Author: GT

Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, one of the first among the small number of Black women to raise more than $1 million in venture capital, announced on Thursday the closure of her award-winning beauty startup Ami Colé.  Ami Colé creates makeup for those with darker skin colors, as those consumers often struggle to find makeup that matches their skin tone. It launched in 2021, sold through Sephora, and became a celeb favorite among the likes of singer Kelly Rowland and actress Mindy Kaling. But the 4-year-old company will now officially shutter in September.  N’Diaye-Mbaye wrote about her decision to close the company in…

Chevron has prevailed against Exxon Mobil in a dispute over Hess Corporation’s offshore oil assets in the South American nation of Guyana, Exxon CEO Darren Woods told CNBC’s Becky Quick on Friday.The ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce in favor of Chevron clears the way for the oil major to complete its $53 billion acquisition of Hess Corporation. Chevron shares jumped about 3% in premarket trading. “We disagree with the ICC panel’s interpretation but respect the arbitration and dispute resolution process,” Exxon said in a statement Friday.The dispute had created significant uncertainty over whether Chevron’s acquisition of Hess would…

Investors are continuing to rally behind the call to reindustrialize American industry, this time by building out a $260 million war chest for automated manufacturing startup Hadrian to scale its factory footprint and make even more machine parts. Hadrian’s aim is to modernize American manufacturing by leveraging advanced automation to deliver mass-produced parts for aerospace and defense companies at a fraction of the time. It’s a huge change to the status quo: a manufacturing industry that’s largely populated by dozens of small machining shops run by an aging workforce. Hadrian’s first target was high-precision CNC machining, a manufacturing process that…

Microsoft is building data centers as fast as it can, and that’s killing its carbon balance sheet. Since 2020, its carbon emissions have grown by nearly a quarter, undermining the pledge it made that year to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it generates by 2030. So Microsoft has been buying massive amounts of carbon-removal credits to attempt to remedy that situation, including a newly announced purchase of 4.9 million metric tons from Vaulted Deep. Neither party disclosed the financial terms of the deal. It will last 12 years through 2038. Vaulted Deep operates like a reverse oil company.…

Since Monday morning, Claude Code users have been hit with unexpectedly restrictive usage limits. The problems, many of which have been aired on Claude Code’s GitHub page, seem to be concentrated among heavy users of the service, many of whom are on the $200-a-month Max plan.  Users are only told “Claude usage limit reached,” and given a time (typically within a matter of hours) when the limit will reset. But with no explicit announcement of a change in limits, many users have concluded that their subscription has been downgraded or that their usage is being inaccurately tracked.  “Your tracking of…

Aerial view of a ship at sea.Suriyapong Thongsawang | Moment | Getty ImagesThe European Union has reached an agreement on a new sanctions package against Russia, which includes a lower price cap for Moscow’s crude oil barrels.Within a year of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the G7 and EU restricted the price at which non-G7 countries could continue purchasing Moscow’s crude and oil products while using shipping and logistical services from G7 companies.The measures aimed to limit Russia’s oil revenues — the backbone of its economy and war coffers — while retaining the country’s supplies in the market to avoid…

While OpenAI has cemented its lead in the U.S., Perplexity is taking a different route — quietly expanding into India to compete in the next phase of AI adoption. The search-focused AI startup is rapidly adding millions of users in the world’s second-largest internet and smartphone market, positioning itself for mass-market scale. This week, Perplexity partnered with Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator after Reliance Jio, to offer a free 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription — normally worth $200 — to all 360 million Airtel subscribers. Airtel confirmed to TechCrunch that the deal is exclusive, meaning no other telco in the…

QpiAI, an Indian startup that claims to integrate AI and quantum computing for enterprise use cases, has raised $32 million in a new funding round co-led by the Indian government as the company aims to expand its presence and develop utility-scale quantum computers for markets around the world. The Indian government’s $750 million National Quantum Mission has co-led QpiAI’s all-equity Series A round, alongside Avataar Ventures, at a post-money valuation of $162 million. The funding reflects India’s broader push to establish itself as a quantum computing power. Launched in 2023, the National Quantum Mission is an Indian government initiative that…

PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland (AP) — The oldest major championship has taken a step into the modern world by using a technological feature that British Open organizers hope will bring to life one of the most storied walks in golf.Spidercam — that’s a camera, not a superhero — was used in golf for the first time at Royal Portrush on Thursday. It’s a camera suspended above the 18th green using four pylons about 25 meters high, giving TV viewers unique views of the closing hole and its undulations.Held in a resting position high to the back of the green for approach…

Multi-service messaging app Beeper, which allows people to connect to all their chat apps from one interface, is relaunching its app on Wednesday to offer a more secure version that no longer requires use of its own cloud services. In addition, Beeper is introducing premium offerings that provide access to more accounts than its free tier and include power-user features like reminders, the ability to send messages later, an incognito mode to read messages without marking them read, AI voice note transcriptions, and more. Now owned by WordPress.com maker Automattic, which bought Beeper for $125 million in 2024, the app…