ChatGPT is a squeeze away with Nothing’s upgraded earbuds

Nothing today announced a pair of refreshes to its earbud line. The naming conventions are a touch convoluted here, but the Nothing Ear is an update to the Nothing Ear (2), while the Nothing Ear (a) is more of a spiritual successor to the Nothing Ear Stick. The most notable bit of today’s news, however, […]

Google fires 28 employees after sit-in protest over controversial Project Nimbus contract with Israel

Google has terminated the employment of 28 staff following a prolonged sit-in protest at the company’s Sunnyvale and New York offices. The employees were protesting against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract inked by Google and Amazon with the Israeli government and its military three years ago. The controversial project, which reportedly also […]

Orbex’s new funding may accelerate its Prime microlauncher into orbit

UK-based small launch developer Orbex got another boost from Scotland’s national bank and other investors as it gears up for its first orbital launch, though that mission still does not have a set date. Founded in 2015, Orbex is one of a handful of firms racing to develop the next generation of European launch vehicles. […]

Dailyhunt-parent acquires Apple News+ rival Magzter

VerSe Innovation, the parent firm of Indian news aggregator app Dailyhunt, has acquired the popular digital newsstand firm Magzter, the two said Thursday. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup has fully acquired Magzter, a New York-headquartered firm that counted Singapore Press Holdings among its backers. VerSe didn’t disclose the financial terms of the deal. The acquisition of Magzter, […]

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fines BloomTech for false claims

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said in an order on Tuesday that BloomTech, the for-profit coding bootcamp previously known as the Lambda School, deceived students about the cost of loans, made false claims about graduates’ hiring rates, and engaged in illegal lending masked as “income sharing” agreements with high fees. The order marks […]

7 Waymo robotaxis block traffic to San Francisco freeway on-ramp

Seven Waymo robotaxis blocked traffic moving onto the Potrero Avenue 101 on-ramp in San Francisco on Tuesday at 9:30 p.m., according to video of the incident posted to Reddit and confirmation from Waymo. While routing back to Waymo’s city depot that evening, the first robotaxi in the lineup came across a road closure with traffic […]

Ramp raises another $150M co-led by Khosla and Founders Fund at a $7.65B valuation

Spend management startup Ramp has raised another $150 million at a post-money valuation of $7.65 billion, the company confirmed to TechCrunch today. New investor Khosla Ventures and existing backer Founders Fund co-led the raise, which also included participation from new backers Sequoia Capital, Greylock and 8VC. Other existing investors Thrive Capital, General Catalyst, Sands Capital, […]

Alphabet X’s Bellwether harnesses AI to help predict natural disasters

The world is on fire. Quite literally, much of the time. Predicting such disasters before they get out of hand — or better yet, before they happen — will be key to maintaining a reasonable quality of life for the coming century. It’s a big, global issue. It’s also one Alphabet believes it can help […]

Don’t blame MKBHD for the fate of Humane AI and Fisker

Humane AI raised more than $230 million before it even shipped a product. And when it finally released its Ai Pin – which costs $699 plus a $24 monthly subscription – pretty much every tech reviewer came to the same disappointing realization: this much-hyped product, which promises to disrupt the smartphone’s dominance, is not very […]