Author: GT

The privacy defenders at Proton have deployed an upgrade to their AI assistant, Lumo, that promises faster and more intelligent responses.AI assistants can be incredibly useful for drafting emails, planning a trip, or just satisfying a random curiosity, but there’s always that nagging feeling that every question you ask, every idea you explore, is being logged, analysed, and fed back into a massive corporate machine. You’re constantly trading a bit of your privacy for a bit of convenience.Lumo is now a whole lot smarter. Proton is calling it version 1.1, and the main takeaway is the AI assistant is better…

Battery materials startup Group14 announced Wednesday it has closed a $463 million funding round to expand its manufacturing footprint, a sign that investors remain confident in the future of electric vehicles. The startup manufactures silicon anode materials, which significantly boost the storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries. Group14 currently operates three factories, two in the U.S. and one in South Korea. Despite headlines about softening demand growth for electric vehicles, the global market for lithium-ion batteries remains strong. Over the next decade, it’s expected to grow more than 15% annually, quintupling in size, according to Precedence Research. And automakers and investors…

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — A major cybercrime crackdown coordinated by Interpol has led to the arrest of 1,209 suspects across Africa and the recovery of nearly $97.4 million, the organization announced Friday.Dubbed Operation Serengeti 2.0, the operation took place between June and August. It brought together investigators from 18 African countries and the United Kingdom to fight harmful cybercrimes including inheritance scams, ransomware and business email compromise. Altogether, the scams targeted nearly 88,000 victims, the international police organization said in a statement. From cryptocurrency mining to online scams Interpol said that authorities in Angola dismantled 25 cryptocurrency mining centers where…

The next era of the space economy isn’t just about rockets and satellites — it’s about infrastructure, autonomy, and entirely new models for building and defending off-Earth assets. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 this October 27–29 in San Francisco’s Moscone West, the Space Stage is where this shift gets real. If you’re ready to explore how next-gen tech meets the cosmos, grab your ticket before prices rise on September 1 and save your seat at the Space Stage. Building the new backbone of space In this forward-looking panel, Even Rogers, co-founder and CEO of True Anomaly, and Max Haot, serial entrepreneur…

BANGKOK (AP) — China released new interim measures Friday tightening controls on mining and processing of rare earths that are used in many high-tech products including electric vehicles, smartphones and fighter jets. The rules released Friday by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology apply both to rare earths originating in China and those that are sent to China for refining. They require companies to comply with quotas for various minerals. Companies must have government approval to deal with rare earths and must accurately report the amount of rare earths products being handled. Violators will face legal penalties and also…

Nvidia is among a group of new investors to back Nuro — which develops self-driving software for delivery and ride-hailing services — in a funding round that has reached $203 million. The Silicon Valley startup announced Thursday that several investors, including existing backer Baillie Gifford, added another $97 million to its Series E round. New investors include Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Nvidia, and Pledge Ventures. Uber, which last month said it would make a “multi-hundred-million dollar” investment in Nuro as part of a broader deal with the electric car maker Lucid, also participated.  Nvidia’s investment follows years of technical collaboration…

Earlier this year, two hackers broke into a computer and soon realized the significance of what this machine was. As it turned out, they had landed on the computer of a hacker who allegedly works for the North Korean government.  The two hackers decided to keep digging and found evidence that they say linked the hacker to cyberespionage operations carried out by North Korea, exploits and hacking tools, and infrastructure used in those operations.  Saber, one of the hackers involved, told TechCrunch that they had access to the North Korean government worker’s computer for around four months, but as soon…

Meta has frozen hiring in its AI organization after restructuring the unit earlier this week, reports The Wall Street Journal. The hiring freeze follows weeks of poaching more than 50 AI researchers and engineers from competitors.   The freeze went into effect last week, and it’s not clear how long it will last. Meta is still likely working through its reorg, which split its AI unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs, into four new groups: TBD Labs, run by former Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang, and three groups focused on research, product integration, and infrastructure, respectively.  Meta confirmed the hiring freeze with The…

Google is launching a global expansion of AI Mode, its feature that allows users to ask complex questions and follow-ups to dig deeper on a topic directly within Search, the company announced on Thursday. The tech giant is also bringing new agentic and personalized capabilities to the feature. As part of the expansion, Google is bringing AI Mode to 180 new countries in English. Up until now, it’s only been available to users in the U.S., U.K., and India. Google plans to bring the feature to more languages and regions soon. In terms of the new agentic features, users can…

BANGKOK (AP) — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said Friday that the company is discussing a potential new computer chip designed for China with the Trump administration. Huang was asked about a possible “B30A” semiconductor for artificial intelligence data centers for China while on a visit to Taiwan, where he was meeting Nvidia’s key manufacturing partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., the world’s largest chip maker. “I’m offering a new product to China for … AI data centers, the follow-on to H20,” Huang said. But he added that “That’s not our decision to make. It’s up to, of course, the United States…