Author: GT

Every seat in Copenhagen’s Bella Center was full as Anton Osika, the co-founder of the vibe coding app Lovable, took the stage at this year’s TechBBQ conference. Lovable specializes in helping people build apps and websites, especially people with no coding experience. It’s one of the standouts in the popular AI category known as vibe-coding, which lets users guide AI models as they produce code, websites, or whole applications. It’s been an attractive proposition for users: In just eight months, the Swedish company said it surpassed $100 million in ARR and raised a $200 million Series A at a $1.8…

Signage at the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. headquarters in Hangzhou, China, on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAlibaba’s Hong Kong listed shares surged more than 19% on Monday as the Chinese tech giant’s cloud computing unit drove strong quarterly results, while details emerged over its new AI chip development.It’s the highest level for the stock since March. Investors have backed the company’s improving performance in its key cloud unit and are content with the the tech giant’s investment into new areas — particularly in the so-called “instant commerce,” which has become incredibly competitive in China.The…

A homicide investigation has rocked the final days of Burning Man after a man was found dead “lying in a pool of blood” Saturday night at the Nevada desert festival, according to the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office. According to the New York Times, the grim discovery occurred around 9:14 p.m. just as the festival’s iconic wooden “Man” effigy began its traditional burn. The victim, described as a white adult male whose identity remains unknown, was found by a festival participant who flagged down a deputy. Sheriff Jerry Allen confirmed that deputies, Bureau of Land Management rangers, and local rangers immediately…

KIRUNA, Sweden (AP) — Deep in the Swedish forest, where reindeer roam and scientists ski in winter, lies one of Europe’s hopes for a spaceport that can ultimately compete with the United States, China and Russia.For decades, Europe has relied upon the U.S. for its security among the stars. But the Trump administration’s “America First” policies, plus a commercial market that’s growing exponentially, has prompted Europeans to rethink their approach.The state-owned Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden, is among the sites building out orbital rocket programs to allow Europe to advance in the global space race and launch satellites from…

Veteran indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch premiered his new movie “Father Mother Sister Brother” today at the Venice Film Festival, where journalists asked him about Mubi, the streaming platform that co-produced the film — specifically, about Mubi’s recent $100 million funding round led by Sequoia Capital. “I was disappointed and disconcerted by this relationship,” Jarmusch said, while noting that his own “relationship with Mubi started much before that, and they were fantastic to work with on this film.” Numerous filmmakers — including those with ties to Mubi — signed an open letter criticizing the streamer for accepting money from Sequoia and…

The United Kingdom recently started enforcing the Online Safety Act’s age-check rules, and The Washington Post reports that it’s already having a significant effect on web traffic. U.K. law now requires pornography websites to verify their users’ ages through means such as face scans and driver’s licenses; it also requires that online platforms prevent children from being exposed to adult content (which is why sites like Bluesky and Reddit have begun checking some users’ ages). To study the law’s effect, the Post says it examined the top 90 porn sites based on U.K. visitor data from Similarweb, finding 14 sites…

Andrew Ferguson, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Trade Commission, recently expressed concern that “Alphabet’s administration of Gmail is designed to have partisan effects.” In a letter addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Ferguson pointed to a recent story in the New York Post describing complaints by Targeted Victory (a consulting and PR firm that’s worked with the Republican National Committee and Elon Musk’s X) claiming that Gmail flags emails linking to the Republican fundraising platform WinRed as spam, without doing the same to emails linking to the Democratic platform ActBlue. “My understanding from recent reporting is that Gmail’s spam…

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. To get this in your inbox, sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Wow, y’all aren’t exactly bullish on EV sales in the U.S. once the federal tax credit expires. For those wondering what I am referring to: I included a poll in the last edition of TechCrunch Mobility. Yup, only email subscribers get to participate in polls. The question was: “What’s your prediction for EV sales over the next two quarters after the EV tax credit expires?” And about 60%…

LONDON (AP) — When pop groups and rock bands practice or perform, they rely on their guitars, keyboards and drumsticks to make music. Oliver McCann, a British AI music creator who goes by the stage name imoliver, fires up his chatbot. McCann’s songs span a range of genres, from indie-pop to electro-soul to country-rap. There’s just one crucial difference between McCann and traditional musicians.“I have no musical talent at all,” he said. “I can’t sing, I can’t play instruments, and I have no musical background at all.” McCann, 37, who has a background as a visual designer, started experimenting with…

For millennia humans have tried to scare wolves away from their livestock. Most of them didn’t have drones.But a team of biologists working near the California-Oregon border do, and they’re using them to blast AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” movie clips and live human voices at the apex predators to shoo them away from cattle in an ongoing experiment.“I am not putting up with this anymore!” actor Scarlett Johansson yells in one clip, from the 2019 film “ Marriage Story.” “With what? I can’t talk to people?” co-star Adam Driver shouts back.Gray wolves were hunted nearly to extinction throughout the U.S. West by…