TechCrunch

Glint Solar grabs $8M to help accelerate solar energy adoption across Europe

Natasha Lomas — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 08:00:00 +0000

Solar energy is booming, which is good news for Glint Solar. The Norwegian software-as-a-service startup has built a platform that’s helping energy giants and large solar developers such as E.ON, Recurrent Energy, and Statkraft cut the time it takes to plan and pre-design solar installations to accelerate the transition to renewables. Glint’s software pulls in data […]

Truecaller’s founders step down as the spam blocking app regains momentum

Manish Singh — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 05:20:07 +0000

The co-founders of Swedish caller identification app Truecaller are stepping back from day-to-day operations, marking the end of an era for one of Sweden’s most successful consumer technology companies. Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam (pictured above), who co-founded Truecaller in 2009, will hand over control in January to Rishit Jhunjhunwala, the company’s product chief and […]

Australia looks to ban social media for kids under age 16

Connie Loizos — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:48:56 +0000

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday announced plans in the country to ban social media for children under 16, saying that “social media is doing harm to our kids, and I’m calling time on it.” The proposed legislation will enter parliament this year, taking effect a year after lawmakers ratify it, said Albanese, adding […]

‘Prediction markets’ set to pay out $450M to election bettors

Connie Loizos — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:02:01 +0000

Following Donald Trump’s election victory, thousands of bettors anticipate a potential $450 million payout from online betting sites, says Reuters. As Trump’s odds surged on so-called prediction markets near the end of the race, platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket gained attention for diverging sharply from traditional polls, which suggested a much closer race. Talking with […]

SpaceX to launch Starship for the sixth time this month

Aria Alamalhodaei — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 22:37:53 +0000

SpaceX will conduct the sixth flight test of Starship, the largest rocket ever built, as soon as November 18, following the smooth success of the previous mission less than a month ago. The high flight cadence is thanks, in part, to that success, which included the first-ever return of the Super Heavy booster to the […]

iRobot lays off another 105 employees

Aisha Malik — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 22:21:23 +0000

Roomba maker iRobot is laying off 105 employees — about 16% of the company’s workforce, per an SEC filing — saying the cuts are part of an “operational restructuring plan.” The move comes after iRobot slashed roughly 350 jobs — about 31% of its workforce — earlier this year. Those cuts were made after plans […]

Apple iOS 18.2 public beta arrives with new AI features, but some remain waitlisted

Sarah Perez — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 21:38:43 +0000

Apple has released the AI-powered version of its latest mobile operating system, iOS 18.2, to its public beta users. The update includes new features like an AI emoji generator app called Genmoji, an Image Playground AI image app, ChatGPT integration with Siri, and visual search using the iPhone 16 cameras, among other things. Previously, these […]

The FTC comes after neobank Dave for misleading marketing, hidden fees

Sarah Perez — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 20:06:57 +0000

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Tuesday that it will be taking action against the online cash app and neobank Dave, which it says used “misleading marketing to deceive consumers.” At issue is how Dave marketed $500 cash advances to consumers that it rarely offered, and the “Express Fee” it charged if customers wanted […]

The other election night winner: Perplexity

Maxwell Zeff — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 19:54:10 +0000

On Tuesday, two AI startups tried convincing the world their AI chatbots were good enough to be an accurate, real-time source of information during a high-stakes presidential election: xAI and Perplexity. Elon Musk’s Grok failed almost instantly, offering wrong answers about races’ outcomes before the polls had even closed. On the other hand, Perplexity offered […]

OpenAI acquired Chat.com

Kyle Wiggers — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 19:11:11 +0000

OpenAI bought Chat.com, adding to its collection of high-profile domain names. As of this morning, Chat.com now redirects to OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot, ChatGPT. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the acquisition via email. Chat.com is one of the older domains on the web, having been registered in September 1996. Last year, it was reported that HubSpot co-founder […]

What Trump’s win might mean for Elon Musk

Rebecca Bellan, Aria Alamalhodaei — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 18:51:03 +0000

Elon Musk — the billionaire CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, and the owner of The Boring Company, Neuralink, and X — took a sharp swing to the right this election to support President-elect Donald Trump, using his vast wealth, influence, and megaphone on X to influence the outcome of the election. Musk’s support came […]

This Week in AI: It’s shockingly easy to make a Kamala Harris deepfake

Kyle Wiggers — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 18:05:00 +0000

Hiya, folks, welcome to TechCrunch’s regular AI newsletter. If you want this in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. It was shockingly easy to create a convincing Kamala Harris audio deepfake on Election Day. It cost me $5 and took less than two minutes, illustrating how cheap, ubiquitous generative AI has opened the floodgates to […]

Pinstripe wants to redefine the way online sellers sell secondhand clothing

Lauren Forristal — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 17:58:57 +0000

Pinstripe aims to reimagine the secondhand market by offering sellers the opportunity to have both a digital storefront and a physical retail presence. Launched in June, the platform offers an alternative approach compared with other marketplaces like Archive, Depop, Facebook Marketplace, and Poshmark. With Pinstripe, sellers take their clothes to local consignment stores, vintage shops, […]

What Trump’s victory could mean for AI regulation

Kyle Wiggers — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 17:39:22 +0000

A grueling election cycle has come to a close. Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the U.S., and, with Republicans in control of the Senate — and possibly the House — his allies are poised to bring sea change to the highest levels of government. The effects will be acutely felt in the […]

AI coding assistants can help startups develop products, seed VCs believe

Julie Bort — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 16:00:00 +0000

By now, there’s hardly a coder in the world who isn’t using an AI copilot in some way. But using GitHub Copilot or Cursor.AI to ask technical questions and get debugging help could be just the beginning. AI coding may one day involve agents that can write the programs themselves based on a natural language […]

How Trump’s election could affect the startup-friendly Inflation Reduction Act

Tim De Chant — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 15:59:18 +0000

While Trump's administration is unlikely to be supportive of certain climate tech startups, it will have a harder time ending the broadly popular law.

‘For You’ feeds fail on election night, offering outdated information, angering users

Sarah Perez — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 15:49:06 +0000

“For You” algorithms that promote the most interesting content across a social network, personalized to the individual user, offered a disjointed, outdated, and nearly unusable experience on election night in the U.S. as they highlighted hours-old posts that no longer reflected the current state of the race. Frustrations were particularly high on Threads, Meta’s X […]

Lyft partners with May Mobility, Mobileye to bring autonomous vehicles to the app

Rebecca Bellan — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0000

It seems Lyft is hoping to catch up to Uber’s string of autonomous vehicle partnerships. Lyft announced Wednesday three separate partnerships — with startup May Mobility, automated driving company Mobileye, and smart dashcam firm Nexar — all aimed at establishing a foothold in the emerging autonomous vehicle market. In the announcement, the ride-hailing company said […]

Faber launches third VC fund with $34M first close, aims for $64M

Mike Butcher — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 13:36:31 +0000

The startup ecosystem in the Iberian Peninsula — the region encompassing Spain and Portugal — has been on a roll the last couple of years. The value of Spanish startups surpassed €100 billion in 2023, according to Dealroom data, with venture investment of €2.2 billion across some 850 rounds. Meanwhile, Portugal has produced a slew of […]

MoradaUno wants to make it easier to rent apartments in Mexico

Rebecca Szkutak — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Renting in Latin America is restrictive. Most landlords require three months of rent as a deposit and a guarantor that owns property in the same city to co-sign the lease. Santiago Morales, the co-founder and CEO of proptech MoradaUno, said this dynamic makes 40% of prospective renters ineligible. His company wants to get more tenants […]