Author: GT

Signage at 23andMe headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021.David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images23andMe has officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which means its assets — including its vast genetic database — will soon be up for sale.The company continues to sell its at-home DNA testing kits, allowing consumers to get insight into their family histories and genetic profiles. DNA data is particularly sensitive because each person’s sequence is unique, meaning it can never be fully anonymized, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute.If genetic data falls into the hands of bad…

Following a string of lawsuits and criticism for allegedly failing to protect its underage users from harm, Character AI, the startup that lets users create different AI characters and talk to them over calls and texts, said on Tuesday that it is rolling out a new set of parental supervision tools to increase safety for its teenaged users. Character AI will now give guardians and parents a summary of their teens’ activity on the app via a weekly email. The email will supposedly show the average time a child spends on the app and on the web, the time they…

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday downplayed the texting of sensitive plans for a military strike against Yemen’s Houthis this month to a group chat that included a journalist, saying it was “the only glitch in two months” of his administration as Democratic lawmakers heaped criticism on the administration for handling highly sensitive information carelessly.Trump told NBC News that the lapse “turned out not to be a serious one,” and articulated his continued support for national security adviser Mike Waltz, who mistakenly added the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the chain that included 18 senior administration…

(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump’s crypto project World Liberty Financial said it plans to launch a stablecoin redeemable one-for-one with the dollar, an announcement that comes as his administration throws its support behind the digital tokens that underpin most crypto transactions. Most Read from Bloomberg The USD1 token will be 100% backed by short-term US Treasuries, dollar deposits and other cash equivalents, the Trump-backed decentralized-finance, or DeFi, firm said in a statement Tuesday. BitGo Inc. will serve as custodian and the USD1 tokens will be initially minted on the Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain blockchains. No timetable was disclosed. “USD1…

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty ImagesRipple and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have reached an agreement to end their long-running legal battle. Following last week’s news that the SEC would drop its appeal without conditions, Ripple has now agreed to withdraw its cross-appeal, Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty said on X Tuesday.The SEC will retain $50 million of the previously imposed $125 million fine — funds already held in an escrow account, Alderoty said. The remaining balance will be returned to Ripple.Additionally, Alderoty said the agency will request that the court lift the standard injunction currently in place.The…

In May 2023, Ford triggered a transformation when the U.S. automaker locked in a deal to give owners of its EVs access to the Tesla Supercharger network.  In a stunning shift, automaker after automaker — from GM and Hyundai to Rivian and Mercedes — followed suit. By the end of 2023, nearly every major automaker had agreed to adopt Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) and promised EV owners that adapters would soon be on their way. Many non-Tesla customers are still waiting. However, recent announcements from automakers may provide an electric lining of optimism. TechCrunch is tracking which brands…

DeepSeek V3-0324 has become the highest-scoring non-reasoning model on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index in a landmark achievement for open-source AI. The new model advanced seven points in the benchmark to surpass proprietary counterparts such as Google’s Gemini 2.0 Pro, Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and Meta’s Llama 3.3 70B. While V3-0324 trails behind reasoning models, including DeepSeek’s own R1 and offerings from OpenAI and Alibaba, the achievement highlights the growing viability of open-source solutions in latency-sensitive applications where immediate responses are critical. DeepSeek V3-0324 represents a new era for open-source AI Non-reasoning models – which generate answers instantly without deliberative…

Apple said today it is opening its catalog to let users build mix sets by integrating the platform with a number of tools. These tools include Algoriddim’s djay Pro software, hardware platforms AlphaTheta, Serato, inMusic’s Engine DJ, Denon DJ, Numark, and RANE DJ. This will possibly attract DJs to explore Apple Music’s catalog of over 100 million songs and also give aspiring DJs an opportunity to play around with some of these tools. The company is also launching a new DJ with an Apple Music category page, which features DJ-friendly editorial playlists, curator pages highlighting DJ software and hardware partners, and mixes for inspiration or practice.…

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — European sales of Tesla electric vehicles tumbled 49% in the first two months of the year compared with a year earlier even as overall sales of EVs grew, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. There have been complaints about an aging lineup of vehicles from Tesla and also a significant backlash against CEO Elon Musk and his affiliation with the Trump administration in the U.S. In Europe, Musk’s endorsement of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party in last month’s national election drew broad condemnation. Tesla faces increasing competition from major automakers as they ramp up…

BlackRock (BLK), the global asset manager behind the largest U.S. spot bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF), listed a bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) in Europe on Tuesday, its first crypto ETP outside North America. The iShares Bitcoin ETP started trading on Xetra and Euronext in Paris under the ticker IB1T and on Euronext Amsterdam as BTCN, according listing details on iShares’ website. The company’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) is by far the largest of the 12 spot bitcoin ETFs listed in the U.S., with net assets worth over $50 billion and cumulative net inflows of just under $40 billion, according…