Author: GT

Charlie Kirk’s mastery of social media was key to his rise as an influence in conservative politics. So the extent to which his death and its aftermath have played out on those forums shouldn’t come as a surprise.In a microcosm of life today, social media is where Americans have gone to process last week’s killing in Utah and is the chief tool his supporters are using to police those they feel aren’t offering proper respect. Investigators are probing the time the man accused of killing Kirk, Tyler Robinson, spent in the “dark corners of the internet” — anti-social media, if…

Gold should be a winner if the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates tomorrow as the market expects, according to Bank of America. The Fed is poised to lower the cost of money even though inflation stayed stubbornly high at an annual rate of 2.9% in August. In the past quarter century, gold has never declined in price when the central bank eases monetary policy at the same time as inflation remains above the central bank’s 2% target, according to Bank of America’s commodity analysts. “In fact, even if we disregard the Global Financial Crisis , gold has returned around 13%…

A Youtube podcast microphone is seen at the Variety Podcasting Brunch Presented By YouTube at Austin Proper Hotel in Austin, Texas, on March 8, 2025.Mat Hayward | Variety | Getty ImagesYouTube said on Tuesday it has paid out over $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies since 2021.The surge has been fueled in part by growing viewership on connected TVs. The number of channels making more than $100,000 from TV screens jumped 45% year over year, the company said.YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich praised the power of creators to “shape culture and entertainment in ways we never thought…

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into claims that Tesla’s door handles become inoperable in certain situations on Model Y SUVs. The safety agency’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) revealed the probe on Tuesday, after having received nine reports from owners who were unable to get into their cars. ODI writes that the most common scenario involves parents who exit their car and cannot open the rear doors to remove their children. In four of those cases, according to the ODI report, owners had to break a window “to regain entry into the vehicle.” News of…

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman walks on the day of a meeting of the White House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Education in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 4, 2025. Brian Snyder | ReutersOpenAI on Tuesday announced it will launch a dedicated ChatGPT experience with parental controls for users under 18 years old as the artificial intelligence company works to enhance safety protections for teenagers.When OpenAI identifies that a user is a minor, they will automatically be directed to an age-appropriate ChatGPT experience that blocks graphic and sexual content and can involve law…

Video generation and editing platform D-ID said Tuesday that it has acquired Berlin-based B2B video creation platform Simpleshow. The companies didn’t disclose financial terms of the deal. Simpleshow’s product will operate under D-ID’s umbrella, and eventually the two platforms will merge, D-ID chief executive Gil Perry told TechCrunch. Simpleshow, founded in 2008, has raised over $20 million in funding, according to Crunchbase data. The startup has offices in Berlin, Luxembourg, London, Miami, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. As part of the merger, the company will have consolidated offices in Berlin, Tel Aviv, and the United States. D-ID didn’t mention Simpleshow’s…

The parents of teenagers who killed themselves after interactions with artificial intelligence chatbots are planning to testify to Congress on Tuesday about the dangers of the technology.Matthew Raine, the father of 16-year-old Adam Raine of California, and Megan Garcia, the mother of 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III of Florida, are set to speak to a Senate hearing on the harms posed by AI chatbots.Raine’s family sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman last month alleging that ChatGPT coached the boy in planning to take his own life in April. Garcia sued another AI company, Character Technologies, for wrongful death last year,…

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that President Donald Trump was willing to let TikTok go dark, and it was “what turned the tide” in the deal framework with China.”President Trump made it clear that he would have been willing to let Tiktok go dark, that we were not going to give up national security in favor of the deal,” Bessent told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”TikTok parent company ByteDance is still looking at a Sept. 17 deadline to divest the app’s U.S. operations or potentially be shut down in the country.The Trump administration hasn’t yet formally extended the deadline, though U.S.…

The upcoming commercial agreement for the social media platform TikTok will include new investors as well as existing investors in the platform’s Chinese parent company ByteDance, sources told CNBC’s David Faber.”Where this thing is capitalized and how large it is remains to be seen,” Faber said during CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Tuesday. “‘I’m hearing it’s actually going to be relatively small in terms of the actual size of the checks that are written for the entity itself, and it will not be something that is going to go public at some point.”The deal is expected to close in…

Smartphone startup Nothing announced today that it closed its Series C round of $200 million, which was led by the investment firm Tiger Global. With this round, the consumer electronics company is now valued at $1.3 billion. Other investors in the round included existing backers such as venture outfits GV, Highland Europe, EQT, Latitude, I2BF, and Tapestry. The company, founded by Carl Pei — who previously co-founded Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus, known for high-performance devices at competitive prices — also received new strategic backing from Nikhil Kamath and Qualcomm Ventures. The new funding takes Nothing’s total funding to over $450…