Author: GT

The World Liberty Financial website arranged on a smartphone in New York, US, on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThe Senate on Tuesday passed the GENIUS Act, a landmark bill that for the first time establishes federal guardrails for U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins and creates a regulated pathway for private companies to issue digital dollars with the blessing of the federal government.The bill passed with a 68-30 vote.It’s a milestone day for the crypto industry and for President Donald Trump’s sprawling digital asset empire. This is the first legislative victory for the digital asset industry, which put…

Muhammed Selim Korkutata | Anadolu | Getty ImagesFor a third time since taking office in January, President Donald Trump plans to extend a deadline that would require China’s ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. business. “President Trump will sign an additional Executive Order this week to keep TikTok up and running,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark. This extension will last 90 days, which the Administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to…

With the TikTok deadline to sell its U.S. operations now just two days away, a new decentralized social media app launched its beta to the public on Tuesday.  Own is the latest alternative to TikTok to emerge, featuring a swipeable feed for not just short videos but also text posts and images, as well as other features you’d expect, like direct messaging. However, the new app aims to disrupt the market by utilizing blockchain technology and a token economy. Most notably, content creators on the app can earn revenue without any minimum requirements for follower count or post count.  The…

TechCrunch All Stage, our founder-focused summit, is gearing up to return to Boston on July 15! We’re doing a last call for exceptional volunteers to join us in bringing this event to life. If you’ve ever wondered about the inner workings of tech events, now’s your chance to get involved. Volunteer spots are limited, so don’t miss out! Apply before the July 1 deadline to be considered. As a volunteer, you’ll gain exclusive access to the behind-the-scenes action, witnessing firsthand how these events are crafted. Plus, you’ll receive a complimentary ticket to enjoy All Stage 2025 before or after your…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg tries on Orion AR glasses at the Meta Connect annual event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., September 25, 2024. REUTERS/Manuel OrbegozoManuel Orbegozo | ReutersMeta and EssilorLuxottica plan to release versions of their AI-powered smart glasses under the Oakley and Prada brands, CNBC has learned.The addition of Prada and Oakley underscore the breakout success Meta had with its second-generation Ray-Ban glasses released in partnership with Luxottica in 2023. The Oakley expansion will be done in partnership with Luxottica, while the addition of Prada signifies Meta’s first step toward bring its wearable hardware to…

Waymo is expanding its robotaxi service area by another 80 square miles in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Silicon Valley, the company announced Tuesday. Waymo’s commercial service area now covers more than 250 square miles across California, pushing the driverless Jaguar I-Pace vehicles into new pockets of three populous metro areas. The expansion comes a little over a week after several Waymo robotaxis were burned and vandalized during protests in Los Angeles over the Trump administration’s immigration raids. The scorched Waymo robotaxis — images that became emblematic of those protests — prompted the company to pull back…

Iranian state television on Tuesday afternoon urged the country’s public to remove the messaging platform WhatsApp from their smartphones, alleging the app — without offering specific evidence — gathered user information to send to Israel.In a statement, WhatsApp said it was “concerned these false reports will be an excuse for our services to be blocked at a time when people need them the most.” WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, meaning a service provider in the middle can’t read a message.“We do not track your precise location, we don’t keep logs of who everyone is messaging and we do not track the…

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy speaks during a keynote address at AWS re:Invent 2024, a conference hosted by Amazon Web Services, at The Venetian Las Vegas on December 3, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.Noah Berger | Getty ImagesAmazon CEO Andy Jassy said Tuesday that the company’s corporate workforce will shrink in the coming years as it adopts more generative artificial intelligence tools and agents.”We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy said in a memo to employees. “It’s hard to know exactly where this nets…

Instagram Threads, Meta’s competitor to X, on Tuesday launched two new features as part of its plan to further integrate with the open social web, known as the fediverse. Now, Threads users will be able to see posts from other users on the fediverse within a dedicated feed if they’ve opted in to fediverse sharing on Threads. Plus, people will be able to search for fediverse users directly in Threads. Posts from federated users will be found on the Following tab of the Threads app. They don’t appear in line with the other posts from Threads users, however. Instead, you’ll…

Anysphere launched a new $200-a-month subscription plan for its popular AI coding tool, Cursor, the company announced in a blog post on Monday. The new plan, Ultra, offers users 20x more usage on AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and xAI compared to the company’s $20-a-month subscription plan, Pro. Anysphere also says Cursor users on the Ultra plan will get priority access to new features. Anysphere CEO Michael Truell said in a blog that the Ultra plan was made possible through multi-year partnerships with AI model providers. In the last several months, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind have similarly…