June 25, 2025

Bill Gates-backed AirLoom begins building its first power plant

Wind power has run into some headwinds, and not the kind that spin its turbines.  Recently, President Trump has decided to wage war against the technology, an unwelcome bit of friction that coincides with rising costs in recent years. Onshore wind power went for $61 per megawatt-hour last year, according to Lazard, bucking a decade-long […]

The Download: solar geoengineering’s rocky road, and Apple’s driverless ambitions

February 5, 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. Solar geoengineering could start soon if it starts small —David W. Keith, founding faculty director of the Climate Systems Engineering initiative at the University of Chicago, and Wake Smith, a lecturer at the…

Despite global frenzy, investor enthusiasm in China’s AI startups wanes

February 5, 2024

In 2023, the global frenzy around artificial intelligence, fueled by the advent of ChatGPT, swept across the world. In China, where OpenAI’s chatbot is unavailable, startups and tech incumbents scrambled to develop their own AI models and applications, drawing upon the foundational pieces of the American upstart. Individual AI fans accessed ChatGPT through a web […]

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

ProducePay raises $38M to tackle produce supply chain waste

February 5, 2024

Food waste is a major problem. In the U.S. alone, roughly 30% to 40% of the supply ends up in landfills. A United Nations report estimated that around one-third of the world’s food is wasted every year, adding up to 1.3 billion tons — worth almost $1 trillion. Given the scale — and societal implications […]

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

Oversight Board calls on Meta to rewrite ‘incoherent’ rules against faked videos

February 5, 2024

A misleading seven second clip of President Biden could reshape Facebook’s misinformation policies ahead of the 2024 election, but the platform — and the American electorate — are running out of time. The Oversight Board, the external advisory group that Meta created to review its moderation decisions on Facebook and Instagram, issued a decision on […]

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

Yandex to sell its remaining Russian businesses for $5.2B — half its market value

February 5, 2024

Yandex N.V., the Dutch parent company of the eponymous Russian internet giant, is selling the last of its remaining Russian businesses at a steep discount, following sanctions imposed in the wake of the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago. The value of the transaction, which will include the sale of all Yandex N.V. businesses […]

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

Solar geoengineering could start soon if it starts small

February 5, 2024
For half a century, climate researchers have considered the possibility of injecting small particles into the stratosphere to counteract some aspects of climate change. The idea is that by reflecting a small fraction of sunlight back to space, these particles could partially offset the energy imbalance caused by accumulating carbon dioxide, thereby reducing warming as…

Samsung chief Jay Y. Lee acquitted in 2015 merger case  

February 5, 2024

Samsung Electronics executive chairman Jay Y. Lee has been declared not guilty on the charge of stock price manipulation and accounting fraud related to the merger of Samsung affiliates in 2015, a South Korean Court ruled on Monday. In the November hearing, prosecutors had called for Lee to be in jail for five years and a […]

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