When we gather ’round the proverbial fire and exchange our online dating war stories, we’re usually talking about the usual suspects: Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, Grindr, and sometimes more niche apps like Lex. But ever since Facebook Dating launched in 2019, I’m not sure I have ever heard a tale that began there — I know…
Lawmakers have called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Flock Safety, a company that operates license plate-scanning cameras, for allegedly failing to implement cybersecurity protections that expose its camera network to hackers and spies. In a letter sent by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL, 8th), the lawmakers urge FTC chairman…
Solo VC investor extraordinaire Elad Gil said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt that AI has been one of the least predictable tech booms he’s ever seen. Gil is on the cap table of virtually every hit company of the past decade, including many of today’s leading AI companies. Still, he thinks that over the last…
Andreessen Horowitz is pausing its Talent x Opportunity (TxO) fund and program, according to four sources familiar with the matter, including more than one founder in the program. The firm announced TxO in 2020 to support founders who do not have access to traditional venture networks. Many of TxO’s participants were women and minorities who, overall, receive very slim amounts of venture…
Apple has redesigned the web interface for its App Store, making it actually usable for people who aren’t viewing the store on Apple devices. Before this update, users could see individual pages for apps on the web — which they probably found via a search engine — but there was no way to browse within…
Waymo said Monday it will launch a robotaxi service in Detroit, Las Vegas, and San Diego as the Alphabet-owned company hits the accelerator on its expansion plans. The announcement illustrates Waymo’s recent evolution from autonomous vehicle technology developer to commercial enterprise. It also follows comments by Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana, who said last week during…
U.S. prosecutors have charged two rogue employees of a cybersecurity company that specializes in negotiating ransom payments to hackers on behalf of their victims, with carrying out ransomware attacks of their own. Last month, the Department of Justice indicted Kevin Tyler Martin and another unnamed employee, who both worked as ransomware negotiators at DigitalMint, with…
Meta on Monday announced an update to Facebook Groups that will allow admins to make their previously private groups public, without compromising the privacy of their existing members. The company said that past content will remain private after the conversion, and member lists will remain protected. Often, admins start their groups as private, thinking they…
The AI web browser Dia is drawing inspiration from its predecessor, Arc, an earlier experiment in modernizing the web browsing experience that hailed from the startup known as The Browser Company. On Sunday, The Browser Company founder Josh Miller confirmed that the new AI browser will bring “Arc’s greatest hits” to Dia, including things like…
OpenAI isn’t done securing the AI infrastructure it needs to rapidly scale agentic workloads. The ChatGPT-maker on Monday said it has reached a deal with Amazon to buy $38 billion in cloud computing services over the next seven years. OpenAI said it will immediately start using AWS compute, with all capacity targeted to be…
