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TechCrunch Industry News

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Episodes

Co-founder of Elon Musk’s xAI departs the company plus a worthy music experience in a Waymo

Igor Babuschkin is leaving xAI less than three years after he co-founded the startup with Elon Musk, following a series of scandals at company. Also, riding in the back of a Waymo that’s autonomously navigating the busy streets of San Francisco and doing so with relative ease thanks to 29 external cameras, six radar, and five lidar sensors all feeding into an AI model is nice. For just 15 bucks, you get to experience what feels like a miracle of modern technology, and yet, there’s a nagging thou...

Aug 15, 20257 min

Elon Musk confirms shutdown of Tesla Dojo, ‘an evolutionary dead end’  ... and more tech news

“Once it became clear that all paths converged to AI6, I had to shut down Dojo and make some tough personnel choices, as Dojo 2 was now an evolutionary dead end,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, on Sunday. In other news, Nvidia, AMD may sell high-end AI chips to China if they pay US a cut. The global AI chip race narrative used to be about U.S. national security, but apparently now it's about tariffs: Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the U.S. government 15% of the revenue t...

Aug 12, 20257 min

Trump administration stops illegal freeze of $5B EV charger funds after losing in court and more news

The Trump administration has finally issued new guidance that states can use to dole out $5 billion in funding for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, after spending months withholding the money. Also, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday it has seized the servers and $1 million in bitcoin from the prolific Russian ransomware gang behind the BlackSuit and Royal malware. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...

Aug 12, 20255 min

Researchers unmasked a prolific SMS scammer and then a new one emerged in its wake and Sam Altman addresses ‘bumpy’ GPT-5 rollout

If you, like practically anyone else with a cell phone in the U.S. and beyond, have received a scam text message about an unpaid toll or undelivered mail item , there’s a good chance you have been targeted by a prolific scamming operation. But a series of opsec mistakes ultimately led security researchers and investigative journalists to the real-world identity of the maker of the scamming software, Magic Cat, who researchers say goes by the handle Darcula. In other news, During a Reddit ask-me-...

Aug 11, 20259 min

Hubble Network plans a massive satellite upgrade to create global Bluetooth layer ... and more tech news

Hubble Network's satellite-enabled Bluetooth network is getting a boost from Muon's new XL satellite bus. Also, Truth Social’s AI search is powered by Perplexity, but the platform can set limits on sources. The search engine, dubbed Truth Search AI, is already available on the web version of Truth Social, with public Beta testing on the iOS and Android apps planned for “the near future.” And Upwork is buying its way into corporate staffing beyond freelancers. The company will merge Bubty and Asc...

Aug 08, 202510 min

OpenAI launches two ‘open’ AI reasoning models

For the first time in more than five years, OpenAI is launching a new open language model that appears to be state-of-the-art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 07, 20257 min

Joby Aviation to buy Blade Air Mobility’s ride-share business, also Mastercard denies pressuring game platforms

Joby is buying the Blade brand and the company's passenger business, which includes operations in the United States and Europe, for as much as $125 million. In other news, Mastercard seemingly denied playing a role in a recent marketplace crackdown on games with adult content, while Valve says the pressure was indirect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 06, 20255 min

North Korean spies posing as remote workers have infiltrated hundreds of companies

North Korean IT workers are increasingly using generative AI to draft resumes and "deepfake" their appearances to make money for North Korea's sanctioned nuclear weapons program. Also, Apple is reportedly working to create a lightweight competitor to ChatGPT. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 06, 20254 min

DeepMind revealed Genie 3 and SonicWall urges customers to disable SSLVPN

Google DeepMind has revealed Genie 3, its latest foundation world model that the AI lab says presents a crucial stepping stone on the path to artificial general intelligence, or human-like intelligence. Also, enterprise security company SonicWall is urging its customers to disable a core feature of its most recent line-up of firewall devices after security researchers reported an uptick in ransomware incidents targeting SonicWall customers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices....

Aug 05, 20258 min

Spotify hints at a more chatty voice AI interface in the future, plus YouTube age estimation tech and TikTok parental controls

Spotify says AI will allow for "much more interactive" consumer experiences in its app. Also, YouTube is introducing age detection technology to identify teens on the platform in the U.S. and apply protections, and TikTok is bringing new parental controls to Family Pairing, its feature that allows parents to link their accounts with their teen's account to customize safety settings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...

Aug 01, 202510 min

U.K. starts enforcing online age check rules, DOGE has built an AI tool to slash federal regulations, and Itch.io cracks down on adult games

A U.K. law requiring that pornography websites verify the age of their users took last week. Also, the Department of Government Efficiency has presented plans to use a new AI tool to eliminate half of the federal government’s regulatory mandates by the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s return to office, according to The Washington Post; and Indie video game marketplace Itch.io announced this week that it has "deindexed" adult and not-safe-for-work games, removing them from its browse...

Jul 30, 20257 min

Amid increased momentum for defense, the NATO Innovation Fund refreshes its investment team, and Google is testing a vibe-coding app called Opal

The NATO Innovation Fund is entering a new chapter, marked by the arrival of two new partners and the departure of its penultimate founding team partner. Also, Google is testing a new vibe-coding tool called Opal, available in the U.S. through Google Labs, that lets users quickly spin up web apps with just a few prompts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 29, 20258 min

Tesla is behind on its pledge to build 5,000 Optimus bots this year, Apple broadens App Store’s age rating system, and Meta will stop selling political ads in the EU

Tesla is behind on its goal to produce at least 5,000 Optimus humanoid robots by the end of 2025. Also, Apple has expanded its age rating system to include 13+, 16+, and 18+ ratings, in addition to the existing ratings for younger users; and in response to the European Union's incoming regulation of political advertising, Meta said on Friday that it would stop selling and showing political ads in the EU from October 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices...

Jul 28, 20256 min

A new AI coding challenge just published its first results – and they aren’t pretty

A new AI coding challenge has revealed its first winner — and set a new bar for AI-powered software engineers. On Wednesday at 5pm PST, the nonprofit Laude Institute announced the first winner of the K Prize, a multi-round AI coding challenge launched by Databricks and Perplexity co-founder Andy Konwinski. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 28, 20254 min

Trump’s ‘anti-woke AI’ order could reshape how US tech companies train their models

When DeepSeek, Alibaba, and other Chinese firms released their AI models, Western researchers quickly noticed they sidestepped questions critical of the Chinese Communist Party. U.S. officials later confirmed that these tools are engineered to reflect Beijing’s talking points, raising concerns about censorship and bias. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 25, 202510 min
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