Four Chinese AI startups to watch beyond DeepSeek

February 4, 2025
The meteoric rise of DeepSeek—the Chinese AI startup now challenging global giants—has stunned observers and put the spotlight on China’s AI sector. Since ChatGPT’s debut in 2022, the country’s tech ecosystem has been in relentless pursuit of homegrown alternatives, giving rise to a wave of startups and billion-dollar bets.  Today, the race is dominated by…

Spotify reports its first full year of profitability, adds 35M monthly active users

February 4, 2025

On Tuesday morning, Spotify announced its fourth-quarter earnings, marking its first full year of profitability since its inception 17 years ago. The operating income for the quarter reached a record €477 million ($509.48 million) and amounted to €1.4 billion ($1.495 billion) for the 2024 fiscal year. Spotify also reported an addition of 35 million monthly […]

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

OpenAI’s Operator agent helped me move, but I had to help it, too

February 4, 2025

OpenAI gave me one week to test its new AI agent, Operator, a system that can independently do tasks for you on the internet. Operator is the closest thing I’ve seen to the tech industry’s vision of AI agents — systems that can automate the boring parts of life, freeing us up to do the […]

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

Sotira lands $2M to help brands offload and monetize their surplus inventory

February 4, 2025

An estimated 20% to 30% of all inventory in the U.S. is surplus, with much of it ending up in landfills. A startup called Sotira wants to help address this problem: It leverages AI to help companies offload and monetize their surplus inventory. Sotira partners with brands to offload millions of pounds of surplus grocery, […]

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

Snap unveils AI text-to-image model for mobile devices

February 4, 2025

Snap has unveiled an AI text-to-image model for mobile devices that will power some of Snapchat’s features in the coming months. The company said on Tuesday that the model can produce high-resolution images in around 1.4 seconds on an iPhone 16 Pro Max.  The new diffusion model runs entirely on the device, which reduces computational […]

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

Team behind Twitterrific launches a multi-feed app called Tapestry

February 4, 2025

After Elon Musk took over Twitter, the company blocked third-party clients in 2023, including ones like Twitterrific, Tweetbot, and Fenix. Iconfactory, the company behind Twitterrifc, finally launched its multi-feed app called Tapestry on Tuesday, which allows you to add sources like RSS, YouTube, Bluesky, Podcasts, Mastodon, Reddit, Tumblr, Micro.blog, GO Comics, and more to unified […]

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

LinkedIn amps up vertical video tools as uploads jump 36%

February 4, 2025

Video reigns supreme on social media like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. And now, video is becoming a bigger business for LinkedIn.  The Microsoft-owned social network for the working world has yet to go full TikTok. But with a big boost of usage — today it said that video uploads jumped by 36% compared to last […]

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

Walkstar is a new iOS app that pauses songs when you stop moving

February 4, 2025

There are plenty of pedometer and step counter apps in the world, but this new app has a fun twist. Walkstar, which launched Tuesday in the App Store, enhances your workout by syncing your tunes with your movement. The moment you pause, the music fades away, making it a perfect motivator for those looking to […]

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