International News

International

Waymo suspends service in San Francisco as robotaxis stall during blackout

Waymo suspended its robotaxi service in San Francisco on Saturday evening after a massive blackout appeared to leave many of its vehicles stalled on city streets. Waymo said on Saturday …

International

As EU waters down 2035 EV goals, electric startups express concern

The future may be electric, but that future is being postponed. The European Commission, citing the need for flexibility, has softened its ambitious plan to ban the sale of gas-powered …

International

Israel’s famed VC Jon Medved, diagnosed with ALS, backed the tech that will improve his life

Years ago, when venture capitalist Jon Medved took an interest in backing various health tech startups, he had no idea that one day, he would need them to improve his …

International

Google and Apple reportedly warn employees on visas to avoid international travel

BI says it has viewed memos from BAL Immigration Law (which represents Google) and Fragomen (which represents Apple). “Given the recent updates and the possibility of unpredictable, extended delays when …

International

‘It felt so wrong’: Colin Angle on iRobot, the FTC, and the Amazon deal that never was

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. TC: You called the bankruptcy “avoidable” and a “tragedy for consumers.” Walk me through what you think regulators got wrong in …

International

New York Governor Kathy Hochul signs RAISE Act to regulate AI safety

Governor Kathy Hochul has signed the RAISE Act, positioning New York as the second U.S. state to enact major AI safety legislation. The bill will require large AI developers to …

International

Sequoia partner spreads debunked Brown shooting theory, testing new leadership

Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire is once again drawing unwanted attention to the prominent venture firm after falsely accusing a Palestinian student of being behind the December 13 Brown University …

International

Ex-Splunk execs’ startup Resolve AI hits $1 billion valuation with Series A

Resolve AI, a startup developing an autonomous site reliability engineer (SRE), a tool that automatically maintains software systems, has raised a Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, according to …

International

Rocket Lab wins another defense-related space contract

Rocket Lab has won an $816 million contract — its largest to date — with the U.S. Space Development Agency as the company continues to diversify beyond its “rocket company” …

International

Building venture-backable companies in heavily regulated spaces

In this episode, we’re talking about life and death and how regulatory clearance doesn’t have to be a damper on innovation but it will elongate timelines and require careful planning …

International

Former Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario resigns from Rivian’s board

Rivian wrote in the filing that Marcario’s last day will be on January 1, and that she is leaving “to focus on other commitments.” Rivian’s board will shrink from eight …

International

Where are investors placing their bets next year? AI, AI, AI.

Investors at TechCrunch Disrupt did not shy away from admitting they are interested in mainly one thing: artificial intelligence. Nina Achadjian from Index, Jerry Chen from Greylock, and Peter Deng …

International

Cursor continues acquisition spree with Graphite deal

AI coding assistant Cursor announced that it has acquired Graphite, a startup that uses AI to review and debug code. Although the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Axios …

International

Elon Musk’s $56B Tesla pay package restored by Delaware Supreme Court

The state supreme court’s decision likely draws to a close a years-long battle that left such a bad taste in Musk’s mouth that he moved Tesla’s incorporation from Delaware to …

International

Anonymous messaging app NGL was acquired by ‘EarnPhone’ startup Mode Mobile

NGL also came under fire for its shady growth hacking tactics, like sending fake messages to users that seemed like they were from real people but were actually automated by …

International

Hundreds of Cisco customers are vulnerable to new Chinese hacking campaign, researchers say

Cisco has not said how many of its customers have already been hacked, or may be running vulnerable systems. Now, security researchers say there are hundreds of Cisco customers who …

International

Yann LeCun confirms his new ‘world model’ startup, reportedly seeks $5B+ valuation

The press release also confirms what everyone knew as well: that AMI Labs is working on world model AI. This is an alternative to LLMs where the AI attempts to …

International

Netflix is betting on podcasts to become the new daytime talk show

When you tune in to a podcast, you’re probably not opening the Netflix app — at least for now. “As people begin to spend less time watching traditional television, and …

International

OpenAI adds new teen safety rules to ChatGPT as lawmakers weigh AI standards for minors

In its latest effort to address growing concerns about AI’s impact on young people, OpenAI on Thursday updated its guidelines for how its AI models should behave with users under …

International

Tech provider for NHS England confirms data breach

DXS International, a U.K.-based company that provides healthcare tech for England’s National Health Service (NHS), disclosed a cyberattack in a statement on Thursday. “There was minimal impact on the company’s …

International

Coursera and Udemy enter a merger agreement valued at around $2.5B

Coursera will acquire Udemy in an all-stock transaction, marking a pivotal moment in online education. The companies said the merger will be finalized in the second half of next year, …

International

Google’s vibe-coding tool Opal comes to Gemini

Google notes that the visual editor also includes a new view in Gemini that will take the user’s written prompts and turn them into a list of steps. This makes …

International

Google tests an email-based productivity assistant

Productivity is one space where companies keep wanting to experiment with AI assistants in the hope that they will save time for users, and as a result, they will want …

International

Lidar-maker Luminar files for bankruptcy

The company aims to sell off its lidar business during the bankruptcy proceeding, and has already reached a deal to sell its semiconductor subsidiary. While the company will continue to …

International

How iRobot lost its way home

There’s something painfully American about the arc of iRobot, the company that taught your vacuum to navigate around the furniture. Founded in 1990 in Bedford, Massachusetts by MIT roboticist Rodney …

International

Canadian peer-to-Peer clothing rental company Rax is expanding to the U.S.

Marley Alles started out in accounting. She thought that her dream was to work at a big company. “And then once I got there, I was like ‘oh, that’s it,” …

International

Instagram brings Reels to the big screen, starting with Amazon Fire TV

Instagram is expanding Reels-viewing beyond mobile, the social network announced on Tuesday. The company is piloting IG for TV, a new experience that lets you watch Reels on TV, starting …

International

Apple TV adds support for Google Cast even as Netflix ditches the feature

Apple is making it easier for Android users to watch Apple TV content on the big screen. The company on Monday said the Apple TV app for Android will now …

International

Hacking group says it’s extorting Pornhub after stealing users’ viewing data

The hacking group Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, which includes members of a gang known as ShinyHunters, said it is attempting to extort porn site Pornhub, after claiming to have stolen personal …

International

India’s Digantara raises $50M for space-based missile defence tech

Founded in 2020, the Bengaluru-headquartered startup initially focused on space situational awareness, tracking debris and objects that could damage satellites. The startup has since expanded its scope to include missile …

International

Databricks raises $4B at $134B valuation as its AI business heats up

This is Databricks’ third major venture fundraise in less than a year, and it comes as the company focuses on building products that address the needs of the AI revolution: …

International

Adobe Firefly now supports prompt-based video editing, adds more third-party models

Adobe is updating its AI video-generation app, Firefly, with a new video editor that supports precise prompt-based edits, as well as adding new third-party models for image and video generation, …

International

Nuclear startup Last Energy raises $100M for its steel-encased micro reactor

After years in the wilderness, it’s a good time to be a nuclear startup. “For the first half a decade that I was telling people I was doing nuclear, I …

International

Everbloom built an AI to turn chicken feathers into cashmere

Cashmere sweaters are everywhere these days, often at unbelievably low prices. The appeal is obvious: if you’ve ever worn cashmere, you know it’s soft, light, and warm — an impressive …

International

Solo VC and Lovable investor Neil Murray raises third Nordic-focused fund

The Nordic red-hot startup movement continues. On Tuesday, Neil Murray, founder and general partner at Copenhagen-based firm The Nordic Web Ventures, announced the close of a $6 million Fund III …

International

VCs discuss why most consumer AI startups still lack staying power

Even three years after the generative AI boom started, most AI startups are still making money by selling to businesses, not individual consumers. Although consumers quickly adopted general-purpose LLMs like …

International

OpenAI-backed biotech firm Chai Discovery raises $130M Series B at $1.3B valuation

The round was led by General Catalyst and Oak HC/FT, the company said. Other participants include Menlo Ventures, OpenAI, Dimension, Thrive Capital, Neo, Yosemite venture fund, Lachy Groom, SV Angel, …

International

I hate that I love Riverside’s AI-driven ‘Rewind’ for podcasters

Instead of sharing statistics like how many minutes you recorded, or how many episodes you made, Riverside created a 15-second collage of laughter, showing a quick succession of clips in …

International

Disney’s OpenAI deal is exclusive for just one year — then it’s open season

The deal gives OpenAI a high-profile content partner, allowing users to draw on more than 200 characters from Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars to create content on Sora. For …

International

Nvidia bulks up open source offerings with an acquisition and new open AI models

Nvidia continues to expand its footprint in open source AI on two fronts: an acquisition and a new model release. Slurm was originally launched in 2002 and SchedMD was founded …

International

Ford is starting a battery storage business to power data centers and the grid

Ford said Monday that instead of scuttling plans to build the batteries for those vehicles, it will pivot that capacity into a new battery storage business. Those storage systems, which …

International

Ford’s next F-150 Lightning will have a gas generator as it pivots away from large EVs

Ford is ending production of the fully-electric F-150 Lightning as part of a broader companywide shakeup of its electric vehicle plans, the company announced Monday. In its place, Ford will …

International

Creative Commons announces tentative support for AI ‘pay-to-crawl’ systems

Now, the nonprofit is tentatively backing pay-to-crawl systems, saying it is “cautiously supportive.” In the past, websites freely allowed web crawlers to index their content for inclusion into search engines …

International

Lightspeed raises record $9B in fresh capital

The firm has also positioned itself as a predominantly AI-focused investor. Lightspeed claims to have backed 165 AI-native companies, including Anthropic, xAI, Databricks, Mistral, Glean, Abridge, and Skild AI. Lightspeed’s …

International

Merriam-Webster names ‘slop’ the word of the year

AI’s impact on our social media feeds has not gone unnoticed by one of America’s top dictionaries. Amidst the onslaught of content that has swept the web over the past …

International

DoorDash driver faces felony charges after allegedly spraying customers’ food

A woman is facing felony charges in Evansville, Indiana over a DoorDash delivery in which she allegedly sprayed the food with a substance that made the customers vomit. The sheriff’s …

International

With iOS 26.2, Apple lets you roll back Liquid Glass again — this time on the Lock Screen

Apple is releasing another tool to dial down Liquid Glass’ transparency with its release of iOS 26.2, out now. With the update, users will be able to control the transparency …

International

Google launched its deepest AI research agent yet — on the same day OpenAI dropped GPT-5.2

The new Gemini Deep Research tool is an agent equipped to synthesize mountains of information and handle a large context dump in the prompt. Google says it’s used by customers …

International

Disney hits Google with cease-and-desist claiming ‘massive’ copyright infringement

Disney is accusing the tech giant of copyright infringement on a “massive scale,” claiming it has used AI models and services to commercially distribute unauthorized images and videos, according to …

International

OpenAI fires back at Google with GPT-5.2 after ‘code red’ memo

OpenAI launched its latest frontier model, GPT-5.2, on Thursday amid increasing competition from Google, pitching it as its most advanced model yet and one designed for developers and everyday professional …

International

Google debuts ‘Disco,’ a Gemini-powered tool for making web apps from browser tabs

For instance, if you’re studying a particular subject, GenTabs might suggest building a web app to visualize the information, which could help you better understand the core principles. Or, in …

International

Marco Rubio bans Calibri font at State Department for being too DEI

Calibri, which is a sans-serif font, was apparently adopted in 2023 during Biden’s tenure. It was chosen by the department’s then-DEI office, which has since been disbanded under Rubio amid …