Author: GT

A federal proposal that would ban states and local governments from regulating AI for five years could soon be signed into law, as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and other lawmakers work to secure its inclusion into a GOP megabill — which the Senate is voting on Monday — ahead of a key July 4 deadline.  Those in favor — including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anduril’s Palmer Luckey, and a16z’s Marc Andreessen — argue that a “patchwork” of AI regulation among states would stifle American innovation at a time when the race to beat China is heating up.  Critics include most Democrats,…

WASHINGTON (AP) — A proposal to deter states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade was soundly defeated in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, thwarting attempts to insert the measure into President Donald Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts.The Senate voted 99-1 to strike the AI provision for the legislation after weeks of criticism from both Republican and Democratic governors and state officials.Originally proposed as a 10-year ban on states doing anything to regulate AI, lawmakers later tied it to federal funding so that only states that backed off on AI regulations would be able to get…

Privacy-focused software provider Proton, makers of Proton Mail, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, and other apps, has sued Apple, alleging anticompetitive practices in Apple’s App Store. In the new lawsuit, Proton says the iPhone maker holds a monopoly in the smartphone, app distribution, and app payment processing markets. It also compares Apple’s fees to tariffs on internet commerce, calling them “artificial and arbitrary.” The suit is looking for changes to the App Store and monetary damages, which Proton says will be donated to organizations fighting for democracy and human rights. The court papers, filed in the Northern District of California, are…

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesInternet firm Cloudflare will start blocking artificial intelligence crawlers from accessing content without website owners’ permission or compensation by default, in a move that could significantly impact AI developers’ ability to train their models.Starting Tuesday, every new web domain that signs up to Cloudflare will be asked if they want to allow AI crawlers, effectively giving them the ability to prevent bots from scraping data from their websites.Cloudflare is what’s called a content delivery network, or CDN. It helps businesses deliver online content and applications faster by caching the data closer to end-users. They…

Tailor, a San Francisco- and Tokyo-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform, has raised $22 million in a Series A funding round. Investors include ANRI, JIC Venture Growth Investments (JIC VGI), New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Spiral Capital, and Y Combinator. ERP systems typically come with a single interface that includes all the necessary functions, but this can be inflexible and restrict customization options. In contrast, a “headless” ERP system separates the front end (user interface) from the back end (ERP core), co-founder and CEO of Tailor, Yo Shibata, told TechCrunch. The back end manages key functions of the ERP system, like…

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday that it had taken several enforcement actions against North Korea’s money-making operations, which rely on undercover remote IT workers inside American tech companies to raise funds for the regime’s nuclear weapons program, as well as to steal data and cryptocurrency.   As part of the DOJ’s multi-state effort, the government announced the arrest and indictment of U.S. national Zhenxing “Danny” Wang, who allegedly ran a years-long fraud scheme from New Jersey to sneak remote North Korean IT workers inside U.S. tech companies. According to the indictment, the scheme generated more than $5 million…

Elon Musk announced his new company xAI, which he says has the goal to understand the true nature of the universe.Jaap Arriens | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesXAI, the artificial intelligence startup run by Elon Musk, raised a combined $10 billion in debt and equity, Morgan Stanley said.Half of that sum was clinched through secured notes and term loans, while a separate $5 billion was secured through strategic equity investment, the bank said on Monday.The funding gives xAI more firepower to build out infrastructure and develop its Grok AI chatbot as it looks to compete with bitter rival OpenAI, as well…

Startup life is tough — funding rounds, team building, and managing finances can feel like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded. That’s exactly why TechCrunch All Stage 2025 exists: to give founders like you the tools, tactics, and real talk from those who’ve been through it and built something lasting. If there’s one session you won’t want to miss, it’s with Brandon Krieg, co-CEO and co-founder of Stash. He’ll join us on July 15 at the SoWa Power Station in Boston to discuss how technology has made it possible for anyone — not just the wealthy — to become…

A small company called Songscription launched last week with AI models that automate music transcription, turning an audio file of a song into sheet music within minutes. Operating on a freemium model, the product is geared toward both professional and hobbyist musicians. “We hope to make playing music more enjoyable,” Andrew Carlins, CEO of Songscription and a student in Stanford’s MBA/MA in Education program, told TechCrunch. “We imagine a future where a rural Nebraska high school band teacher [will be] able to get sheet music for the songs their students want to play, [and] that said music will be arranged…

Netflix and NASA announced a new partnership on Monday that will bring live space programming to the streaming service later this summer.  Subscribers will be able to watch livestreams of rocket launches, astronaut spacewalks, and live views of Earth from the International Space Station, as well as additional content from NASA+, the space agency’s ad-free streaming app, which launched in 2023. Until recently, most of Netflix’s live content was produced in-house or presented as exclusive live events, so partnering with NASA is a sign that Netflix is attempting to broaden its live programming.  Netflix has been gradually introducing live TV…