March 14, 2025

Republican Congressman Jim Jordan asks Big Tech if Biden tried to censor AI

On Thursday, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent letters to 16 American technology firms, including Google and OpenAI, asking for past communications with the Biden Administration that might suggest the former President “coerced or colluded” with companies to “censor lawful speech” in AI products. The Trump Administration’s top technology advisers previously signaled it would pick […]

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Gitai’s autonomous robot installs panel outside the ISS, showing orbital repairs in action

March 19, 2024

Los Angeles-based Gitai said Tuesday that its autonomous robotic arm has nailed a tech demonstration outside the International Space Station. Gitai CEO Sho Nakanose told TechCrunch in an interview last year that the company aims to reduce in-space labor costs by 100 times, in the same way that SpaceX and other providers have dramatically reduced […]

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Microsoft hires Inflection founders to run new consumer AI division

March 19, 2024

Microsoft has hired Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan, co-founders of high-profile AI startup Inflection AI, and several of their colleagues as the Satya Nadella-led cloud giant continues its aggressive push to attract top talent. Suleyman — also a co-founder of DeepMind, which Google bought in 2014 to bolster its own AI efforts — will run […]

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Google DeepMind’s new AI assistant helps elite soccer coaches get even better

March 19, 2024
Soccer teams are always looking to get an edge over their rivals. Whether it’s studying players’ susceptibility to injury, or opponents’ tactics—top clubs look at reams of data to give them the best shot of winning.  They might want to add a new AI assistant developed by Google DeepMind to their arsenal. It can suggest…

How crypto exchange Backpack climbed its way to success after its major investor FTX died

March 19, 2024

Backpack’s founders, who are building a crypto exchange and wallet, have experienced strong growth since launching in 2022. But the road wasn’t easy. FTX co-led Backpack’s $20 million strategic investment round in September 2022. Less than two months later, in November, 2022, FTX collapsed. “We lost 80% of the operating capital on FTX. We spent […]

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TechCrunch Minute: EV makers are struggling, and Fisker’s in a particularly precarious position

March 19, 2024

Fisker’s finances are back in the news after the company warned back in February that it didn’t have enough cash to make it through its next year. The company said this week that it intends to halt production for six weeks to get its business back in order. Fisker is hardly the first electric vehicle […]

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Ramp CEO says the fintech startup is just scratching the surface

March 19, 2024

Fintech exploded over the last five years. Startups in the category raised more than $350 million in VC funding from 2019 through 2023, according to data from CB Insights. Despite all that growth, Eric Gylman, the co-founder and CEO of Ramp thinks that the industry, and companies like his, are just scratching the surface. Glyman […]

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Facebook is trying to make ‘poking’ cool again

March 19, 2024

Remember when you would “poke” your friends on Facebook to get their attention, annoy them or just start a poke war? Well, Facebook is trying to bring back that experience with some small updates to the poking feature. The company announced on Tuesday that it recently improved the platform’s suggestions on who to poke and […]

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