Author: GT

Commercial banks have bought into a major $150 million financing deal for off-grid solar power in Kenya, in a sign of growing investor confidence in the electrification of sub-Saharan Africa. Sun King, an off-grid solar energy company, raised the Kenyan-shilling equivalent of $156 million by bundling future payments from its solar-power customers into an asset-backed security that was bought by investors. The deal, arranged by Citi , is one of the largest of its kind and the first to be led by commercial banks. The transaction is expected to enable the sale of about 1.4 million solar home systems to…

The massive Las Vegas venue known as Sphere will be screening its first classic movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” starting on August 28. And as detailed in a segment on CBS Sunday Morning, this isn’t just a matter of taking the existing movie and projecting it on Sphere’s 160,000 square foot, wraparound LED screen. Instead, Sphere Entertainment CEO James Dolan said a 2,000-person team is creating a new experience. That includes using AI to both increase the resolution of the existing film and expand the footage beyond the frame of what was actually shot. For example, Turner Classic Movie presenter…

Indie video game marketplace Itch.io announced this week that it has “deindexed” adult and not-safe-for-work games, removing them from its browse and search pages. The move, the company said, was in response to a campaign by Collective Shout (an advocacy group that has previously criticized video games, rap music, and lingerie commercials) targeting both Itch.io and Steam for selling “No Mercy,” a game that depicts rape and incest. In an open letter addressed to executives at PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, and other payment processors, Collective Shout said that games “endorsing men’s sexualised abuse and torture of women and girls fly in…

The Department of Government Efficiency hopes to use a new AI tool to eliminate half of the federal government’s regulatory mandates, according to The Washington Post. Citing a PowerPoint presentation dated July 1, The Post reports that the DOGE AI Deregulation Decision Tool is supposed to analyze around 200,000 federal regulations and identify the ones that are no longer required by law, with the goal of eliminating half those regulations by the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s return to office. It seems this work is already underway, with the presentation declaring the tool has already been used to review…

After spending the past week-plus in the headlines due to a seemingly inescapable social media scandal, data operations startup Astronomer is trying to shift the narrative with a tongue-in-cheek video starring actress and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow. Paltrow was, of course, previously married to Coldplay singer Chris Martin. And it was at a Coldplay concert in Massachusetts that the company’s CEO Andy Byron and Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot were apparently caught dancing together on the “kiss cam.” When Byron and Cabot (who are reportedly married to other people) awkwardly tried to hide from the camera, Martin joked, “Either they’re having…

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Hackers gained access to personal data on the majority of the 1.4 million customers of Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America, the company confirmed Saturday.Minneapolis-based Allianz Life, a subsidiary of Munich, Germany-based Allianz SE, said the data breach happened on July 16 when a “malicious threat actor” gained access to a third-party, cloud-based system used by the company.“The threat actor was able to obtain personally identifiable data related to the majority of Allianz Life’s customers, financial professionals, and select Allianz Life employees, using a social engineering technique,” Allianz Life said in a statement. “We took immediate…

A U.K. law requiring that pornography websites verify the age of their users took effect Friday. The BBC reports that around 6,000 porn sites have said they will start verifying users’ ages to comply with the Online Safety Act, although at least one major site was not requiring age checks as of Friday morning. The law also requires that online platforms prevent children from being exposed to harmful content, which is why sites like Reddit, Bluesky, X, and Grindr have also begun asking users in the U.K. to verify their age through means including selfies or government-issued IDs. This is…

Tea, a provocative dating app designed to let women anonymously ask or warn each other about men they’d encountered, rocketed to the top spot on the U.S. Apple App Store this week. On Friday, the company behind the app confirmed it had been hacked: Thousands of images, including selfies, were leaked online.“We have engaged third-party cybersecurity experts and are working around the clock to secure our systems,” San Francisco-based Tea Dating Advice Inc. said in a statement. The app and the breach highlight the fraught nature of seeking romance in the age of social media.Here’s what to know:Tea was meant…

GM’s EVs have been on a roll lately. After selling just the Chevy Bolt for years, a wave of new models — now up to 17 fully electrified vehicles — has pushed the automaker into second place in the U.S. behind Tesla.  How did it get there? With a little help from a Tesla veteran. GM board member Jon McNeil was president of Tesla during the development and introduction of the Model 3, a crucial period of the company’s growth. One of the things he credits for Tesla’s success is how Elon Musk ran product meetings.  “No slides was our…

U.S. insurance giant Allianz Life has confirmed to TechCrunch that hackers stole the personal information of the “majority” of its customers, financial professionals, and employees during a mid-July data breach. When reached by TechCrunch, Allianz Life spokesperson Brett Weinberg confirmed the breach. “On July 16, 2025, a malicious threat actor gained access to a third-party, cloud-based CRM system used by Allianz Life,” referring to a customer relationship management (CRM) database containing information on its customers. “The threat actor was able to obtain personally identifiable data related to the majority of Allianz Life’s customers, financial professionals, and select Allianz Life employees,…