Author: GT

Privacy-focused productivity tool company Proton released a new authenticator app today, allowing users to log in to services using dynamically generated two-factor authentication codes. The free app is available on all platforms starting today, including iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux. The app allows users to sync codes and accounts across devices. The company said that just like its other products, Proton Authenticator is open source and uses end-to-end encryption to protect user data. Users can easily import login codes from other authentication apps, the company said. Plus, the app automatically backs up codes and also works without any internet…

Uber Eats announced on Wednesday that it will now allow restaurants and merchants to chat with customers to help prevent issues with orders. The app is also introducing new AI tools for merchants, and is inviting users to submit photos of their orders if the item doesn’t yet have a menu image. With the new “Live order chat” feature, merchants can message customers in real time to do things like confirm replacements for sold-out items, clarify special requests, and check on dietary or allergy preferences. Uber states that users can’t initiate chats with merchants, as customers can only message merchants…

Google is testing a machine learning-powered tech in the U.S. to determine the age of users and filter content across all its products accordingly. The company said it will consider data from Google accounts, including types of details users have searched for or categories of videos they have watched on YouTube, to determine the age. If the company’s tool decides that a user is under 18, they would get an email with details about how Google products might change for them. For these users, Google will disable the timeline in Maps, stop personalized ads, restrict age-restricted ad categories, and bar…

Autonomous vehicles have long been touted as “just around the corner,” but the reality of what it takes to bring self-driving cars to the streets is anything but simple. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, happening October 27–29 at Moscone West in San Francisco, Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana joins the Disrupt Stage for a wide-ranging conversation on the current state of AVs — and where the industry goes from here. Inside the self-driving reality check While the headlines often focus on crashes, controversies, or overblown promises, Tekedra has spent years navigating the real-world path to autonomous mobility. At Disrupt, she’ll dig into…

Ford is set to reveal more information about its upcoming low-cost electric vehicles at an event in Kentucky on August 11. And the company is talking a very big game: CEO Jim Farley said Wednesday that the announcement is “a Model T moment” for Ford. Farley made the comments after Ford revealed its electric vehicle division posted a loss of around $1.3 billion in the second quarter of 2025. Sales of the company’s top two EVs, the F-150 Lightning and the Mustang Mach-E, are declining, all while things are looking increasingly tough for electric vehicles under the second Trump administration.…

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, happening October 27-29 at Moscone West in San Francisco, a candid conversation is coming to the Builder Stage — one that unpacks what startup funding looks like beyond the venture capital echo chamber. Funding routes that don’t start in the Valley Founders today have more capital paths than ever. But how do you navigate them — and know which one actually supports your growth? In this session, hear from Erik Allebest, the CEO and co-founder of Chess.com; Gale Wilkinson, the founder and managing partner at VITALIZE; and Kay Makishi, vice president at Lupoff/Stevens Family Office. Each…

The tech layoff wave is still kicking in 2025. Last year saw more than 150,000 job cuts across 549 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. So far this year, more than 22,000 workers have been the victim of reductions across the tech industry, with a staggering 16,084 cuts taking place in February alone. We’re tracking layoffs in the tech industry in 2025 so you can see the trajectory of the cutbacks and understand the impact on innovation across all types of companies. As businesses continue to embrace AI and automation, this tracker serves as a reminder of the human…

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big year for OpenAI, from its partnership with Apple for its generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, the release of GPT-4o with voice capabilities, and the highly-anticipated launch of its text-to-video model Sora. OpenAI also faced its share of internal drama, including the notable exits of high-level execs like co-founder and longtime chief…

OpenAI said Thursday that it plans to launch Stargate Norway, its first AI data center in Europe, in partnership with British AI cloud infrastructure provider Nscale and Norwegian energy infrastructure firm Aker. Nscale will design and build the site, and it will be a 50/50 joint venture between the two companies. OpenAI will be an “off-taker” in the project, buying capacity from the data center.  The announcement comes as Europe races to achieve AI sovereignty and invest in data centers and compute power. Earlier this week, the bloc unveiled details of its multibillion-dollar investment into AI infrastructure, including €10 billion…

As TikTok’s future in the U.S. remains uncertain, the company is merging its Core Product and Trust & Safety teams into a single organization, according to an internal memo sent to staff by TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and viewed by TechCrunch and confirmed by TikTok. “This new team will allow us to better leverage our technical capabilities across both business and safety objectives, and will help us move faster as we develop the next generation of safety technology,” Chew wrote in the memo. As part of the changes, the memo said that TikTok’s head of Operations and Trust &…