May 12, 2025

The Download: a new form of AI surveillance, and the US and China’s tariff deal

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. How a new type of AI is helping police skirt facial recognition bans Police and federal agencies have found a controversial new way to skirt the growing patchwork of laws that curb how…

The AI Hype Index: AI agent cyberattacks, racing robots, and musical models

April 29, 2025
Separating AI reality from hyped-up fiction isn’t always easy. That’s why we’ve created the AI Hype Index—a simple, at-a-glance summary of everything you need to know about the state of the industry. AI agents are the AI industry’s hypiest new product—intelligent assistants capable of completing tasks without human supervision. But while they can be theoretically…

Is AI “normal”?

April 29, 2025
Right now, despite its ubiquity, AI is seen as anything but a normal technology. There is talk of AI systems that will soon merit the term “superintelligence,” and the former CEO of Google recently suggested we control AI models the way we control uranium and other nuclear weapons materials. Anthropic is dedicating time and money…

A16z backs UK startup Dex to scale ‘AI talent agent’ and recruitment matchmaker

April 29, 2025
Storied Silicon Valley VC firm Andreessen Horowitz is backing a fledgling U.K. startup that’s setting out to “redefine” how AI is used to match companies with talent. Dex, as the startup is called, targets candidates and companies with various AI-powered recruitment smarts, including matchmaking and coaching, with a view toward improving retention in the long […]

Grouphug is a stealth-mode startup that plans use AI inside WhatsApp groups

April 29, 2025
Veterans of the European startup scene, who’ve launched multiple consumer apps in the past, are partly coming out of stealth Tuesday with a new app. On the face of it, Grouphug will simply generate memes from the archive of a group WhatsApp chat. However, that masks a wider play.  Grouphug is led by Felix Petersen, […]

IXI raises $36.5M from Amazon and more to bring the concept of autofocus to prescription glasses

April 29, 2025
Blink and you’ll miss it: a startup out of Finland is taking a new look at the market for prescription eyewear. Tapping into innovations in eye-tracking and liquid crystal lens technology, IXI is building low-power glasses that will invisibly, automatically adjust to account for Presbyopia (far-sightedness), for the wearer. Four years into its life, Hensinki-based […]

Reddit now supports translation of posts and comments into Hindi

April 29, 2025
In a bid to broaden its user base in India, Reddit has updated its machine translation feature to support the automatic translation of posts and comments into Hindi. “With this expansion, authentic, more people-powered content is now accessible in one of India’s most spoken languages,” the company wrote in an update to a blog post. […]

Are EWOR fellowships the real project Europe is looking for?

April 29, 2025
Supporting super-early stage entrepreneurs in Europe seems to be suddenly in vogue. Back in March, “Project Europe” was launched to great fanfare by podcaster and VC Harry Stebbings with a small $10 million fund to back founders aged only 25 and under, riffing on the ‘Peter Thiel Fellowship’ model of old. Now a new fund […]

OpenAI is fixing a ‘bug’ that allowed minors to generate erotic conversations

April 28, 2025
A bug in OpenAI’s ChatGPT allowed the chatbot to generate graphic erotica for accounts where a user registered as a minor, under the age of 18, TechCrunch’s testing revealed, and OpenAI confirmed.  In some cases, the chatbot even encouraged these users to ask for raunchier, more explicit content. OpenAI told TechCrunch its policies don’t allow […]

Deel officially agrees to be served legal papers in Rippling’s lawsuit

April 28, 2025
HR tech giant Deel says it has formally accepted to be served legal documents in its ongoing court battle with rival Rippling in Ireland. This ends weeks of suspense after Rippling’s bailiffs couldn’t find Deel’s execs to serve them – only for Deel’s CEO and top lawyer to turn up in Dubai. Deel CEO Alex […]