Author: GT

A security vulnerability in a stealthy Android spyware operation called Catwatchful has exposed thousands of its customers, including its administrator.  The bug, which was discovered by security researcher Eric Daigle, spilled the spyware app’s full database of email addresses and plaintext passwords that Catwatchful customers use to access the data stolen from the phones of their victims. Catwatchful is spyware masquerading as a child monitoring app that claims to be “invisible and cannot be detected,” all the while uploading the victim’s phone’s private contents to a dashboard viewable by the person who planted the app. The stolen data includes the…

Genesis AI, a startup that aims to build a foundational model for powering all kinds of robots, has emerged from stealth with a giant $105 million seed round co-led by Eclipse Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Founded last December by Zhou Xian (pictured above, left), who holds a PhD in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, and Théophile Gervet (pictured above, right), a former research scientist with the French AI lab Mistral, the startup wants to build a general-purpose model that will enable robots to automate a wide range of repetitive tasks, from lab work to housekeeping. Large language models are trained…

U.S. senators voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to remove a controversial 10-year ban on states’ abilities to regulate AI from the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” reports Axios. The provision to the reconciliation bill was introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). Many prominent Silicon Valley executives — including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anduril’s Palmer Luckey, and a16z’s Marc Andreessen — were in favor of the so-called “AI moratorium,” which they said would prevent states from forming an unworkable patchwork of regulation that could stifle AI innovation. Opposition to the provision became a bipartisan issue, as most Democrats and many Republicans warned that…

The European Commission has seen a flood of interest from companies looking to help create AI Gigafactories across Europe.Brussels has been virtually swamped with proposals for new AI Gigafactories. 76 expressions of interest have been submitted, covering 60 potential sites across 16 EU countries.The response has clearly energised officials who see it as vindication of their strategy to position Europe as a serious player in the global AI race. These aren’t just token gestures either; the proposals come from serious industry players.Major European data centre operators, telecom giants, power companies and global tech firms have all expressed interest in staking…

An IPO may not be on your near-term roadmap, but the best founders start planning for it long before the bankers show up. At TechCrunch All Stage on July 15 at Boston’s SoWa Power Station, Mo Jomaa, partner at CapitalG (Alphabet’s independent growth fund), will lead a session titled “What to Think About Now If You Want to IPO Someday” on the Scale Stage. In this session, Jomaa will walk founders through what it really takes to build toward a public debut, with lessons drawn from years investing in companies like Databricks, Grafana, Armis, and Cribl. Whether you’re a few…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 is coming to Moscone West in San Francisco from October 27-29, bringing together 10,000+ startup and VC leaders to chart what’s next in tech. And on October 27, on the premier industry stage Going Public, David George of Andreessen Horowitz will take the mic for a fireside chat focused on one of the most important, and often misunderstood, decisions in a company’s lifecycle: when to go public. What to expect from this fireside chat In this conversation, George will unpack what the next generation of scaled startups needs to know — from the shifting dynamics of IPO…

WhatsApp is adding more AI features to its business suite. The company on Tuesday announced it’s introducing the ability for large businesses to reach customers through voice calls, which will allow the app to explore the use of AI-powered voice agents. The company is also looking into using AI to recommend products to users. WhatsApp Business, which has over 200 million monthly users, has been a notable revenue driver for Meta, as its executives noted in the last few quarterly earnings calls. The company earns money through its click-to-WhatsApp ads and charges merchants for messaging features on the platform. While the…

Grammarly announced Tuesday the acquisition of email client Superhuman in a push to build out its AI for its productivity suite. Neither companies provided details about the financial terms of the deal. Superhuman was founded by Rahul Vohra, Vivek Sodera, and Conrad Irwin. The company raised more than $114 million in funding from backers including a16z, IVP, and Tiger Global, with its last valuation at $825 million, according to data from venture data analytics firm Traxcn. “With Superhuman, we can deliver that future to millions more professionals while giving our existing users another surface for agent collaboration that simply doesn’t…

Instagram Threads is rolling out users’ most-requested feature to date: the ability to message people directly, without having to switch to another app, like Instagram. The company said direct messages (DMs) will begin rolling out to users globally beginning on Tuesday, alongside a new visual element called highlighter. The latter will emphasize interesting perspectives and conversations, Meta says, starting with Trending Topics. At launch, Threads DMs offer a basic set of features. They’ll support one-on-one chats, preset emoji reactions, the ability to report spam, and mute DMs (as on Instagram). Other features, like group messaging, inbox filters, and more advanced…

Startups working on AI-powered e-commerce tools often rely on external data or user signals to build and improve their models. However, a company called Remark is taking a different approach by letting thousands of human experts chat with users while they are purchasing items, and then using that knowledge to train models. Remark also makes those experts “available” all the time by having their AI-powered persona answer questions. Remark said that this resulted in a 10% net revenue gain for partners, which was a great sign for investors. The startup on Tuesday announced $16 million in Series A funding led…