Kilimo helps farmers save water and get paid for it

When people think about the water they use, they tend to think about drinking water out of the tap or maybe their daily shower. But about 70% of the water we use goes toward growing the crops that feed us, a number that swells to as high as 90% in low-income countries. Finding water for […]

Fisker failed because it wasn’t ready to be a car company

Two years ago, an employee at Fisker Inc. told me that the most pressing concern inside the EV startup was not whether its Ocean SUV would get built. Fisker was outsourcing the manufacturing of its first EV to highly respected automotive supplier Magna, after all. The startup’s November 2022 start-of-production target was aggressive, but not […]

FTC refers TikTok child privacy case to Justice Department

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced on Tuesday that it has referred a complaint against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance to the Department of Justice. The agency was investigating the company over potential violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Act and was looking into whether TikTok violated a law that prohibits “unfair and deceptive” business […]

iOS 18 could ‘sherlock’ $400M in app revenue

Apple’s practice of leveraging ideas from its third-party developer community to become new iOS and Mac features and apps has a hefty price tag, a new report indicates. With the release of iOS 18 later this fall, Apple’s changes may affect apps that today have an estimated $393 million in revenue and have been downloaded […]

Snap previews its real-time image model that can generate AR experiences

At the Augmented World Expo on Tuesday, Snap teased an early version of its real-time, on-device image diffusion model that can generate vivid AR experiences. The company also unveiled generative AI tools for AR creators. Snap co-founder and CTO Bobby Murphy said on-stage that the model is small enough to run on a smartphone and […]

Security bug allows anyone to spoof Microsoft employee emails

A researcher has found a bug that allows anyone to impersonate Microsoft corporate email accounts, making phishing attempts look credible and more likely to trick their targets.  As of this writing, the bug has not been patched. To demonstrate the bug, the researcher sent an email to TechCrunch that looked like it was sent from […]

Unit and Loop lay off staff and Brex ditches co-CEO model

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at layoffs at BaaS startup Unit and car insurance company Loop, as well as Brex’s decision to abandon its co-CEO model, Apple killing its Pay Later feature, and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday […]

Genspark is the latest attempt at an AI-powered search engine

Move over, Perplexity. There’s a new AI-powered search engine in town — and its creators think it can best the many, many other attempts out there. Called Genspark, the platform taps generative AI to write custom summaries in response to search queries. Type in a search like, “What’s the best baby formula for newborns?” and […]