Author: GT

An oil tanker delivers at the oil terminal in the harbor on Oct. 10, 2016, in Kochi, India.Kaveh Kazemi | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesSaudi Arabia’s new mutual defense pact with Pakistan is unlikely to alter Riyadh’s energy relationship with key consumer India, a source told CNBC.Asked whether India would continue to buy Saudi barrels, a senior source familiar with the matter told CNBC, “Of course.”The source, who could only speak anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter, added that Saudi Arabia is looking to shore up its security by broadening its alliances, but not at the expense…

After deflecting the U.S. Justice Department’s attack on its illegal monopoly in online search, Google is facing another attempt to dismantle its internet empire in a trial focused on its abusive tactics in digital advertising.The trial scheduled to begin Monday in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court will revolve around the harmful conduct that resulted in U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema declaring parts of Google’s digital advertising technology to be an illegal monopoly. The judge found that Google has been engaging in behavior that stifles competition to the detriment of online publishers that depend on the system for revenue.Google and the…

U.K.-based fintech Tide has entered the unicorn club with a fresh funding of $120 million led by TPG, as the startup now serves over 1.6 million micro and small enterprises globally — with more than half of them based in India, the company’s largest and fastest-growing market. The new round — a mix of primary and secondary investment, though the startup declined to confirm the exact split — values the eight-year-old startup at $1.5 billion. It includes share sales by employees, early angels, and a few minority investors. TPG backed the round through its multi-sector impact vehicle, The Rise Fund,…

DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — On a battlefield swarming with deadly Russian drones, Ukrainian soldiers are increasingly turning to nimble, remote-controlled armored vehicles that can perform an array of tasks and spare troops from potentially life-threatening missions.The Ukrainian army is especially eager to deploy what soldiers refer to as “robots on wheels” as it faces a shortage of soldiers in a war that has dragged on for more than 3 ½ years. The vehicles look like miniature tanks and can ferry supplies, clear mines and evacuate the wounded or dead.“It cannot fully replace people,” said the commander of a platoon…

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — With a pristine white exterior, the Greece tax authority’s new headquarters looks out of place on a clogged industrial artery outside Athens. A former shopping mall and ice rink, the building has been overhauled into an ultramodern digital center that has led the rescue of the nation’s ailing finance and tax sector.It is teeming with inspectors who chase down tax cheats with the help of drones, big data and live surveillance feeds from as far as Greece’s island ports and remote farming villages. Analysts at the Independent Authority for Public Revenue monitor millions of transactions in…

The MBA-to-VC pipeline remains a very real thing. But that path is a little shakier than it once was, according to PitchBook reporting and new academic research. Harvard placed 50 of its 1,004 MBA graduates into VC roles in 2024, with a median starting salary of $177,500. Stanford placed around 30 from its smaller class. More than 10,000 Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton MBA alumni currently hold senior positions at U.S. VC firms, PitchBook data shows. The MBA’s grip on venture capital is loosening, however, according to Stanford professor Ilya Strebulaev, who found that 44% of mid-career venture professionals held MBAs…

For years, Big Tech CEOs have touted visions of AI agents that can autonomously use software applications to complete tasks for people. But take today’s consumer AI agents out for a spin, whether it’s OpenAI’s ChatGPT Agent or Perplexity’s Comet, and you’ll quickly realize how limited the technology still is. Making AI agents more robust may take a new set of techniques that the industry is still discovering. One of those techniques is carefully simulating workspaces where agents can be trained on multi-step tasks — known as reinforcement learning (RL) environments. Similarly to how labeled datasets powered the last wave…

The Trump administration has been talking up a potential TikTok deal this weekend, with President Donald Trump telling Fox News on Sunday that Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan are “probably” going to be involved. “A man named Lachlan is involved,” Trump said. “Lachlan Murdoch … Rupert [Murdoch] is probably gonna be in the group, I think they’re going to be in the group.” The president also said that Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell are likely to be involved. While Trump did not specify whether he was talking about personal or company investments, following…

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for all things “future of transportation.” To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Seven or eight years ago, anyone consuming business tech news might have come across the phrase “the race to build autonomous vehicles.” In private conversations, company execs and startup founders I spoke to sometimes referred to the commercialization of autonomous vehicle technology as “a race.” The phrase seeped into reporting at the time — including some of my articles.  What we’ve learned is that this is not a race so much…

Travelers at major European airports including Heathrow, Brussels, and Berlin faced significant delays this weekend following what Collins Aerospace described as a “cyber-related incident.” Collins Aerospace makes technology for airline check-in desks, so after the apparent cyberattack, airlines were forced to revert to manual check-ins, according to the Guardian. According to data from Flightradar24, more than 130 Heathrow flights had been delayed by 20 minutes or more as of 11am on Sunday morning, with 13 flights canceled on Saturday. A post on the Heathrow social media account said, “Work continues to resolve and recover from Friday’s outage of a Collins…