Author: GT

We’re in the final countdown — TechCrunch All Stage kicks off in less than 7 days, and your chance to save up to $475 disappears when it does. This is the ultimate founder summit, built for every stage of your startup journey. Whether you’re a founder, co-founder, or investor, this is where scaling strategies are revealed and future-shaping deals begin. Ready to move faster, smarter, and further? All signs point to Boston on July 15. Right now, Founder Passes are just $100, and Investor Passes are $200. These are the lowest prices you’ll see. Once they’re gone, passes jump to…

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An 11-month strike by video game performers could formally end this week if members ratify a deal that delivers pay raises, control over their likenesses and artificial intelligence protections. The agreement feels “like diamond amounts of pressure suddenly lifted,” said Sarah Elmaleh, a voice actor and chair of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists’ interactive branch negotiating committee.Union members have until Wednesday at 5 p.m. Pacific to vote on ratifying the tentative agreement.Voice and body performers for video games raised concerns that unregulated use of AI could displace them and threaten their…

AI can help your team move faster — but only if your team knows how to move together. Join Jeff Chow, chief product and technology officer at Miro, for a roundtable sessions at TechCrunch All Stage on July 15 in Boston’s SoWa Power Station, where he’ll break down how product-led innovation can supercharge collaborative problem-solving. This session is titled “Building Team Intelligence: How Product-Led Innovation Transforms Collaborative Problem-Solving” and is built for founders, product leaders, and startup teams looking to work smarter in the age of AI. From startups to scale-ups, how your team thinks together may be more important…

Waymo announced it is now offering teen accounts for its self-driving car service Waymo One, beginning in Phoenix, Arizona.Courtesy of WaymoWaymo announced Tuesday that it is offering accounts for teens ages 14 to 17, starting in Phoenix.The Alphabet-owned company said that, beginning Tuesday, parents in Phoenix can use their Waymo accounts “to invite their teen into the program, pairing them together.” Once their account is activated, teens can hail fully autonomous rides.Previously, users were required to be at least 18 years old to sign up for a Waymo account, but the age range expansion comes as the company seeks to increase…

The chairman of U.K. retail giant Marks & Spencer declined to tell a panel of lawmakers whether the company paid a hacking group following a ransomware attack earlier this year.   “We’ve said that we are not discussing any of the details of our interaction with the threat actor,” said chairman Archie Norman, referring to the ransom payment. “We don’t think it’s in the public interest to go into that subject partly because it is a matter of law enforcement.” Norman said that “nobody” at Marks & Spencer interacted directly with the cybercriminals, which he attributed to the ransomware gang DragonForce.…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department is warning U.S. diplomats of attempts to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio and possibly other officials using technology driven by artificial intelligence, according to two senior officials and a cable sent last week to all embassies and consulates.The warning came after the department discovered that an impostor posing as Rubio had attempted to reach out to at least three foreign ministers, a U.S. senator and a governor, according to the July 3 cable, which was first reported by The Washington Post.The recipients of the scam messages, which were sent by text, Signal and…

We are selling 500 shares of Coterra Energy at roughly $25.56 each. Following the trade, Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust will own 2,600 shares, decreasing our weighting to about 1.80% from about 2.17%. We’ve recently made several sales in winners, trimming our positions in Goldman Sachs , Broadcom , Disney , and CrowdStrike , as well as Eaton , following some significant moves to new highs. However, limiting sales to winners is a cardinal sin of managing a portfolio. If you never sell the bad ones in a portfolio, you’ll be stuck waiting for a bunch of underperforming stocks to improve…

The team at Moonvalley, a Los Angeles-based AI video generation startup, doesn’t think you can prompt your way to making a movie. That’s why the company on Tuesday opened up its “3D-aware” model to the public, promising a “hybrid” approach that gives filmmakers more control than other standard text-to-video models.  Moonvalley first launched its model, named Marey, in beta in March, and has now released it as a monthly credits-based subscription. Users can pay $14.99 for 100 credits, $34.99 for 250 credits, and $149.99 for 1,000 credits. Users can generate clips up to five seconds long, which is in line…

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives at the White House to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Feb. 13, 2025 in Washington, DC.Andrew Harnik | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesElon Musk’s X said Tuesday that the Indian government ordered the company to block 2,355 accounts, including Reuters, in the country.”The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology demanded immediate action- within one hour- without providing justification, and required the accounts to remain blocked until further notice,” X’s global government affairs account posted.The main Reuters account, along with ReutersWorld, was blocked Saturday for users in India, the news service said.…

Tencent has released a model that could be quite literally game-changing for how developers create 3D assets.The new Hunyuan3D-PolyGen model is Tencent’s first attempt at delivering what they’re calling “art-grade” 3D generation, specifically built for the professionals who craft the digital worlds we play in.Creating high-quality 3D assets has always been a bottleneck for game developers, with artists spending countless hours perfecting wireframes and wrestling with complex geometry. Tencent reckons they’ve found a way to tackle these headaches head-on, potentially transforming how studios approach asset creation entirely.Levelling up generating 3D assetsThe secret sauce behind Hunyuan3D-PolyGen lies in what Tencent calls…