June 16, 2025

How AI can help make cities work better for residents

In recent decades, cities have become increasingly adept at amassing all sorts of data. But that data can have limited impact when government officials are unable to communicate, let alone analyze or put to use, all the information they have access to. This dynamic has always bothered Sarah Williams, a professor of urban planning and…

The Download: how Trump’s tariffs will affect US manufacturing, and AI architecture

April 25, 2025
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. Sweeping tariffs could threaten the US manufacturing rebound Despite the geopolitical chaos and market collapses triggered by President Trump’s announcement of broad tariffs on international goods, some supporters still hope the strategy will…

Sweeping tariffs could threaten the US manufacturing rebound

April 25, 2025
Despite the geopolitical chaos and market collapses triggered by President Trump’s announcement of broad tariffs on international goods, some supporters still hope the strategy will produce a “golden age” of American industry. Trump himself insists, “Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country.” While it’s possible that very targeted tariffs could help protect…

TechCrunch StrictlyVC in Athens in May will feature a special guest: the Greece Prime Minister

April 25, 2025
We’re thrilled to announce that Greece Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will be joining us at our upcoming StrictlyVC event in Athens, co-hosted with Endeavor, on Thursday night, May 8, at the stunning Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. For those who might not be familiar with his background, Mitsotakis brings a fascinating blend of experiences to […]

Bezos-backed Slate Auto debuts analog EV pickup truck that is decidedly anti-Tesla

April 25, 2025
A new American electric vehicle startup called Slate Auto has made its debut, and it’s about as anti-Tesla as it gets. It’s affordable, deeply customizable, and very analog. It has manual windows and it doesn’t come with a main infotainment screen. Heck, it isn’t even painted. It can also transform from a two-seater pickup to […]

Faraday Future founder named co-CEO three years after being sidelined by internal probe

April 25, 2025
Troubled electric vehicle startup Faraday Future’s board of directors has appointed founder Jia Yueting as the company’s co-CEO, three years after he was sidelined following an internal probe into allegations of fraud — a probe that led to a investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission that remains ongoing. Jia will serve alongside current CEO […]

Wait, how did a decentralized service like Bluesky go down?

April 25, 2025
Apparently, decentralized social networks can go down, too. On Thursday evening, the decentralized social network Bluesky experienced a significant outage, leaving users unable to load the app on both the web and mobile devices for roughly an hour. According to a message on Bluesky’s status page, the company was aware of the outage, which it […]

Anthropic CEO wants to open the black box of AI models by 2027

April 24, 2025
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay Thursday highlighting how little researchers understand about the inner workings of the world’s leading AI models. To address that, Amodei set an ambitious goal for Anthropic to reliably detect most AI model problems by 2027. Amodei acknowledges the challenge ahead. In “The Urgency of Interpretability,” the CEO says Anthropic has […]

How do you define cheating in the age of AI?

April 24, 2025
This AI startup raised $5.3M to help people “cheat on everything.” But in the age of AI, how do you define cheating? Columbia University recently suspended student Roy Lee for building a tool to help people cheat on engineering interviews. He’s been making waves on X after posting a long thread detailing the saga and how […]