Author: GT

Amazon is continuing its annual tradition of hosting a second Prime event of the year, called Prime Big Deals Day, in October. Following the pattern established in recent years, the company announced the event will take place on October 7-8, with sales starting at 12:01 AM PT on October 7. Amazon is betting that shoppers will embrace various AI tools during the event, such as its shopping assistant Rufus, along with visual search tools like Amazon Lens and Lens Live, which allows customers to point their cameras at any object around them and find it on the Amazon’s website. Additionally,…

ATLANTA (AP) — It seems like a terrible time to build an electric vehicle plant in the United States, but Rivian Automotive leaders say they’re confident as the company starts long-delayed work on a $5 billion facility in Georgia.The money-losing California-based company breaks ground Tuesday east of Atlanta despite President Donald Trump’s successful push to roll back electric vehicle tax credits. Starting Sept. 30, buyers will no longer qualify for savings of up to $7,500 per car.Rivian Chief Policy Officer Alan Hoffman said the company believes it can sell electric vehicles not for environmental or tax incentive reasons, but because…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg tries on Orion AR glasses at the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., September 25, 2024. REUTERS/Manuel OrbegozoManuel Orbegozo | ReutersMeta spent billions of dollars unsuccessfully trying to make virtual reality catch on with consumers. As it shifts its metaverse bet toward smart glasses, investors will be watching to see how the public responds.The social media company is set to unveil its most advanced smart glasses yet on Wednesday at its Connect annual event. The glasses, internally codenamed Hypernova, feature a small display that can be controlled via hand…

PayPal is introducing a new way for people to send money to one another through peer-to-peer (p2p) payments made via personalized, one-time links. The system, called PayPal Links, complements the company’s existing feature called PayPal Me, which will continue to exist as a way to share your profile information and make it easier to get found and paid. The company explains that PayPal Me links are not payment requests tied to a specific amount — at least until the receiver inputs how much they plan to pay. PayPal Me links were only used to get paid. The new PayPal Links,…

General view of the Google headquarters in King’s Cross as the tech giant faces a 5 billion pound lawsuit in the UK for allegedly abusing its online search dominance.Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty ImagesGoogle owner Alphabet on Tuesday announced a £5 billion ($6.8 billion) investment in the U.K.’s artificial intelligence development, just as the country prepares for U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit this week.The U.S. president is scheduled to arrive in Britain on Tuesday evening, before the pomp and pageantry gets underway on Wednesday. His visit is expected to coincide with a flurry of business deals.Google’s two-year investment…

Israel’s Ministry of Defense announced on Monday that it was ordering the seizure of 187 crypto wallets that allegedly belong to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC.  In a document detailing the seizure order, the ministry’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF) said it was “convinced that the cryptocurrency wallets” in the list are property of the IRGC and are “used for the perpetration of a severe terror crime.” The IRGC is sanctioned as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Israel, among other countries.  According to blockchain monitoring firm Elliptic, the named wallets…

Trade tensions between China and the U.S. regarding semiconductors just got even more strained. On Monday, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation ruled that semiconductor giant Nvidia was in violation of the country’s antitrust regulations, as first reported by Bloomberg. The ruling was in reference to Nvidia’s 2020 acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, a computer networking supplier, for $7 billion. An Nvidia spokesperson supplied the following statement: “We comply with the law in all respects. We will continue to cooperate with all relevant government agencies as they evaluate the impact of export controls on competition in the commercial markets.” China didn’t…

OpenAI announced Monday that it’s releasing a new version of GPT-5 to its AI coding agent, Codex. The company says its new model, called GPT-5-Codex, spends its “thinking” time more dynamically than previous models and could spend anywhere from a few seconds to seven hours on a coding task. As a result, it performs better on agentic coding benchmarks. The new model is now rolling out in Codex products — which can be accessed via a terminal, IDE, GitHub, or ChatGPT — to all ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, Edu, and Enterprise users. OpenAI says it plans to make the model…

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian authorities said Tuesday that social media platforms should not demand age verification for all account holders starting from December, when a ban on children under 16 having accounts goes into effect in the country.The government released guidelines on how platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram should apply the world’s first ban on children using social media from Dec. 10. It says verifying the ages of all account holders would be unreasonable.“We think it would be unreasonable if platforms reverified everyone’s age,” said Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who drafted the…

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27–29 in San Francisco, industry leaders will explore how founders can build lasting companies while navigating rapid shifts in AI, markets, and consumer behavior. Catch this dynamic panel on the Going Public Stage, where three seasoned leaders will explore how AI is transforming go-to-market (GTM) strategies from the inside out. Meet the speakers Nirav Tolia, CEO, president, and co-founder of Nextdoor, leads one of the most recognized community platforms in tech. He previously co-founded Epinions.com, served as COO at Shopping.com, and is non-executive chair at Hedosophia. Jane Alexander, partner at CapitalG, brings more…