data

February 23, 2023

As the networking industry explores homomorphic encryption, blockchains and other cryptographic techniques to take data protection and complex computing to the next level, one big roadblock to many of these working effectively and at scale has been the compute power required to run them. Today, one of the startups that believes it can address that […]

Chain Reaction raises $70M, emerges from stealth to launch chips designed to compute encrypted data by Ingrid Lunden originally published on TechCrunch

When hydrogen will help climate change—and when it won’t. 

February 23, 2023
Have you ever heard of the hydrogen rainbow? While hydrogen gas is colorless, the industry sometimes uses colors as shorthand to describe which of the many possible processes was used to make a particular batch. There’s gray, green, and blue hydrogen, along with more vibrant tones like pink—a whole rainbow (kind of). Hydrogen is often…

Linux Foundation Europe launches the OpenWallet Foundation to power interoperable digital wallets

February 23, 2023

The Linux Foundation‘s European off-shoot has formally launched the OpenWallet Foundation (OWF), a new collaborative effort designed to support interoperability between digital wallets through open source software. The launch comes some five months after the Linux Foundation first revealed plans to set up the OWF, shortly before it spun out a region-specific entity called the […]

Linux Foundation Europe launches the OpenWallet Foundation to power interoperable digital wallets by Paul Sawers originally published on TechCrunch

CyberSmart raises $15M for an all-in-one cybersecurity and insurance solution targeting SMBs

February 23, 2023

Cybersecurity continues to be a major area for investment among businesses, and today a startup building solutions for smaller enterprises is announcing a funding round to meet that demand. CyberSmart — a UK startup that has built an all-in-one platform providing cybersecurity technology for small and medium businesses, and cyber insurance if things go wrong […]

CyberSmart raises $15M for an all-in-one cybersecurity and insurance solution targeting SMBs by Ingrid Lunden originally published on TechCrunch

Popular Android apps’ Play Store privacy labels don’t match up to their claims, Mozilla says

February 23, 2023

Google added privacy nutrition labels for apps on the Play Store last April, bringing more transparency to its Android marketplace in response to Apple introducing similar stringent rules. These labels allow developers to disclose and explain the variety of data their apps collect from users, giving the consumers a better understanding of what they are signing […]

Popular Android apps’ Play Store privacy labels don’t match up to their claims, Mozilla says by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Spoke AI is using generative AI to pull signal from workplace noise

February 23, 2023

As generative AI’s fast-unfolding power to supercharge content-creation amps up concern over what automation might mean for free access to quality information online, Berlin-based startup Spoke AI is gearing up to apply generative AI in a more bounded (but still noisy) context: Internally, within businesses — pitching information workers on tools to help them stay […]

Spoke AI is using generative AI to pull signal from workplace noise by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch