February 6, 2025

What a return to supersonic flight could mean for climate change

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. As I’ve admitted in this newsletter before, I love few things more than getting on an airplane. I know, it’s a bold statement from a climate reporter because of all the associated…

Waymo employees can hail fully autonomous rides in Atlanta now

January 30, 2025

Waymo said it is launching fully driverless robotaxi rides for employees in Atlanta, an important step before the company opens the service up to members of the public later in 2025. This is the latest signal of Waymo’s push into new markets, and it comes two months after the company closed a $5.6 billion Series […]

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

Factorial Capital takes a fresh approach to finding startups with a technical edge

January 30, 2025

To make smart bets on the current wave of startups, Matt Hartman thinks venture capitalists will need a deeper understanding of the tech those startups are building. Hartman (pictured above) spent nine years as a partner Betaworks before starting a new firm, Factorial Capital, where he’s developed a different approach to identifying the startups with […]

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

How DeepSeek changed Silicon Valley’s AI landscape

January 30, 2025

Chinese AI lab DeepSeek provoked the first Silicon Valley freak-out of 2025 after releasing open versions of AI models that compete with the best technology OpenAI, Meta, and Google have to offer. DeepSeek claims to have built its models highly efficiently and quickly, and is providing these models at a fraction of the price American […]

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

ElevenLabs, the hot AI audio startup, confirms $180M in Series C funding at a $3.3B valuation

January 30, 2025

ElevenLabs, one of the more popular startups working in the field AI audio, said Thursday that it has raised a Series C round of $180 million, valuing the company at $3.3 billion post-money. a16z and ICONIQ Growth are co-leading investment. Rumors of the fundraise were first reported by TechCrunch. The final numbers confirm some but […]

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

Threads adds a ‘media’ tab and the ability to tag people in photos

January 30, 2025

Meta’s newer social network Threads announced on Thursday that it’s introducing a dedicated “media” tab for both photos and videos, only days after its rivals, including X (formerly Twitter) and the startup Bluesky, did the same for videos. In addition, Meta will also now allow users to tag people in the photos they share. Instagram […]

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