Seven years ago, Uber and Lyft blocked an effort to require ride-hailing app drivers to get fingerprinted in California. But by launching Uber for Teens earlier this year, the company inadvertently resurfaced the issue. Now a broader debate is underway as startups, Uber, and California regulators hash out when a transportation service should be required […]
Fast food chain Whataburger’s app has gone viral in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, which left around 1.8 million utility customers in Houston, Texas without power. Hundreds of thousands of those people may remain without power for days as Houston anticipates a heat wave, with temperatures climbing into the mid-90s. Amid frustrations with the local […]
Bumble is asking its users to help keep the dating app free from AI-generated profiles. On Tuesday, the company introduced a new reporting option that enables members to report profiles if they suspect someone could be using AI-generated photos and videos. Now when a user wants to report a profile, they can choose “Fake profile” […]
Airchat, a social app built around voice messages, is pivoting after it launched in April. Airchat now looks like an asynchronous Clubhouse: You join channels for specific topics, then record voice messages or videos to respond to other people in that channel. If you want to move a thread out from the main conversation, you […]
Henrik Fisker once envisioned a burgeoning EV empire at the startup he named after himself, which was to be led by the Ocean SUV. But cracks started showing in that vision almost as soon as the Ocean hit the road in 2023. Fisker cut production targets multiple times, failed to meet sales goals and laid […]
Mastodon, Bluesky, Nostr, Threads: Since Elon Musk’s 2022 acquisition of X, the app formerly known as Twitter, usage of X alternatives has continued to grow as people embrace decentralized social networking. Unfortunately, keeping up with all the new networks has not been easy, as they currently rely on different protocols that don’t interoperate. That’s a […]
Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! Last week was a holiday in the United States, so news was a bit lighter than normal. But there was still fintech-related items to report, including the ongoing drama around Synapse and partner Evolve Bank, Revolut’s record year and more. To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech […]
Fisker Inc. co-founders Henrik Fisker and his wife, Geeta Gupta-Fisker, are lowering their salaries to $1 in order to keep their failed EV startup’s bankruptcy proceedings funded, as lawyers work to complete a sale of its remaining inventory. Fisker Inc.’s restructuring officer, John DiDonato, said in a Tuesday morning filing that the couple, who co-founded […]
After announcing a whopping $20 million seed last year, Unlikely AI‘s founder William Tunstall-Pedoe has kept the budding UK foundation model maker’s approach under lock and key. Until now: TechCrunch can exclusively reveal it’s taking a “neuro-symbolic” approach to its AI. In an additional development, it’s announcing two senior hires — including the former CTO […]
Florida man is back with a vengeance, and this time, he’s going after Walmart delivery drones. Yes, really. Walmart was demonstrating its delivery drone technology in Clermont, Florida – about twenty-five miles outside of Orlando – and a man allegedly shot the drone out of the sky when it flew near his house. Apparently, he […]