Author: GT

Last year was monumental for the AI industry in the U.S. and beyond. There were 49 startups that raised funding rounds worth $100 million or more in 2024, per our count at TechCrunch; three companies raised more than one “mega-round,” and seven companies raised rounds that were $1 billion in size or larger. How will 2025 compare? With only a few weeks left in the third quarter, it looks like 2024’s momentum will continue this year. There have already been multiple billion-dollar rounds this year, and a handful of companies have raised more than one mega-round. Here are all the…

Elon Musk’s The Boring Company is finally testing Full Self-Driving (Supervised), the advanced driver assistance system created by Tesla, in the tunnels that connect Las Vegas’ Convention Center to a few nearby hotels, according to Fortune. Steve Hill, the CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, told the outlet that The Boring Company has been doing tests of the software for a few months now in Tesla vehicles with only safety drivers onboard. But any widespread use of the tech is still “a ways off,” Hill said. The Tesla tunnels have been open for around four years, and…

Chipolo, the maker of item tracking devices that compete with AirTags, launched its latest additions to its lineup of rechargeable products on Wednesday, including an updated version of its colorful LOOP tracker and the slim Chipolo CARD. The latter is designed to slip into your wallet and features a textured matte surface in an understated charcoal color, making it easy to blend in with other credit cards. Meanwhile, the LOOP can be attached to everyday items — like your keys, purse, or backpack — and comes in six colors: navy, mint, honey, coral, charcoal, and chalk. Image Credits:Chipolo Unlike AirTags,…

A judge has denied Meta’s request to dismiss a lawsuit brought against it by early employee Kelly Stonelake.  U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein, who is overseeing the case, ruled this month that parts of Stonelake’s suit had merit, and the case will move forward.  “I hope this ruling encourages others who have experienced discrimination and toxic workplace cultures to consider the courts as one way to push for justice and accountability,” Stonelake said in a statement given to TechCrunch. Stonelake, who worked at Meta from 2009 until being laid off in early 2024, filed a lawsuit against Meta in Washington…

OpenAI and Anthropic, two of the world’s leading AI labs, briefly opened up their closely guarded AI models to allow for joint safety testing — a rare cross-lab collaboration at a time of fierce competition. The effort aimed to surface blind spots in each company’s internal evaluations and demonstrate how leading AI companies can work together on safety and alignment work in the future. In an interview with TechCrunch, OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba said this kind of collaboration is increasingly important now that AI is entering a “consequential” stage of development, where AI models are used by millions of people…

A team at Tencent’s Hunyuan lab has created a new AI, ‘Hunyuan Video-Foley,’ that finally brings lifelike audio to generated video. It’s designed to listen to videos and generate a high-quality soundtrack that’s perfectly in sync with the action on screen.Ever watched an AI-generated video and felt like something was missing? The visuals might be stunning, but they often have an eerie silence that breaks the spell. In the film industry, the sound that fills that silence – the rustle of leaves, the clap of thunder, the clink of a glass – is called Foley art, and it’s a painstaking…

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.Gonzalo Fuentes | ReutersNvidia stock briefly turned positive on Thursday during premarket trading after the chipmaker reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue for the fiscal second quarter.Shares of the artificial intelligence chip giant initially slipped following the report.Sales surged 56% in the quarter to $46.74 billion, topping Wall Street’s projected $46.06 billion, according to LSEG. The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.05, which was higher than the $1.01 per share estimated…

ChatGPT rivals like Google’s Gemini, xAI’s Grok, and, to a lesser extent, Meta AI, are closing the gap to ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular AI chatbot, according to a new report focused on the consumer AI landscape from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. The report, in its fifth iteration, showcases two and a half years of data about consumers’ evolving use of AI products. And for the fifth time, 14 companies appeared on the list of top AI products: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Poe, Character AI, Midjourney, Leonardo, Veed, Cutout, ElevenLabs, Photoroom, Gamma, QuillBot, Civitai, and Hugging Face. Image Credits:a16z The companies represent a cross…

ROME (AP) — Italian women, from ordinary workers and housewives to top politicians, are fighting back against a proliferation of websites displaying their photos without their consent, often accompanied by obscene language. Their efforts gained national prominence when activists earlier this summer denounced a Facebook page dubbed “Mia Moglie” (My Wife), where men posted unauthorized photos of their spouses and succeeded in getting it taken down.Now, another more prolific site has emerged that exposes prominent women, including Premier Giorgia Meloni and other female politicians, to obscene and explicit comments. Some posts idealize violence against women.The site, which takes its name…

Agentic AI is being talked about as the next major wave of artificial intelligence, but its meaning for enterprises remains to be settled. Capgemini Research Institute estimates agentic AI could unlock as much as US$450 billion in economic value by 2028. Yet adoption is still limited: only 2% of organisations have scaled its use, and trust in AI agents is already starting to slip.That tension – high potential but low deployment – is what Capgemini’s new research explores. Based on an April 2025 survey of 1,500 executives at large organisations in 14 countries, including Singapore, the report highlights trust and…