The AI leaders bringing the AGI debate down to Earth

March 19, 2025

During a recent dinner with business leaders in San Francisco, a comment I made cast a chill over the room. I hadn’t asked my dining companions anything I considered to be extremely faux pas: simply whether they thought today’s AI could someday achieve human-like intelligence (i.e. AGI) or beyond. It’s a more controversial topic than […]

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Hunted Labs lands $3M to find suspicious open source contributors

March 19, 2025

Former NSA deputy director George Barnes has made his first investment as a venture capitalist for his new job at the VC incubation studio Red Cell Partners. It’s a $3 million seed deal in an open source cybersecurity startup called Hunted Labs, he told TechCrunch exclusively. Barnes spent his entire 35-year career at the spy agency, […]

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Mortgage as an employee benefit? Kleiner Perkins leads $23.5M Series A for Multiply Mortgage

March 19, 2025

After hitting record lows at the start of the pandemic, mortgage rates began to climb in 2022 and haven’t come down significantly since.  With 30-year mortgage rates hovering at over 6.5% today (they were as low as 2.49% in 2020!), buying a home is simply not that attainable for many people. One Denver-based startup is […]

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Google unveils redesigned $499 Pixel 9a

March 19, 2025

Google has officially unveiled the Pixel 9a smartphone, its new midrange phone that will retail for $499. The A-series smartphone’s biggest change is its appearance, as the latest model ditches the camera bar on the back of the phone. The smartphone is getting a chip upgrade, as the new model features Google’s Tensor G4 processor, […]

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Zoox recalls 258 self-driving cars over unexpected braking

March 19, 2025

Zoox, Amazon’s autonomous driving unit, has issued a voluntary recall for 258 vehicles due to issues with its autonomous driving system that could cause unexpected hard breaking. The recall follows a preliminary investigation from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) last May after the agency received two reports of incidents in which motorcyclists collided […]

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Cape opens $99/month beta of its privacy-first mobile plan, inks Proton deal, raises $30M

March 19, 2025

Mobile networks continue to be a major target for cybersecurity breaches, and Chinese hacking group Salt Typhoon‘s persistent attacks on multiple carriers are only the latest known examples.  The mobile carrier startup Cape is taking a novel approach to addressing the problem: it has built a service it says can provide a more secure, private […]

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Let your voice be heard! Vote for who you want to see at TechCrunch Sessions: AI

March 19, 2025

TechCrunch Sessions: AI is nearly upon us, and you have the power to decide who you want to see lead a dynamic breakout session. We have whittled speaker applications down to six incredible finalists to take the stage on June 5 in Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley. Who do you want to see share their […]

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Google now lets kids use Google Wallet for in-store payments in select countries

March 19, 2025

Google announced on Wednesday that kids with Android phones can now tap to pay at stores using Google Wallet in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, and Poland. Parents and guardians in these countries can now allow their children to access digital payments on their Android devices with supervision. Kids can also use Google […]

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The Download: US aid disruptions, and imagining the future

March 19, 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. HIV could infect 1,400 infants every day because of US aid disruptions Around 1,400 infants are being infected by HIV every day as a result of the new US administration’s cuts to funding…