US car dealerships face ongoing outage after CDK cyberattacks

Auto retailers and car dealerships across the U.S. are facing another day of outages after a second cyberattack hit tech company CDK Global, which develops software used for managing auto customers and their vehicles. In a message from CDK sent to customers Thursday, the company said the additional cyberattack late Wednesday may result in extended […]

Instagram now lets users livestream exclusively to their Close Friends list

Instagram is introducing the ability for users to broadcast live to just their Close Friends list, the company announced on Thursday. The new “Close Friends on Live” feature allows users to go live with up to three other people. Instagram says the new feature can be used to share what’s on your mind, spontaneously catch […]

Announcing the agenda for the Space Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024

We’re out-of-this-world excited to announce that we’ve added a dedicated Space Stage to TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. It joins Fintech, SaaS and AI as the other industry-focused stages — all under one big roof. And we’re excited to share we’ll be hosting a pitch competition this year “The Space Challenge, powered by Aerospace” as part of […]

PayPal Ventures leads $20M round into Gynger, which offers companies ‘buy now, pay later’ for technology purchases

Gynger, a platform that lends capital to companies for technology purchases, has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by PayPal Ventures, it told TechCrunch exclusively. The financing brings the New York-based startup’s total venture capital raised to $31.7 million and included participation from Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI-focused venture fund), Velvet Sea Ventures, […]

Anthropic claims its latest model is best-in-class

OpenAI rival Anthropic is releasing a powerful new generative AI model called Claude 3.5 Sonnet. But it’s more an incremental step than a monumental leap forward. Claude 3.5 Sonnet can analyze both text and images as well as generate text, and it’s Anthropic’s best-performing model yet — at least on paper. Across several AI benchmarks […]

Pocket FM partners with ElevenLabs to convert scripts into audio content quickly

Lightspeed Ventures-backed audio platform Pocket FM announced it has partnered with voice-cloning company ElevenLabs to quickly convert text content, such as script, into audio series using AI. Pocket FM, which raised $103 million in Series D funding in March, told TechCrunch at the time that it was already experimenting with the ability to convert text […]

Roots introduces a screen time app for tracking ‘digital dopamine’

As the U.S. Surgeon General is calling for a warning label on social media sites, similar to those found on tobacco products, one startup is launching a set of new tools that put the power to fight app addiction into users’ own hands. Designed for iOS, Roots offers an improvement over traditional screen-time apps by […]

Materia looks to make accountants more efficient with AI 

The U.S. is facing an accountant shortage. Fewer first-time candidates took the CPA exam in 2022 than in 2006, according to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. One possible reason people aren’t as interested in the field is the large amount of drudge work involved: Accountants have to rifle through large amounts of unstructured […]