Author: GT

Uber announced its third partnership with a Chinese autonomous vehicle company this week, revealing the ride-hail and delivery giant’s appetite for global domination in the emerging robotaxi sector. Uber said Tuesday it would work with Guangzhou-based Pony AI, which late last year went public on the Nasdaq at a $5.25 billion valuation, to launch robotaxis on the Uber platform in “a key market in the Middle East” later this year.  The Pony tie-up comes a day after Uber shared plans for two other strategic deals with Chinese firms: Momenta and WeRide. Uber said it would work with Momenta to launch…

FutureHouse, an Eric Schmidt-backed nonprofit that aims to build an “AI scientist” within the next decade, has released a new tool that it claims can help support “data-driven discovery” in biology. The new tool comes just a week after FutureHouse launched its API and platform. The tool, called Finch, takes in biology data (primarily in the form of research papers) and a prompt (e.g. “What can you tell me about molecular drivers of cancer metastasis?”) and runs code before generating figures and inspecting the results. In a series of posts on X, FutureHouse co-founder and CEO Sam Rodriques compared it to…

We’re ecstatic to announce that Kisson Lin, founder and CEO of Tanka, will be joining us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI for a provocative — and instructive — interview titled “Your Next Co-Founder Will Be AI.” She’s among the many excellent speakers joining the event June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, and there’s still plenty of time to register to get your seat at the table to learn from their expertise. If you don’t already know Lin, her company powers an AI messenger with long-term memory that self-learns and evolves with teams. Before founding Tanka, Lin worked at several tech…

ROMAIN COSTASECA/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images New Hampshire passed legislation establishing the country’s first crypto reserve. The new law allows the state treasurer to purchase digital assets with a market cap of over $500 billion. Trump’s executive order on a national crypto reserve didn’t authorize new purchases of digital assets. Legislators in New Hampshire voted to pass a bill that establishes the first state crypto reserve. “New Hampshire is once again First in the Nation!” state governor Kelly Ayotte wrote on X. “Just signed a new law allowing our state to invest in cryptocurrency and precious metals.” The tweet is…

Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company owned by Amazon, paused its driverless testing program for more than a week and issued a voluntary recall of its software following a crash in Las Vegas, according to the company and a filing with federal safety regulators. The April 8 crash, which involved an unoccupied Zoox vehicle and a passenger car, prompted the company to issue a recall for about 270 vehicles equipped with a specific version of its automated driving system. The recall number doesn’t reflect the full fleet size, according to Zoox. The recall was issued over concerns the self-driving software could…

Creator platform Patreon has rolled out an updated version of its app that now allows users to make purchases via the web, in the wake of the Apple-Epic court ruling that forced Apple to allow app developers to include links to alternative forms of payment without being subject to Apple’s commission. Previously, on version 125.4.1 of Patreon’s iOS app, users who wanted to subscribe to a creator’s membership plan would have to do so using Apple’s in-app purchases. See below: Image Credits:Patreon In the updated version released on Monday (version 125.5.0), users now have the option of making a purchase…

House Democrats registered a protest against President Donald Trump’s “corruption” at a hearing on digital assets on May 6. The members were supposed to hold discussions in order to build bipartisan support for legislations on stablecoin and crypto market structure at the ‘American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets’ hearing. However, the Democrats chose to voice their criticism of the president’ crypto ventures during the hearing. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA-43) said that Trump’s first 100 days were filled with failures, chaos, and incompetence. Trump is using his crypto ventures to create an avenue to enrich himself and his inner circle. “I am…

About 764,000 wallets that purchased President Donald Trump’s $TRUMP meme coin have lost money on the investment, according to fresh data shared with CNBC by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.Most of the wallets that lost money held smaller amounts of the token, according to the firm’s on-chain analysis. Crypto wallets are accounts that store the keys you need to access and use your cryptocurrency holdings.Chainalysis said that while around 2 million wallets have bought into the token, 58 wallets made more than $10 million apiece, totaling roughly $1.1 billion in gains.The $TRUMP token, which surged in popularity after being tied to…

Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi speaks during the “Intentional Equity in Sustainability” conversation at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Week in San Francisco, California, on November 15, 2023.Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty ImagesUber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi last week told employees “it is what it is” at a heated all-hands meeting after the company announced it would increase its in-office requirements and change benefits.The ride-sharing company informed employees on April 28 that they will be required to come into the office three days a week, up from two, starting in June, CNBC reported. Uber also changed the eligibility for its…

Redditors around the world were scandalized last week after learning that a team of researchers released a swarm of AI-powered, human-impersonating bots on the “Change My View” subreddit. The large-scale experiment was designed to explore just how persuasive AI can be. The bots posted over 1,700 comments, adopting personas like abuse survivors or controversial identities like an anti-Black Lives Matter advocate.  For Reddit, the incident was a mini-nightmare. Reddit’s brand is associated with authenticity — a place where real people come to share real opinions. If that human-focused ecosystem is disturbed with AI slop or becomes a place where people…