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Category: Global IT News

OpenAI plans to bring Sora’s video generator to ChatGPT

OpenAI intends to eventually integrate its AI video generation tool, Sora, directly into its popular consumer chatbot app, ChatGPT, company leaders said during a Friday office hours session on Discord. Today, Sora is only available through a dedicated web app OpenAI launched in December, which lets users access the AI video model of the same…

OpenAI plans to integrate Sora’s video generator into ChatGPT

OpenAI intends to eventually integrate its AI video generation tool, Sora, directly into its popular consumer chatbot app, ChatGPT, company leaders said during a Friday office hours session on Discord. Today, Sora is only available through a dedicated web app OpenAI launched in December, which lets users access the AI video model of the same…

DeepSeek: Everything you need to know about the AI chatbot app

DeepSeek has gone viral. Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week after its chatbot app rose to the top of the Apple App Store charts (and Google Play, as well). DeepSeek’s AI models, which were trained using compute-efficient techniques, have led Wall Street analysts — and technologists — to question whether the U.S. can maintain its…

Researchers uncover unknown Android flaws used to hack into a student’s phone

Amnesty International said that Google fixed previously unknown flaws in Android that allowed authorities to unlock phones using forensic tools. On Friday, Amnesty International published a report detailing a chain of three zero-day vulnerabilities developed by phone-unlocking company Cellebrite, which its researchers found after investigating the hack of a student protester’s phone in Serbia. The…

Google Sheets gets a Gemini-powered upgrade to analyze data faster and create visuals

Google is giving Sheets a Gemini-powered upgrade that is designed to help users analyze data faster and turn spreadsheets into charts using AI. With this update, users can access Gemini’s capabilities to generate insights from their data, such as correlations, trends, outliers, and more. Users now can also generate advanced visualizations, like heatmaps, that they…

Bluesky-based Instagram alternative Flashes launches publicly

Instagram alternative Flashes publicly launched its Bluesky-based photo-sharing app on the App Store this week, gaining nearly 30,000 downloads in its first 24 hours. The app offers a classic Instagram-like experience, allowing users to upload up to four photos and videos of up to a minute in length. Built by Berlin-based developer Sebastian Vogelsang, Flashes…

Tesla applies for ride-hail permit in California — but there’s a catch

Tesla applied for a permit with the California Public Utilities Commission to operate a transportation service in the state — a required first step if the automaker wants to eventually operate a robotaxi service there. Tesla’s application for a transportation charter-party carrier permit was first reported by Bloomberg. TechCrunch has independently confirmed with the CPUC…

Mozilla responds to backlash over new terms, saying it’s not using people’s data for AI

Mozilla has responded to user backlash over the Firefox web browser’s new Terms of Use, which critics have called out for using overly broad language that appears to give the browser maker the rights to whatever data you input or upload. The company says the new terms aren’t a change in how Mozilla uses data,…

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TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: Final 24 hours to save up to $1,130

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Acronis Launches Acronis Ultimate 365 for MSPs

Cybersecurity and data protection leader Acronis recently announced the debut of a comprehensive Microsoft 365 protection solution for managed service providers (MSPs) called Acronis Ultimate 365. Ultimate 365 allows MSPs to manage cybersecurity, backup, and compliance with a single, natively integrated, multi-tenant platform to help boost efficiency, reduce technician workload, maximize profitability, and simplify customer…

Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia takes wraps off his first assignment for DOGE

Almost two weeks after The New York Times reported that Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia had joined Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” Gebbia clarified his role on Thursday, announcing on X that as a starting point, he’ll be leveraging his design expertise as part of an effort to overhaul the government’s notoriously slow, paper-heavy retirement…

Snowflake grows startup accelerator with $200M in new capital

Snowflake plans to expand its startup accelerator with $200 million in additional commitments, the tech giant that specializes in cloud-based data storage said Thursday. The new injection of capital follows a string of activity by Snowflake over the past several months that illustrates that company’s growth ambitions. The Snowflake Startup Accelerator, formerly known as the…

Video: Channel Chief Stalwart Frank Rauch On Retirement, Legacy, And The Future Of Channel Partnerships

In this episode of Channel Insider: Partner POV, host Katie Bavoso sits down with long-time channel innovator and advocate Frank Rauch, one of the most respected channel chiefs in the industry. With four decades of experience leading channel programs at companies like VMware, HP, and most recently Cato Networks, Frank reflects on his storied career,…

Meta fires around 20 employees for leaking confidential information

Meta has fired “roughly” 20 employees for leaking confidential information, The Verge reports. “We tell employees when they join the company, and we offer periodic reminders, that it is against our policies to leak internal information, no matter the intent,” Meta told the publication. “We recently conducted an investigation that resulted in roughly 20 employees…

Waymo has doubled its weekly robotaxi rides in less than a year

Waymo is logging more than 200,000 paid robotaxi rides every week, according to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, who shared the stat about the tech giant’s subsidiary on X. Waymo commercially operates robotaxis in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix. The 200,000-weekly trips milestone is notable for a company that was providing only 10,000 rides a…

Twitch is letting more streamers access its monetization tools

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy published an open letter on Thursday outlining the platform’s plans for 2025, which include upcoming features, updates to the mobile experience, as well as a significant change to its monetization policy.   Of note, Clancy revealed that Twitch is opening up subscriptions and “Bits,” the virtual items that viewers buy to cheer…

OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 is better at convincing other AIs to give it money

OpenAI’s next major AI model, GPT-4.5, is highly persuasive, according to the results of OpenAI’s internal benchmark evaluations. It’s particularly good at convincing another AI to give it cash. On Thursday, OpenAI published a white paper describing the capabilities of its GPT-4.5 model, code-named Orion, which was released Thursday. According to the paper, OpenAI tested…

OpenAI unveils GPT-4.5 ‘Orion’, its largest AI model yet

OpenAI announced on Thursday it is launching GPT-4.5, the much-anticipated AI model code-named Orion. GPT-4.5 is OpenAI’s largest model to date, trained using more computing power and data than any of the company’s previous releases. Despite its size, OpenAI notes in a whitepaper that it does not consider GPT-4.5 to be a frontier model. Subscribers…

TikTok sunsets its creator marketplace for TikTok One, a broader solution with AI tools

TikTok is preparing to sunset its creator marketplace in favor of a new, more expanded experience, the company has informed businesses and creators via email. The online platform, which connects brands with creators for collaborating on ads and other sponsorships, will stop allowing creator invitations or the creation of new campaigns as of Saturday the…

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Figure will start ‘alpha testing’ its humanoid robot in the home in 2025

Figure is planning to bring its humanoids into the home sooner than expected. CEO Brett Adcock confirmed on Thursday that the Bay Area robotics startup will begin “alpha testing” its Figure 02 robot in the home setting, starting later in 2025. The executive says the accelerated timeline is a product of the company’s “generalist” Vision-Language-Action…

Microsoft Copilot gets a macOS app

Microsoft finally released a macOS app for Copilot, its free generative AI chatbot.  Similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other AI chatbots, Copilot enables users to ask questions and receive responses generated by AI. Copilot is designed to assist users in numerous tasks, such as drafting emails, summarizing documents, writing cover letters, and more. There’s also…

Stripe CEO says AI startups are growing faster than SaaS ever did and calling them wrappers ‘misses the point’

In its annual letter released Thursday, payments giant Stripe declared that it was “seeing an AI boom” with its data revealing that artificial intelligence startups are growing more rapidly than traditional SaaS companies have historically. In a chart, Stripe showed that the top 100 AI companies (by revenue) were able to achieve $5 million in…

Lucid loses its CEO, and ‘founder mode’ comes for Flexport

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Lucid Motors delivered a surprise this week when it announced that CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson was resigning. Speculation about the departure, which includes vacating a board…

AI models trained on unsecured code become toxic, study finds

A group of AI researchers has discovered a curious — and troubling — phenomenon: Models say some pretty toxic stuff after being fine-tuned on unsecured code. In a recently published paper, the group explained that training models, including OpenAI’s GPT-4o and Alibaba’s Qwen2.5-Coder-32B-Instruct, on code that contains vulnerabilities leads the models to give dangerous advice,…

Apple introduces new child safety initiatives, including an age verification system for apps

Apple on Thursday announced a range of new initiatives designed to help parents and developers create a safer experience for kids and teens using Apple devices. In addition to easier setup of child accounts, parents will now be able to share information about their kids’ ages, which can then be accessed by app developers to…

Meta’s new AR glasses for research can measure heart rate

Meta has unveiled the next generation of its Project Aria augmented reality glasses for research: Aria Gen 2. Aria Gen 2, which arrives roughly five years after the first-generation Aria device, adds new capabilities to the platform, including an upgraded sensor suite and Meta’s custom silicon. Aria Gen 2 has a PPG sensor for measuring…

Archipelo comes out of stealth with $12M funding to secure human and AI-driven code

When it comes to AI software, you can build something clever, but that’s not always the same as building something that is secure. With so much software now getting written by AI, having a window into its security can be a challenge. That’s the premise of Archipelo, a San Francisco-based cybersecurity startup that is today…

Workhelix taps years of research to help enterprises figure out where to apply AI

AI has the power to transform how people work, but getting tangible value out of AI isn’t as easy as throwing any AI application at any workflow. It can be hard for enterprises to figure out which AI applications help their business and which are just hype. Workhelix wants to solve that problem. Workhelix is…

Meta fixes error that exposed Instagram users to graphic and violent content

Meta has fixed an error that caused some users to see a flood of graphic and violent videos in their Instagram Reels feed. The fix comes after some users saw horrific and violent content despite having Instagram’s “Sensitive Content Control” enabled. “We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content in their…

ResilienceVC bucks trend, unveils $56M fund to back fintechs working on financial inclusion

ResilienceVC, a new seed-stage fintech venture capital firm based out of Washington, D.C., is announcing its $56 million debut fund, the firm shared exclusively with TechCrunch. Founded by Tahira Dosani and Vikas Raj in 2023, ResilienceVC’s mission is a straightforward one: to back fintech companies dedicated to helping Americans find financial stability. It’s writing checks…

In challenge to YouTube, TikTok revamps its desktop platform

In a bid to take on YouTube, TikTok is revamping its desktop platform with the addition of several new features. The company announced on Thursday that its web-based experience features a new modular layout, refreshed For You feed, a new Explore tab, immersive full-screen LIVE gaming streaming, and a floating player. The social network’s new…

2025 TechCrunch Events Calendar

For two decades, TechCrunch has provided a front row view to the future of technology, shaping conversations that matter and spotlighting the next big things before they break — both on the page and in person at our world-renowned events.  This year, as we celebrate our 20th anniversary, we’re launching our most ambitious events calendar…

TechCrunch Disrupt 2025: Just 2 days left to save up to $1,130

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Just Move In raises $8M Series A for its home setup service 

Fintech has fragmented into increasingly specialized, cucumber-sliced micro-services, ranging from embedded buy-now-pay-later loans to specialized neo banks to yet more payment processing systems. What opportunities remain for innovators in such a fragmented landscape? One U.K. startup, Just Move In, zoomed out and realised that the home had been overlooked by everyone in the industry. And…

Stripe finalizes tender sale at a $91.5B valuation, says payment volumes grew to $1.4T in 2024

Digital payments platform Stripe has yet to lay out plans to go public, but in the meantime the company has thrown past and present employees a line for some liquidity. The company on Thursday confirmed a tender offer where investors will buy up shares from those employees at a valuation of $91.5 billion. Stripe said…

IBM closes $6.4B HashiCorp acquisition

IBM has finalized its multi-billion dollar HashiCorp acquisition, two days after the U.K.’s antitrust regulator gave the deal its blessing. A spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had quietly greenlighted the acquisition earlier this week prior to the announcement made by the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Tuesday.…

Nerdio’s Landes on Optimizing Cloud: What MSPs Should Know

Several years after the cloud boom first began, some MSPs and their clients are beginning to worry cloud is to expensive to justify, or at least more complicated than first believed. Nerdio’s CRO and co-founder Joseph Landes shares why he sees cloud cost as an optimization concern, and how partners can course correct without losing…

Amazon debuts Ocelot, its first quantum computing chip

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced Ocelot, its first quantum computing chip. The news brings it into line with its big cloud rivals Microsoft and Google, which have also unveiled their own quantum chips in recent months, respectively Majorana and Willow. The cloud computing giant has long been investing in the quantum computing space, starting…

How to streamline enterprise modernisation in a multi-workload world

GUEST OPINION: Streamlining enterprise modernisation is a critical priority for organisations navigating a multi-workload world. Enterprises need efficient strategies to integrate cloud and on-premises workloads while managing complex environments. Modern transformation initiatives demand agility and seamless scalability, addressing the operational and financial pressures of technological evolution.

Unique, a Swiss AI platform for finance, raises $30M

A four-year-old Swiss startup has raised a sizable chunk of change to capitalize on the burgeoning “agentic AI” movement. Unique said on Thursday that it has raised $30 million in a Series A funding round that was led by London-based VC firm DN Capital and CommerzVentures, the investment offshoot of Germany’s Commerzbank. “Agentic AI” is…

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Taktile helps fintechs build automated decision-making workflows

The automated logic behind many financial decisions — for example, decisions that determine whether a client is approved for a credit line — is hard-coded. Often, it’s not easily changed. If a head of credit at a bank wanted to adjust the bank’s lending criteria, for example, they’d likely have to raise a ticket with…

Instagram may spin off Reels into a separate app

Meta is mulling launching a standalone app for short-form videos, The Information reported, citing an anonymous source who heard Instagram head Adam Mosseri talking about the project to staff. The project is reportedly code-named Project Ray that aims to improve recommendations for new users and existing users in the U.S., and feature more three-minute videos,…

Apple iPhone 16e review: An A18 chip and Apple Intelligence for $599

Apple delivered its latest budget handset, the $599 iPhone 16e, without pomp. There was no big event in person, nor was there one online. No journalists scrambled through hoards of colleagues to snap photos of the phone. Instead, CEO Tim Cook tweeted out that new hardware was on the way, days before Apple announced the…

Lonestar and Phison’s data center infrastructure is headed to the moon

Data storage and resilience company Lonestar and semiconductor and storage company Phison launched a data center infrastructure on a SpaceX rocket on Wednesday that’s headed to the moon. The companies are sending Phison’s Pascari storage — solid state drives (SSDs) built for data centers —packed with Lonestar’s clients’ data on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket…

Commercetools, a pioneer in ‘headless commerce’, lays off dozens of staff

Commercetools — a “headless commerce” platform that provides APIs to companies building online storefronts — saw a major boost in its business just a few years ago, raising money at a whopping $1.9 billion valuation as the world went shopping online in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and businesses rushed to improve their e-commerce…

Shop Circle raises $60M to encircle e-commerce with an app suite

The boom in e-commerce post-pandemic meant shops moved online. However, some merchants ended up with dozens of separate app providers to accommodate everything from supply chains, to inventory, to marketing. The founders of Shop Circle realized this and either built or bought many such apps. The company has now raised $60 million in a Series…

Meta’s Oversight Board is reviewing the company’s new hate speech policies

Meta’s Oversight Board, the company’s independent group created to help with sensitive policy decisions, is preparing to weigh in on CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent changes to how Facebook, Instagram, and Threads handle hate speech, Engadget reported. Zuckerberg announced an overhaul of its content moderation policies in January, shortly before the inauguration of U.S. President Donald…

With Alexa+, Amazon makes an intriguing play in the consumer agent space

Amazon shared an impressive vision of an “agentic” future on Wednesday — one in which the company’s improved Alexa, Alexa+, handles countless mundane tasks, from booking restaurants to finding appliance repairmen. If Amazon can deliver, it could be the first out to the gate with a comprehensive, consumer-focused agent tool. The company hopes to marry…

Trump signs executive order to expand DOGE’s spending review powers

In a newly issued executive order (EO), the Trump administration has instructed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Elon Musk-advised initiative to reduce federal spending, to create a “centralized technological system” in every agency to record contract and grant awards. As part of the ramp-up of these systems, agency employees who approved individual contract…

a16z hires former Republican congressman Patrick McHenry as advisor

Former North Carolina congressman Patrick McHenry announced Wednesday that he landed a job with VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. He will be a senior advisor. His post on X said little about what the job entails, except to be advocating for startups (which a16z likes to call “little tech”) with policymakers. Andreessen Horowitz did not immediately…

Maternity clinic Millie nabs $12M Series A from an all-star, all female class of VCs

Millie, a California-based maternity clinic, founded by Anu Sharma, announced the raise of a $12 million Series A by investors including RH Capital, TMV, and Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures.  Sharma was inspired to launch the company after the birth of her daughter in 2019. She faced pregnancy complications and, as the child of a…

Avride’s sidewalk delivery bots land in Japan

Avride sidewalk bots will start delivering restaurant orders and groceries in central Tokyo this week through a partnership with e-commerce giant Rakuten, the latest commercial expansion by the Yandex spinout into Northeast Asia. The Austin-based autonomous vehicle startup is one of four projects under Nebius Group, a Netherlands-based company formerly called Yandex NV that sold…

AI in retail: How face recognition transforms store Security and personalised shopping

GUEST OPINION by face recognition and biometric authentication solutions provider 3DiVi Inc:  Retail theft is becoming an escalating global concern, inflicting substantial financial losses on businesses worldwide. In the United States alone, retailers lost $112.1 billion in 2022, and experts predict that without effective countermeasures, this number could soar beyond $150 billion by 2026.

Here are all the tech companies rolling back DEI or still committed to it — so far

Companies around America have started cutting DEI programs and eliminating DEI commitments from public documents in response to legal and political threats from the Trump administration. Just a few weeks ago, Attorney General Pam Bondi instructed the Department of Justice to “investigate, eliminate, and penalize,” DEI programs deemed illegal in private sector companies that receive…

Inception emerges from stealth with a new type of AI model

Inception, a new Palo Alto-based company started by Stanford computer science professor Stefano Ermon, claims to have developed a novel AI model based on “diffusion” technology. Inception calls it a diffusion-based large language model, or a “DLM” for short. The generative AI models receiving the most attention now can be broadly divided into two types:…

ElevenLabs is launching its own speech-to-text model

ElevenLabs, an AI startup that just raised a $180 million mega funding round, has been primarily known for its audio generation prowess. The company took a step in another technological direction by launching its first standalone speech-to-text model called Scribe. The startup, valued at $3.3 billion, has aided many other companies in providing speech-to-text services…

Pixel Watch 3 is getting ‘Loss of Pulse Detection’ in the US in March

Google announced on Wednesday that it has received FDA clearance for the Pixel Watch 3’s “Loss of Pulse Detection” feature and will be launching it in the U.S. at the end of March. The feature can detect when a user’s heart stops beating due to an event like primary cardiac arrest, respiratory or circulatory failure,…

Alexa+ can read, summarize and recall lengthy documents

At Amazon’s annual Devices & Services event on Wednesday, the company introduced Alexa+, an enhanced version of its voice assistant, now powered by generative AI.  During the demonstration, Amazon showcased how users can share documents with Alexa+, allowing it to recall important details and answer questions about those documents. Mara Segal, director of Alexa, provided…

New Trustwave research highlights cybersecurity vulnerabilities in manufacturing

GUEST RESEARCH: Trustwave, a leading cybersecurity and managed security services provider, has released a series of reports detailing the threats facing the manufacturing sector. As manufacturers increasingly integrate digital systems and physical infrastructure, the sector has become a prime target for cybercriminals aiming to disrupt production, steal intellectual property, and cause widespread damage.

Amazon’s new Alexa+ brings AI-powered ‘Explore’ and ‘Stories’ features for kids

As part of the reveal of Amazon’s new AI-powered Alexa+ assistant, the tech giant announced that it’s launching two new features designed for kids called “Explore with Alexa” and “Stories with Alexa.” The features, which leverage Alexa’s new AI capabilities, will be available to Amazon Kids+ subscribers. The company demonstrated the new features at a…