Washington, D.C. (Reuters) -Toyota Motor said on Monday that owners of 50,000 older U.S. cars should get recall fixes right away because an air bag inflator could explode and kill drivers. The Japanese car company said the “Do Not Drive” notice applies to some Corollas, Matrix, and RAV4s from 2003 to 2004 that have Takata air bag inflators. Since 2009, Takata air bag inflators that can blow and send metal shrapnel flying inside cars and trucks have been linked to more than 30 deaths, including 26 deaths in the U.S. and hundreds of injuries. In the past ten years, more…
Author: David
Rebellions, a self-made AI chip company in South Korea, announced today that it has raised $124 million (165 billion KRW) in a Series B round of funding to make Rebel, its third AI chip. The startup will also use the new money—more than the initial goal of $90 million—to hire more people and make more of its Atom chip, which is designed for use in data centres. In an exclusive chat with TechCrunch, Rebellions’ CFO Sungkyue Shin said that the three-year-old company is worth about $658 million (880 billion KRW) after the money is added. With this new round of…
The story goes like this: the founder of a startup gets a huge amount of VC money. The next step is to find a product-market fit. Simple, right? They should put all that money into promotion and sales, and things will go well. Not so quickly. Anyone can make the growth line go up and to the right if they spend enough money on ads. But you need to do growth the right way, which is much harder. Matt Lerner was in charge of marketing at PayPal for 11 years and then at 500 startups for 4 years. He has…
Yimusanfendi is an old form of art that has roots in the kingdoms of ancient China. It has stood the test of time and continues to amaze people all over the world. Yimusanfendi has changed and adapted over the ages thanks to its mysterious mix of art and identity. It was first created as a way to tell stories and have fun. This one-of-a-kind art form, which is pronounced “Yee-moo-sahn-fen-dee,” shows off the rich cultural history and subtleties that keep people interested in it. Artists and makers from a wide range of backgrounds are welcome to try new things and…
Byju’s, the most valuable edtech startup in the world, changed the amount of money it wants to raise through a rights issue on Monday. The Indian company needs the money to pay its bills. The startup wants to raise $200 million through a rights issue. It says this money is “essential to prevent any further value impairment.” A person familiar with the situation said that the startup is lowering its value to “next to nothing” in the rights issue, and all of its current investors can take part. According to the source, who asked to remain anonymous because they were…
This time, I’ll talk about Brex’s most recent round of cuts, the state of investing in fintech in 2023, and more! Fintech will still be around even though I may be taking a break in the next few weeks. We’ll be right back! The Main Plot Things that go up have to come back down. For the number of employees at spend control startup Brex, this was the case. When interest rates were low, business went up and it was easier to get venture capital money. Before it let people go in October 2022, it had grown to about 1,300…
Many of the owners that Garry Tan coaches are likely inspired by his success in Silicon Valley. Now, his posts on the social platform X are getting a lot of attention again. The president of Y Combinator, an investor, and a past business owner wrote something on Friday night that might have made some people wonder if his X account was hacked. Tan wrote to seven supervisors in San Francisco who are in charge of running the city’s government services: “As a label and motherfucking band, Fuck Chan Peskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronen Safai Chan… Also, if you like Peskin…
At a news meeting on Friday, New York’s governor Kathy Hochul said that Tesla will spend $500 million to build one of its “Dojo” supercomputers at its factory in Buffalo. This came just a few days after Tesla CEO Elon Musk called the project a “long shot.” Hochul’s office says Tesla made its choice based on “New York’s reliable power supply, strong talent pipeline, and availability of usable space for the project.” Dojo is a supercomputer that was first shown off at Tesla’s “AI Day” event in 2021. Its purpose is to help the company reach its still-unachieved goal of…
There are people, like Spotify, who don’t like how Apple has chosen to follow the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). This law allows sideloading apps, different app shops, browser choice, and other things. The streaming music service responded to Apple’s new DMA rules on Friday. They called the new fees developers have to pay “extortion” and Apple’s plan to follow the rules “a complete and total farce,” which shows the tech giant doesn’t think the rules apply to them. In the beginning of the week, Apple revealed a number of changes that are in line with EU law, if not…
Putting hot sauce in your lunch to keep it from getting stolen from the office fridge is like that. It is never morally right to kill someone on purpose. But if someone at work keeps stealing your lunch, wouldn’t you get back at them? It’s hard for artists to keep their work from being used to train AI models without their permission. Opt-out requests and do-not-scrape codes depend on AI companies to act honestly, but companies that care more about making money than protecting privacy can easily ignore these steps. For most artists, sequestering themselves offline isn’t a choice because…
This week, nonconsensual deepfake porn of Taylor Swift went popular on X. Before it was taken down, one post got more than 45 million views, 24,000 reposts, and hundreds of thousands of likes. The pop star has one of the most devoted, online-only, and unimaginably large fan groups in the world. The Swifties are now ready to kill. Mega-fandoms can do amazing things when they get together, like when K-pop fans bought hundreds of tickets to a Donald Trump gathering to try to lower the number of people who showed up. As the 2024 U.S. presidential election draws near, some…
The robots business loves a good argument. Humanoid robots are at the centre of one of the most heated ones right now. The topic of humanoids has been important for a long time, but new startups like 1X and Figure, as well as projects from bigger companies like Tesla, have brought it back to the forefront. People who like the form factor say that since we made the world fit us, it makes sense that we would make robots that fit us too. With our design, you can also grab things more easily, walk up and down stairs, and use…
Apple has announced many changes coming to iOS in the European Union, such as a new fee for developers. The company is getting ready to release its answer to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is the EU’s ex ante competition reform. In September, the EU named Apple as one of six “gatekeepers” that had to follow the DMA. The EU called the iOS App Store and Safari, Apple’s browser, “core platform services.” The law makes gatekeepers follow a set of rules and do certain things. In the case of Apple, this means making it accept sideloading of apps and…
Trixie tongue tricks, which are also called “tongue twisters,” are a common way for speech therapists to help clients improve their speech clarity, pronunciation, and overall tongue control. This is a great way to control and move your tongue, as well as open up many mouth muscles. People can improve their speech flow by getting their tongue, lips, and jaw to work together better through these activities. So, people who have trouble with speech and language can try Trixie tongue tricks to get better at talking and communicating. We will talk about how important tongue twisters are in speech therapy…
The next version will look like a “Apple product,” the CEO says. A little over 180 days have passed since Worldcoin went live to the public. Alex Blania, CEO and co-founder of Tools for Humanity, told TechCrunch that the Orb device, which looks like something from the future, is getting an upgrade. Blania told the crowd at a StrictlyVC event on Wednesday, “The new orb is coming” and the “next iterations will look quite different.” He said that he started working for the business about four years ago, but the Orb had been designed before he started working there. The…
Meta said today that it is putting in place new direct message (DM) rules on both Facebook and Instagram for teens that will stop anyone from messaging teens. Up until now, Instagram didn’t let people over 18 message teens who don’t follow them. By default, the new rules will apply to all users under 16 and, in some places, under 18. Meta said that it would send a warning to current users. Only Facebook friends or people in your contacts list will be able to write you on Messenger. On top of that, Meta is improving its parental controls by…
According to earnings released Wednesday, Tesla’s plan to boost sales by lowering prices, along with the cost of making the Cybertruck and other R&D costs, put pressure on profits in the fourth quarter. The company has continued to grow sales, delivering a record-high 1.8 million EVs in 2023. However, this hasn’t led to the same increase in profits or even income. Tesla has made less money even though it has delivered more cars. This is mostly because it has cut prices to boost sales and the costs of making new products have gone up. Also, Tesla warns in its Q4…
The entertainment scene changes all the time these days, so it can be hard to figure out where to find content that you can watch all at once. People might find it hard to sort through all the content out there and pick the one that suits them best. Welcome to “WSerial,” a secret gem that will quickly become your new favorite thing. We’ll take a close look at WSerial in this post, seeing what it has to give, what makes it different, and how it stacks up against other programs that do similar things. WSERIAL: What is it? Wseriel…
The small town of Avdiivka, which is right on the front lines, has become the center of the war in Ukraine. It is still – just – in Ukrainian control, but Russian troops and guns surround it on three sides. The Russians hit the town so hard that it’s hard to recognize. What used to be the town’s largest buildings are marked by concrete shells that float in small hills of rubble. A bomb hit the town’s church and broke the cross on top of it in half. It now points accusingly at the Russian lines. In the rubble, Russian…
Several news sources say that starting this month, Apple will pay artists more earnings if they have a spatial audio version on Apple Music. A story from 9to5Mac says that the company will pay up to 10% more in royalties if all of an artist’s songs are in spatial audio. People don’t have to play the spatial audio version to get the extra money, though. In a note sent to artists by Music Business Worldwide, the extra money is determined by dividing the version that is available in space by the version that is not available in space. “Pro-rata shares…
God bless you Israeli ground and air attacks on the Gaza Strip force Palestinians to leave Khan Younis. On Monday, January 22, 2024, they arrive in Rafah, which is in the southern part of Gaza. Photo by Fatima Shbair for APTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS AP reports that in Jerusalem, The military said Tuesday that 21 Israeli soldiers were killed in the deadliest single attack on Israeli forces since the Hamas raid that started the war. This is a major loss that could add to the growing calls for a cease-fire. After a few hours, the military said that ground troops had…
Sony called off the merger between its India unit and Zee Entertainment on Monday. The deal, which had been discussed for two years, would have made the combined company a $10 billion media giant in South Asia. Sony said in a statement that it had sent Zee a letter of termination because the Indian company had not met the terms, even after being given an extra 30 days. Sony said it was “extremely disappointed” that the Indian company didn’t do what it was supposed to do to make the deal work. In the second half of 2023, Zee’s shares went…
We all do bad things. But sometimes we forget that technology changes too. This is especially true for AI, which is still very new in many ways. — Anna AI Being Unfair At Work Software for keeping an eye on employees isn’t new. It’s also called “bossware,” and the people who make it say it will help people be more productive. But people who have to deal with it say it’s a surefire way to bring down mood. Read More: The Power of Gpt66x: Everything You Need to Know As someone who used to work from home and was bothered…
The news is that Google has ended its deal with the Australian data services company Appen. The deal gave the Sydney-based business more than a quarter of its gross revenue last year. The amounts: The ASX-listed company told its shareholders on Monday that Google would be ending its contract after a strategy review process. By March 19, all projects would no longer be going forward. This deal brought in US$82.8 million ($126 million) for Appen in FY23, which was 26% of its total revenue. Appen made $273 million in sales and lost $20.4 million in core EBITDA over the course…
In 2023, TikTok may have been the most downloaded and spent-on app in the world, but it wasn’t the most used app. In terms of monthly active users, Facebook stayed on top again last year. Other apps owned by Meta, like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger, came in next, all ahead of TikTok at No. 5. Now, new data shows that TikTok’s growth has slowed down. This makes us wonder if the app’s move into online shopping with TikTok Shop is to blame. New data from market intelligence company Sensor Tower shows that TikTok’s growth is still positive, but it is…
Netflix was the first to decide not to make a specialized app for the Apple Vision Pro, and now YouTube has done the same. People who want to watch YouTube movies will have to use a web browser, just like Netflix subscribers. A YouTube spokesperson told TechCrunch, “We’re excited to see Vision Pro launch, and we’re supporting it by making sure YouTube users have a great experience in Safari.” The company didn’t say why it chose to drop out. Also, YouTube hasn’t said if they will support Vision Pro in the future. People love to share videos on YouTube, so…
You might be interested in what big tech companies know about you. That’s also what hackers working for the Russian government want. Microsoft said on Friday that a hacking group called Midnight Blizzard, which is also known as APT29 or Cozy Bear and is thought to be backed by the Russian government, had hacked into some corporate email accounts. These accounts belonged to the company’s “senior leadership team and employees in our cybersecurity, legal, and other functions.” It’s strange that the hackers didn’t try to get customer data or other common company data that they might have. The company says…
Lowa is suing TikTok because it says the social media company lies to parents about the kinds of material that kids can see. In her lawsuit, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird says that TikTok hosts “sexual content, drugs, alcohol, intense profanity, self-harm messages, and other X-rated content,” which means that kids and teens in the state can easily find videos that aren’t appropriate for their age. The lawsuit says that TikTok tells Iowa parents and kids that inappropriate content on its platform, like drugs, nakedness, drinking, and bad language, is “infrequent.” The lawsuit calls those claims “lies.” The state is…
Vans, Supreme, and The North Face are all popular clothing brands owned by VF Corp. On Thursday, the company said that hackers stole the personal information of 35.5 million customers in a cyberattack in December. In a filing on Thursday, the Denver, Colorado-based company told officials about the data breach. The report didn’t say what kind of personal information was stolen or if the business already knows what was taken. Colin Wheeler, a spokesman for VF Corp., did not answer an email from TechCrunch asking for more details. VF Corp said that for its consumer businesses, it does not keep…
Elon Musk’s own social network X is adding the ability for its Android users to make voice and video calls right from the app. As part of the project, one of the X workers wrote about the new feature and said that Android users would be able to get it after the app is updated. CEO Linda Yaccarino first talked about adding video calls to the app in August 2023. In October, it was made available to iOS users. It’s important to note that anyone can accept calls, but only paid users can make calls. It’s one of many things…
IN WASHINGTON – In a meeting behind closed doors on Wednesday, the call to punish a few of the most conservative lawmakers in the House started up again. Some Republicans were angry that their colleagues were continuing to mess up the lower house and the agenda of GOP leaders. During the open mic time at a weekly Republican meeting, Rep. Max Miller, R-Ohio, called out the House Freedom Caucus by name. The Freedom Caucus is made up of very conservative politicians who have often gotten in the way of spending deals, foreign aid, and other important bills. A lot of…
Google CEO Sundar Pichai told his employees in a memo that more layoffs are likely this year. This comes after the company fired over 1,000 people across different divisions last week and 100 people at YouTube. The Verge said that Pichai’s letter said the company would have to make “tough choices” in order to reach its lofty goals. During last year’s job cuts, the company fired 12,000 people, or 6% of its staff. The CEO said that this year’s cuts will not be as big. “These role cuts aren’t as big as the ones last year, and they won’t affect…
Figure and BMW have made a “commercial agreement” that will bring Figure’s first humanoid robot to a BMW factory in South Carolina. This is the only BMW building in the United States. As of 2019, the 8 million-square-foot site had the highest yield of any factory in the world that made cars for a German company. BMW hasn’t said how many Figure 01 cars it will use at first. We also don’t know for sure what the robot will be doing when it starts working. Figure did confirm with TechCrunch, though, that it will start with five jobs and push…
In a fight over how much he gets paid, Elon Musk said on Monday that he might stop working on some of Tesla’s most important projects. The rich man said on Twitter that he’s “uncomfortable” working at the company on AI and robots projects until he has more money in the company. Musk, who has a 13% stake in the company, said he would “build products outside of Tesla” if his stake doesn’t rise to 25%. “I don’t feel comfortable building Tesla into a leader in AI and robotics without having about 25% of the votes.” “Enough to have an…
Scientists from Japan have successfully filmed plants talking to each other and warning others about possible risks in real time. This is a big step forward in an observation that was first made in the early 1980s. What they saw was: The research team, led by molecular biologist Masatsugu Toyota from Japan’s Saitama University, published their findings in the journal Nature Communications in October 2023. They were able to show that healthy plants can send defence signals to nearby plants by sensing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released by other plants in response to damage or insect attacks. How the study…
Not At All, But… Scientists are more excited than ever about the rumour that the James Webb Space Telescope has found a planet with clear signs of life, according to Ars Technica. Many of the rumours may not be true, but at the very least, they show how useful the space camera could be in the study of alien life. A NASA official told Ars that there has been no “definitive evidence” found yet, but they did say that there was a chance of a big discovery coming up that would need years of follow-up study to confirm. A deputy…
You probably remember the last time you heard a loud boom. When an aeroplane flies faster than sound, it makes a loud bang that sounds like an explosion. It can be scary and even break windows. Sonic booms are one reason why there aren’t any supersonic passenger planes flying right now. They were also one of the things that kept Concorde from being successful after it stopped flying in 2003. The supersonic airliner could only fly at subsonic speeds over land or near coastlines. Today, international rules still say that commercial flights over land can’t go faster than Mach 1,…
It might have been the least shocking win in the history of the lowa caucuses. After months of polls, Donald Trump easily won the first Republican primary for president. The final margin was just as large as the polls had forecast. But the former president was celebrating on Monday night for more than just winning the election. His followers had braved the bitter cold to give him the win. Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, two of Mr. Trump’s top opponents, did not emerge as a clear front-runner, so the vote against Trump is still split. At the same time, Vivek…
It’s New York City. A “Honeymooners” actress who played Ed Norton’s sarcastic wife Trixie has died. She was 99 years old. Her son Randolph Charles told The Associated Press on Sunday that Randolph died of natural causes Saturday night at her home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. She was the only major character left from the beloved comedy from the 1950s, when TV was at its best. Based in part on singer Jackie Gleason’s youth, “The Honeymooners” was a warm look at life in a Brooklyn tenement. Ralph Kramden, the blustery bus driver, was played by Gleason. His witty and…
AP reports that in Jerusalem, Officials say that Houthi rebels in Yemen fired a cruise missile at an American warship in the Red Sea, but it was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet. This was the latest attack on ships around the world that happened while Israel was at war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. After weeks of attacks on ships in the Red Sea, the United States and its allies started attacking the Houthis on Friday. Sunday’s attack was the first fire that the US knows about from them. Because of the war between Israel and Hamas,…