Baidu launches two new versions of its AI model Ernie

March 16, 2025

Chinese search engine Baidu has launched two new AI models — Ernie 4.5, the latest version of the company’s foundational model first released two years ago, as well as a new reasoning model, Ernie X1. According to Reuters, Baidu claims that Ernie X1’s performance is “on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price,”, […]

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Nvidia’s AI empire: A look at its top startup investments

March 16, 2025

Over the last two years, Nvidia has used its ballooning fortunes to invest in over 80 AI startups. Here are the giant semiconductor’s largest investments.

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VC Aileen Lee highlights how the broader investor exodus is worsening woes for unicorn companies

March 16, 2025

In this week’s episode of the StrictlyVC Download podcast, veteran VC Aileen Lee was direct about a major consequence of the recent boom-and-bust cycle: many companies stuck in limbo aren’t just struggling to regain their footing after raising too much money at unsustainable valuations; they’ve also lost the champions who once backed them. Lee was […]

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Joby Aviation and Virgin Atlantic partner to launch electric air taxis in the UK

March 16, 2025

Joby Aviation is partnering with Virgin Atlantic to launch electric air taxis in the U.K., marking the seventh country in which the startup hopes to one day commercialize. Joby, which went public in 2021 via special purpose acquisition merger, did not provide a timeline for when it plans to launch its partnership with Virgin in […]

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Amazon’s Echo will send all voice recordings to the cloud, starting March 28

March 15, 2025

Amazon Echo users will no longer have the option to process their Alexa requests locally, which means all of their voice recordings will be sent to the company’s cloud. Ars Technica reports that on Friday, Amazon sent an email to customers who have “Do Not Send Voice Recordings” enabled on their Echo smart speakers and […]

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Bluesky users debate plans around user data and AI training

March 15, 2025

Social network Bluesky recently published a proposal on GitHub outlining new options it could give users to indicate whether they want their posts and data to be scraped for things like generative AI training and public archiving. CEO Jay Graber discussed the proposal earlier this week, while on-stage at South by Southwest, but it attracted […]

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Week in Review: SXSW week comes to a close

March 15, 2025

Welcome back to Week in Review! I’m Karyne Levy, TechCrunch’s deputy managing editor, and I’ll be writing this newsletter from here on out. Thrilled to be here! This week we’re checking out everything at SXSW; Waymo’s expansion into Silicon Valley; Intel’s new CEO; TikTok’s new suitor; and why DeepSeek isn’t taking VC money. Let’s get […]

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