Author: GT

This week, the Department of Energy canceled nearly $8 billion worth of awards — a move touted by the Trump administration as an effort to protect fossil fuels at the expense of renewables. But documents obtained by TechCrunch show that the reality is more complex than that simple message. The agency has not released a list of the canceled awards, but TechCrunch has obtained a copy and has analyzed the 321 contracts that the DOE is seeking to undo. Not all projects focused on renewable energy, though.  Two listed in the document, one for $300 million to Colorado State University…

OpenAI’s Sora app for AI videos is a viral hit, despite being invite-only for now and limited to users in the U.S. and Canada at launch. On its first day, Sora saw 56,000 downloads, and is now ranked as the No. 3 Top Overall app on Apple’s U.S. App Store, according to new data from app intelligence provider Appfigures. On Friday, October 3, it became the No. 1 app on the U.S. App Store. That puts it ahead of Google Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The firm estimates Sora’s iOS app pulled in a total of 164,000 installs during its first…

It’s been a whirlwind year for the vibe-coding world’s database of choice: Supabase. On Friday, Supabase announced that it raised a fresh $100 million Series E at a $5 billion valuation, led by Accel and Peak XV. This is just four months after closing its $200 million Series D at a $2 billion valuation, led by Accel. And that Series D was just seven months after raising an $80 million Series C led by Sequoia spinoff Peak XV and David Sacks’ Craft Ventures at an undisclosed valuation. PitchBook estimated Supabase was valued at around $765 million in that deal, post-money.…

Welcome to YC Arena, which is not a top secret fight club for Y Combinator founders but rather a suite of games that give you a vague sense of what it’s like to be a partner at YC. Created by a student in Berlin, YC Arena’s YC Partner Simulator game shows you a publicly available pitch video from a company that applied to YC, along with the year of their application. You click “accept” or “reject,” and then find out if you made the same choice as YC. Image Credits:YCArena It’s a lot harder than it looks. YC is estimated…

Rivian is changing the door handle design on its upcoming R2 SUV after employees and customers raised safety concerns, according to Bloomberg News. The automaker is one of many that has leaned into electronically latched door handles over the last few years. While this allows for sleeker presentation and more aerodynamic design, it often results in the automaker tucking the manual emergency door releases away in hard-to-find places. On the R2, which comes out next year, Rivian will now put the interior manual releases in a “more clearly visible” location closer to the electrically powered door handles, Bloomberg reports. The…

After the success of OpenAI’s video editing app Sora, now at the top of the U.S. App Store, Google may be looking to give its Gemini AI app a more visually focused revamp. The company is seemingly experimenting with a new user interface that would shift the app from having a chatbot-style look and feel to one offering a scrollable feed with suggested prompts accompanied by eye-catching photos. The changes were spotted in a recent version of the Gemini Android app by the news site Android Authority but are not yet live to the public. Instead, by looking into the…

Nearly a decade after becoming a digital time capsule for your life’s moments, Snapchat is set to put a price on its Memories feature. The company announced last week that it’s capping free Memories storage at 5GB. If your Memories exceed the limit, you will need to either export them or sign up for one of Snapchat’s new Memories Storage plans in order to preserve them. The company told TechCrunch in an email that the introductory storage plan offers up to 100GB of storage for $1.99 per month. Snapchat+ users will get up to 250GB of storage as part of…

OpenAI is gearing up to host its third annual developer conference, DevDay 2025, on Monday. The company says more than 1,500 people are scheduled to convene at Fort Mason in San Francisco for OpenAI’s “biggest event yet,” which features announcements, keynotes from OpenAI executives, and a fireside chat between CEO Sam Altman and longtime Apple designer Jony Ive. From the sound of it, DevDay 2025 is shaping up to be a grand display of OpenAI’s rising dominance in Silicon Valley against giants like Apple, Google, and Meta. OpenAI is currently building an AI device, a social media app, and an…

Naveen Rao, who was formerly the head of artificial intelligence at Databricks, is in talks to raise $1 billion at a $5 billion valuation for a new startup, called Unconventional, Inc., that’s building a new type of computer, according to four people familiar with discussions.  Andreessen Horowitz has agreed to lead the investment, and Lightspeed and Lux Capital are also participating in the deal, two of the sources said, although none of those VC firms responded to our request for comment. Databricks is also said to be investing in Rao’s new company, Bloomberg reported last month.  Rao has already raised…

An employee arranges a salad dressing display at an Amazon Fresh grocery store on December 12, 2024 in Federal Way, Washington.David Ryder | Getty ImagesAmazon is closing four more Fresh supermarkets in Southern California as the e-commerce giant continues to focus its grocery strategy around Whole Foods and delivery. The closures will take place in the coming weeks, Amazon confirmed to CNBC. They follow the shuttering of four other U.S. locations in recent months, in Washington, Virginia, New York and a Los Angeles suburb. “Certain locations work better than others, and after an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close…