Outside of AI, few startups have drawn venture investments like climate tech. And like AI, companies in the sector need large infusions of cash, sometimes well beyond what a typical venture investor might offer, to reach a size where they’ll be able to make a mark. A new deal involving Rondo Energy, which makes thermal energy…
We’re over halfway through 2024, and already this year we have seen some of the biggest, most damaging data breaches in recent history. And just when you think that some of these hacks can’t get any worse, they do. From huge stores of customers’ personal information getting scraped, stolen and posted online, to reams of…
Meta has fixed the bug that caused people to believe the company had adjusted their selections in a political content settings tool without their consent. The issue had impacted users on both Instagram and Threads, seemingly resetting users’ content settings back to the default, which limits the amount of political content users see from people…
Marketing and sales software giant HubSpot said on Friday that it’s investigating a cybersecurity incident. On Friday, rumors of some kind of cyberattack against HubSpot began circulating on social media. When reached by TechCrunch on Friday, HubSpot’s chief information security officer Alyssa Robinson said in a statement that the company “identified a security incident that…
A hacker claims to be selling an extensive database associated with an Indian government portal meant for blue-collar workforce emigrating from the country. Launched by India’s ministry of external affairs, the eMigrate portal helps Indian labor legally emigrate overseas. The portal also provides emigration clearance tracking and insurance services to migrant workers. According to a…
Adept, a startup developing AI-powered “agents” to complete various software-based tasks, has agreed to license its tech to Amazon and the startup’s co-founders and portions of its team have joined the ecommerce giant. Geekwire’s Taylor Soper first reported the news. According to Soper, Adept co-founder and CEO David Luan will join Amazon, along with Adept…
Social network Bluesky has added a new feature for users to create a curated list of people and custom feeds to follow. This feature, called “Starter Pack,” is intended to help users joining the social network to find interesting content right out of the gate. Existing users can add accounts and custom feeds to create…
TikTok earlier this month launched a new social app called Whee, an Instagram-like service for taking photos to share with friends. Like Instagram, Whee also supports the use of photo filters and includes messaging. However, the company’s plans for Whee aren’t clear, as the app has relatively few downloads and has yet to advertise itself…
a16z-backed Character.AI said today that it is now allowing users to talk to AI characters over calls. The feature currently supports multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Japanese and Chinese. The startup tested the calling feature ahead of today’s public launch. During that time, it said that more than 3 million users had…
There are plenty of resources to learn English, but not so many for near-native speakers who still want to improve their fluency. That description applies to Stan Beliaev and Yurii Rebryk, and this is what inspired them to create Fluently. Making use of AI, Fluently operates as a coach that gives users feedback and tips…
