This week at MWC, the company showed off a device that gives failing smartphones a bright future. A lot of news outlets are interested in the Humane Ai Pin and Rabbit handheld for the different ways they use creative AI with hardware. Humane’s gear is especially meant to show what life is like after the smartphone. Of course, that makes you wonder: What exactly is wrong with the smartphone? Form factors have stopped changing, but these phones are still in billions of people’s hands. In the middle of the noise at Deutsch Telekom’s Mobile World Congress booth earlier this week,…
Author: David
After seven days on the moon, Intuitive Machines’ first lunar lander finally lost power today. It was the first American spacecraft to reach the moon’s surface since 1972, and it was also the first spacecraft that was privately built. But the lander, which was named Odysseus, will be known for something else: the way it moved. Using a mix of cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid methane in that propulsion system could open up new space possibilities and make future missions by other commercial providers less risky. Before the IM-1 mission from Intuitive Machines, this mix of propellants had never been…
Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), the group Elon Musk is suing for defamation, will have its day in court on Thursday. Last year, Elon Musk’s company X sued the CCDH, saying that it was “actively working to assert false and misleading claims about X.” Since it started in 2018, the charity has been studying how to find hate speech, extremism, and false information on social media sites. News outlets, including TechCrunch, often copy and paste its stories. The CCDH wrote about more hate speech on X after Musk took over Twitter. They said that unbanned accounts, like neo-Nazi Andrew…
Want A Free Car? Fuel-cell cars like the 2023 Toyota Mirai can be bought for $52,000, but if you act quickly, you can save $40,000. With the $15,000 in free hydrogen over six years and the option for a loan with no interest, Toyota is pretty much paying people $3,000 to get rid of their cars. If you can find the hydrogen to run it, it would be great. Shell announced three weeks ago that it would be stopping its hydrogen filling stations in California. This discount from Toyota comes right after that. For the record, the oil company only…
Meta made a controversial move last year when it started charging users in the EU for ad-free access to Facebook and/or Instagram unless they agreed to be tracked and profiled so Meta could keep running its microtargeting ad business. This caused a lot of complaints from consumer rights groups. They are being brought under the bloc’s rules for protecting data. Right now, Meta charges users in the region €9.99 per month on the web (or €12.99 per month on mobile) if they don’t want to see ads on their linked Facebook and Instagram accounts. EU users can only use Facebook…
Nothing doesn’t like to keep quiet about new books. The London-based phone company’s media push is mostly based on slowly leaking information about its products. So far, it’s been a good strategy (though a bit annoying for someone who covers this world), since most of the products it’s announced are first-generation ones that get a lot of attention from people outside of the company’s loyal fan group. Nothing Phone (2a) is a great choice. It’s the third phone the company has made, but it’s clearly aimed at a different group of people than the main Phone (1) and Phone (2).…
Apple is ending its long-running, secret project to make an electric car that drives itself, leaders told the team in a short meeting Tuesday morning. Has learned that the company has stopped working on the project and is likely to lay off hundreds of workers. Bloomberg, which first reported that the project was scrapped, says that some of the remaining workers will be moved to work on Apple’s generative AI projects. Other people will be fired if they can’t find new jobs within the company in 90 days. One worker on the car project who asked to remain anonymous because…
The spacecraft landed on its side, which changed how the solar panels are positioned in relation to the sun, ending Intuitive Machines’ first trip to the moon early. The company said this in an update on Tuesday morning. The flight controllers were still trying to figure out how much life was left in the battery, which could be 10 to 20 hours. The spacecraft was supposed to work for seven to ten days after it arrived on the moon five days ago. Last week, Intuitive Machines made history when it landed its spaceship, Odysseus, close to the south pole of…
The Galaxy AI features will be added to more devices with the new One UL 6.1 update, which Samsung revealed today. The update will be available in late March. The Galaxy S23 line, S23 FE, Z Fold5, and Z Flip5 will get the new features. The Tab S9 Ultra, Tab S9+, and Tab S9 will also get them. It was first the Galaxy S24 series that got AI features, but soon even more Samsung users will be able to use them too. Since almost every tech company is adding to and improving their AI-powered features, it makes sense for Samsung…
Google today announced the start of Gemma, a new family of lightweight open-weight models. This comes just one week after the latest version of its Gemini models was released. These new models, starting with Gemma 2B and Gemma 7B, were “inspired by Gemini” and can be used for business or study. Google didn’t give us a full study on how these models compare to other models like those from Meta and Mistral; they only said that they are “state-of-the-art.” This is the same design that the company used for its Gemini models and its earlier PaLM models, the company did…
Change Healthcare, an American tech company that makes healthcare products, has admitted that its systems were hacked. The business issued a short statement saying it was “experiencing a network interruption related to a cyber security issue.” Change Healthcare wrote on its status page, “As soon as we learned of the outside threat, we disconnected our systems right away to protect our partners and patients and stop any further damage.” “The trouble is likely to last at least during the day.” The incident started early Tuesday morning on the East Coast of the United States, according to the incident tracker. It…
Uber is starting a service in Japan with partners Mitsubishi Electric and autonomous robotics startup Cartken. The service will use self-driving sidewalk robots to bring food to customers. The service will be available in some parts of Tokyo through the Uber Eats app by the end of March, the companies said. A representative for Uber said that the business’s hours would be made public closer to the launch date. Together, Uber and Cartken, a new company started in 2019 by former Google workers who worked on the short-lived Bookbot, already run a delivery service in Fairfax, Virginia, and Miami. They…
Byju’s says that its newly launched $200 million rights issue has been fully subscribed. However, the founder of the startup asked some of its biggest investors to take part, even though there is a disagreement between the edtech group and some of its biggest shareholders. The Bengaluru-based startup was valued at $22 billion in its most recent round of funding in early 2022. Last month, it said it would be trying to raise about $200 million through a rights issue. TechCrunch says that Byju’s lowered the pre-money value ask in the rights issue to between $20 million and $25 million.…
It’s 2024. No matter what, all devices should have batteries that last more than a day. As things stand, the range of gadgets is incredibly large. At this point, I would even say that the Apple Watch’s small battery is and always has been its biggest problem. At the moment, the Series 9 can run for 18 hours in normal mode and 36 hours in low power mode. When it comes to OnePlus’s future Watch 2, it promises an amazing 100 hours “in full Smart Mode.” These are the kinds of claims that should be taken with a grain of…
State media said Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his North Korean rival Kim Jong Un a car. This is another sign that relations between the two countries are getting better, which worries people in the United States. The Russian team brought Kim his own car on Sunday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), which is run by the government. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, told the Russian state news agency TASS that the car was an Aurus. Aurus is a luxury car company that was started in 2018 to make Russia’s official state cars.…
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to live on Mars? With NASA’s help, you can now try living on Mars in a game. The space agency wants people to live on a fake Mars for a year to get ready for sending people to explore the real Mars. NASA has said that four people will live in a 1,700-square-foot Mars simulation during the second of three missions. NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, has a 3D-printed Mars home where the missions take place. The missions are called CHAPEA, which stands for Crew Health and Performance…
According to Reuters, Elon Musk, the founder of Neuralink, said late Monday that the first person who had a brain chip implanted by the company seems to have fully healed and can now control a computer mouse with their thoughts. “Things are going well, and the patient seems to be fully recovered with no harm that we know of.” “Patient can think his way around the screen and move a mouse,” Musk said at a Spaces event on the social media site X. Musk said Nyarlak was now trying to get the patient to click the mouse button as many…
One of the most popular messaging sites, ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter), had problems in Pakistan on Monday for the third day in a row. Users across the country have had trouble getting to the site for long periods of time. This is just one more example of how unstable the internet has been in the weeks before, during, and after the very contested national elections on February 8. Downdetector says that X services were interrupted around 1:00 p.m. Earlier in the day, the social media site also had problems. It was said to be inaccessible at 10:30 a.m. and…
Last week, the singer and actor talked about her new disc. Selena Gomez is having a good time in the city of love. The 31-year-old singer and actress announced last week that her new song “Love On” will be out on February 22. On Monday, she shared a bunch of pictures from her trip to Paris with the caption “40 hours.” France. Paris. “I love you on February 22 💍🏒.” The Only Murders in the Building star can be seen walking in front of the Eiffel Tower in the first picture from the carousel. She is wearing a mini dress,…
Many people who support former President Donald Trump think that pop star Taylor Swift was working for the government to help Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. They have tried to make her look bad because of this. This is not a good idea, according to polls. Swift is one of the most well-known people in the U.S., and these Republicans are wrong to think that the government is helping her out. The facts are clear from a Monmouth University study that came out last week. There are 39% who like Swift, 13% who don’t like her, and 43% who don’t know…
The Yellowjackets will be back for their third season, but first, there’s a little teaser. Yellowjackets has received 10 Emmy bids, including acting nods for Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci. With a loyal fan group after its two seasons, the show is scheduled to return for season 3 in early 2025, as reported by Deadline. However, series co-creator Ashley Lyle also revealed that there will be an extra episode released to curb viewers’ appetites before the Yellowjackets season 3 release. The story is about the high school girls’ football team called the Yellowjackets, their coach Ben, and the coach’s kids,…
Gemini is good at some things and not so good at others. Here it is: Gemini, Google’s answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot. Is it good? Even though it’s a good choice for work and study, it fails in some clear and some less clear ways. Google changed the name of its Bard chatbot to Gemini last week and made Gemini available on smartphones through a new app experience. Gemini has the same name as the company’s newest family of creative AI models, which can be confusing. Since then, many people have had the chance to try out the…
It turns out that the problem with iPhone web apps (also called progressive web apps, or PWAs) in the EU wasn’t a bug. Apple has changed its website to explain why PWAs stopped working in the EU after the latest iOS betas were installed. This came after developer concerns and news stories said it. It’s no surprise that the tech giant is blaming the new EU law, the Digital Markets Act, for the change. They say that the DMA’s rule to let different browser engines work is what made things so complicated.In case you missed it, security expert Tommy Mysk…
OpenAI tried to trademark “GPT,” but the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said no because the word is “merely descriptive” and can’t be registered. While this is bad for OpenAI’s reputation, don’t think that its rivals will start making their own versions of the popular chatbot any time soon.As of right now, ChatGPT is the most well-known AI brand. It is the most famous conversational model on the market and the one that made large language models popular around the world.The USPTO says that the name doesn’t meet the requirements to be registered as a trademark, which would give it…
Since then, You season 4 finished in 2023, fans have been waiting for Joe Goldberg to come back. We have good news: You Season 5, the show’s final season, has been officially set to come out in 2025. Netflix picked up You for a fifth and final season in the spring of 2023, not long after the second half of season 4 started. They also announced that Sera Gamble would be leaving her role as director and Michael Foley and Justin Lo would take over. “As I step back from running the show day-to-day to focus on new projects, I’m…
Technology news site TechCrunch has learned that BMW’s cloud storage server was set up incorrectly, letting private keys and internal business data become public.TechCrunch talked to Can Yoleri, a security expert at threat intelligence company SOCRadar, who said that he found the open BMW cloud storage server while he was regularly scanning the internet.Yoleri said that the exposed storage server housed by Microsoft Azure, which is also called a “bucket,” in BMW’s development environment was “mistretched and set to be public instead of private.”The storage bucket also had “script files that include Azure container access information, secret keys for accessing…
Some 100 Starlink satellites will be sent to an early retirement by SpaceX today because of a flaw that could make them a problem in the future. But don’t expect a burning light show. Also, if you use Starlink, your service shouldn’t be bad.The announcement says that “the Starlink team identified a common issue” with these first-generation communication satellites that could “increase the probability of failure.”I’ve asked the company for more information and will change this post if I hear back. But from what was said and what was happening, it sounds like the “failure” would mean losing power. Seventeen…
On Bluesky and Mastodon, there is a fight over how to connect the two autonomous social networks and whether there should be a bridge at all. Even though there are mean comments on GitHub, these code disputes aren’t just for fun. They could affect how the internet works in the future.Mastodon is the most well-known open social app right now. Mastodon grew quickly last year as people looked for an option to Elon Musk’s Twitter. It now has 8.7 million users. Then Bluesky became available to everyone last week. In just a few days, it gained 1.5 million users, taking…
Ukraine’s armed forces say that the Caesar Kunikov, a big Russian assault ship, has sunk off the coast of Russian-occupied Crimea.Local social media said they heard loud blasts early Wednesday morning, which made them think the landing ship had been hit not far south of the town of Yalta.In occupied Crimea, Ukraine has hit Russia’s Black Sea force many times.From space last year, it looked like most of the ships had left the peninsula.It was said that the landing ship was hit by Magura V5 navy drones in a video released by Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence.Russia’s full-scale war in…
Waymo is pulling the software that runs its robotaxi fleet because, in December, two of them crashed into the same towed pickup truck in Phoenix, Arizona. It’s the first recall for the business.In a blog post, Waymo’s top safety officer, Mauricio Peña, called the accidents “minor” and said that neither car was carrying anyone at the time. It did not hurt anyone. Also, he said that Waymo’s ride-hailing service, which is live in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, “is not and has not been interrupted by this update.” The company wouldn’t give TechCrunch photos of the crashes.The company…
A well-known and respected study scientist named Andrej Karpathy said today that he is leaving OpenAI. Karpathy is leaving the top AI company for the second time. He said it’s not because of any event, problem, or drama.Karpathy was one of the founders of OpenAI and first left the company to work for Tesla in 2017. When he left Tesla in 2022, he was in charge of the autopilot team. He returned to OpenAI almost a year ago. Karpathy has also gained a huge following on social media and YouTube by sharing thought-provoking articles about the new field and movies…
As part of a change, grocery delivery giant Instacart said today that it is letting go of about 250 workers, which is about 7% of its global workforce. In a letter to investors, Fidji Simo, CEO of Instacart, said that the layoffs would help the business run more efficiently. The company revealed the layoffs at the same time it reported its earnings for the fourth quarter.In the letter, Simo said, “Today, we had to make the hard choice to let go of about 250 talented team members.” “This will let us reshape the company and make the organisation flatter so…
A company called TheTruthSpy that makes consumer-grade spyware puts the security and privacy of thousands of people at risk because its mobile spying apps are installed on their Android devices without their knowledge. This is because the company’s owners never fixed a simple security flaw.Now, two separate hacking groups have found the hole that lets a lot of people get to the data on stolen phones straight from TheTruthSpy’s servers.In a blog post, hacker Maia Arson Crimew from Switzerland said that the flaw was found and used by the hacking groups SiegedSec and ByteMeCrew in December 2023. ByteMeCrew gave Crimew…
The effort to keep President Joe Biden in office has finally set up shop on TikTok.Even though the app has caused problems in Congress, experts say that presidential candidates can’t do without TikTok to reach young voters.Annie Wu Henry, a digital communications strategist who has run social media for several political campaigns, said, “I wasn’t surprised at all that the campaign made a TikTok account. It would have been such a waste to go through this cycle and a missed opportunity to not be on that platform.”She told TechCrunch, “I always thought it would happen; it was just a matter…
The National Transportation Safety Board, a government body in the U.S. that looks into crashes, told the Dawn Project to stop using its seal after it was used in a Super Bowl ad that told people to stop buying Tesla cars.In a letter, the NTSB said that its seal had to be taken off of the Dawn Project’s website and YouTube page right away, along with any other airings of the commercial. In a news statement, the NTSB said that the Dawn Project did not have permission to use its seal and that the NTSB does not support their work.“We…
Zee told the Indian stock markets that Sony was asking for $90 million in termination fees for allegedly breaking the terms of their merger agreement and by “invoking arbitration” for emergency support. Zee said it doesn’t agree with any of Sony’s claims and will take legal action if necessary. Sony said in a statement that “closing conditions” for the merger had not been met despite “good faith discussions” with Zee. The companies also said they had not been able to agree on an extension by the date of January 21. “They are very disappointed with us after more than two…
Everything Is Going As Planned For Epic’s Big Fortnite Plans The race to build a linked, avatar-driven virtual world didn’t stop over the last year, even though the M word isn’t used as much these days.It doesn’t matter what we call the metaverse—a tech buzzword that came out between the talk of NFTs and AI—it’s still being built. And because of recent events, one company is becoming more and more likely to rule in the near future.Epic Games and Disney said on Wednesday that they are working together to create a “entertainment universe” with Disney-themed games and other items to…
Google’s Gemini robot, which used to be called Bard, thinks that the 2024 Super Bowl already happened. If you needed more proof that GenAI makes things up, this is it. There are even (fake) numbers to back it up.A Reddit thread says that Gemini, which is driven by Google’s GenAI models with the same name, is answering questions about Super Bowl LVIII as if it happened yesterday or weeks ago. It looks like a lot of bettors think the Chiefs will beat the 49ers (sorry, 49ers fans).Gemini adds on pretty creatively. In one case, they gave a breakdown of player…
AP reports that in Tokyo, People have said that Japan’s current foreign trainee program is just a way to bring in cheap labor. On Friday, the Japanese government decided to get rid of the program and replace it with a system that they say will teach skills and protect trainees’ rights. Japan needs more foreign workers to help its aging and shrinking workforce.A group of related Cabinet ministers passed a new program on Friday that lets people who come with a three-year trainee visa change their status to a skilled worker category. This will let them stay for up to…
Russia vs. Ukraine War After a Russian attack on a private neighborhood in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, February 10, 2024, firefighters put out a fire. The city government says that Russian drones attacked a civilian area and fired on about 12 private homes. A lot of people had to leave the area. Picture by Andrii Marienko for APTHE ASSOCIATED PRESSMore The news came from Kyiv, Ukraine. Kharkiv is the second biggest city in Ukraine. Overnight, a Russian drone strike killed at least seven people, three of them children, according to Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region.He said that the…