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

Modular eel robots combine soft and rigid components

February 6, 2023

Here’s an interesting comment from MIT’s Alfonso Parra Rubio, “Treating soft versus hard robotics is a false dichotomy.” For, I suppose, obvious reasons, thinking around technology tends to be a bit…binary. Certainly we’ve traditionally regarded soft robots as being something that exists in direct opposition to their more traditional counterparts. But the organic beings that […]

Modular eel robots combine soft and rigid components by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch

The original startup behind Stable Diffusion has launched a generative AI for video

February 6, 2023
Runway, the generative AI startup that co-created last year’s breakout text-to-image model, Stable Diffusion, has released an AI model, called Gen-1, that can transform existing videos into new ones by applying any style specified by a text prompt or reference image. In a demo reel posted on its website, Runway shows how its software can…

Binance acquires majority stake in Korean crypto exchange GOPAX

February 6, 2023

Binance Holdings plans to return to South Korea after pulling out of the market in 2020. The world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform by volume said it had acquired a majority stake in South Korea-based crypto exchange GOPAX.  In November, GOPAX suspended customer withdrawals from its DeFi service, GoFi, after suffering effects from the bankrupt lender Genesis […]

Binance acquires majority stake in Korean crypto exchange GOPAX by Kate Park originally published on TechCrunch

Quora opens its new AI chatbot app Poe to the general public

February 6, 2023

Q&A platform Quora has opened up public access to its new AI chatbot app, Poe, which lets users ask questions and get answers from a range of AI chatbots, including those from ChatGPT maker, OpenAI, and other companies like Anthropic. Beyond allowing users to experiment with new AI technologies, Poe’s content will ultimately help to […]

Quora opens its new AI chatbot app Poe to the general public by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch

SoftBank’s vibe shift is using silence loudly

February 6, 2023

Welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. It’s February, and that means two things: you can stop wishing people happy new year, and Succession is officially back next month. As always, you can find me on Instagram or Twitter when I’m not […]

SoftBank’s vibe shift is using silence loudly by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch

Google takes on ChatGPT with Bard and shows off AI in search

February 6, 2023

Google is rushing to take part in the sudden fervor for conversational AI, driven by the pervasive success of rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Bard, the company’s new AI experiment, aims to “combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of our large language models.” Not short on ambition, Google! The model, […]

Google takes on ChatGPT with Bard and shows off AI in search by Devin Coldewey originally published on TechCrunch

Neko, Daniel Ek’s next play, is another spin on preventative healthcare

February 6, 2023

Make room for yet another preventative health play: Spotify founder Daniel Ek officially confirmed rumors of his new “health tech” startup, Neko, Friday by quietly kicking off a body scanning service in Sweden (via Tech EU) after four years of stealthy development. Ek has long expressed a personal interest in tackling a “screwed up” healthcare […]

Neko, Daniel Ek’s next play, is another spin on preventative healthcare by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch

Hackers exploiting two-year-old VMware flaw to launch large-scale ransomware campaign

February 6, 2023

Cyber-criminals are actively exploiting a two-year-old VMware vulnerability as part of a ransomware campaign targeting thousands of organizations worldwide. Reports emerged over the weekend that VMware ESXi servers left vulnerable and unpatched against a remotely exploitable bug from 2021 were compromised and scrambled by a ransomware variant dubbed “ESXiArgs.” ESXi is VMware’s hypervisor, a technology that […]

Hackers exploiting two-year-old VMware flaw to launch large-scale ransomware campaign by Carly Page originally published on TechCrunch