Lawmakers vote to reauthorize US spying law that critics say expands government surveillance

Lawmakers passed legislation early Saturday reauthorizing and expanding a controversial U.S. surveillance law shortly after the powers expired at midnight, rejecting opposition by privacy advocates and lawmakers. The bill, which passed on a 60-34 vote, reauthorizes powers known as Section 702 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the government to collect the […]

Women in AI: Allison Cohen on building responsible AI projects

To give AI-focused women academics and others their well-deserved — and overdue — time in the spotlight, TechCrunch is launching a series of interviews focusing on remarkable women who’ve contributed to the AI revolution. We’ll publish several pieces throughout the year as the AI boom continues, highlighting key work that often goes unrecognized. Read more profiles […]

India’s election overshadowed by the rise of online misinformation

As India kicks off the world’s biggest election, which starts on April 19 and runs through June 1, the electoral landscape is overshadowed by misinformation. The country — which has more than 830 million internet users and is home to the largest user base for social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram — is already […]

CesiumAstro claims former exec spilled trade secrets to upstart competitor AnySignal

CesiumAstro alleges in a newly filed lawsuit that a former executive disclosed trade secrets and confidential information about sensitive tech, investors, and customers to a competing startup. Austin-based Cesium develops active phased array and software-defined radio systems for spacecraft, missiles, and drones. While phased array antenna systems have been used on satellites for decades, Cesium […]

Your Android phone could have stalkerware — here’s how to remove it

Consumer-grade spyware apps that covertly and continually monitor your private messages, photos, phone calls and real-time location are a growing problem for Android users. This guide can help you identify and remove common surveillance apps from your Android phone, including TheTruthSpy, KidsGuard and other apps. READ OUR EXCLUSIVE INVESTIGATION Consumer-grade spyware apps are frequently sold […]

Too many models | TechCrunch

How many AI models is too many? It depends on how you look at it, but 10 a week is probably a bit much. That’s roughly how many we’ve seen roll out in the last few days, and it’s increasingly hard to say whether and how these models compare to one another, if it was […]

Post News, the a16z-funded Twitter alternative, is shutting down

Post News, a microblogging site that emerged in the days after Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition, is shutting down just a year and a half after launching in beta. Founder Noam Bardin, previously CEO of Waze, broke the news in a post on Friday. “At the end of the day, our service is not growing fast […]

Startups Weekly: Is the wind going out of the AI sails?

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. After years of booming growth, the AI industry is now experiencing a significant slowdown in investment, as detailed in a recent report from Stanford’s Institute for […]

MarketForce winds down its B2B e-commerce arm

Kenyan B2B e-commerce company MarketForce is winding down its B2B e-commerce business that served informal merchants (mom-and-pop stores) after a turbulent two-year period that saw it scale down operations severely. The shutdown of the B2B e-commerce arm dubbed RejaReja comes months after MarketForce withdrew the service from all its markets, including Nigeria and Kenya, save […]