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AI site Perplexity uses “stealth tactics” to flout no-crawl edicts, Cloudflare says

AI search engine Perplexity is using stealth bots and other tactics to evade websites’ no-crawl directives, an allegation that if true violates Internet norms that have been in place for more than three decades, network security and optimization service Cloudflare said Monday. In a blog post, Cloudflare researchers said the company received complaints from customers who had disallowed Perplexity scraping bots by implementing settings in their sites’ robots.txt files and through Web application

In This Look Inside the New ‘Bad Batch’ Novel, the Emperor’s Name Counts for a Lot

From Rebels to Andor, we’ve met different types of people that make up the Empire’s sinister intelligence forces in the Imperial Security Bureau. We’ve seen agents like Kallus realize the extent of their role in the Empire’s evil, and agents like Dedra Meero consumed by the system they created. Now, in the latest Star Wars novel, we’re going to meet an agent learning a very difficult lesson: the long arm of Imperial law doesn’t apply to some people, whether they like it or not. That’s the troub

Lyft and Baidu plan to bring their robotaxis to the UK and Germany next year

Lyft and Baidu have shed more light on their plan for a worldwide fleet of autonomous vehicles . After the first rollouts — which are earmarked for Asia and the Middle East later this year — the companies have their designs set on Europe. They're aiming to deploy robotaxis in the UK and Germany in 2026, as long as they get approval from regulators. The goal is to then expand the European fleet to thousands of vehicles across the continent in the following years. Baidu is using its sixth-generat

OpenAI says ChatGPT is on track to reach 700M weekly users

ChatGPT’s impressive growth as a consumer app continues as the chatbot is on track to hit 700 million weekly active users this week, the company says. The app had earlier reached 500 million weekly active users as of the end of March, noted Nick Turley, OpenAI VP and head of ChatGPT’s app, in a post on X. He also said the app has grown 4x since last year. “Every day, people and teams are learning, creating, and solving harder problems. Big week ahead. Grateful to the team for making ChatGPT mo

OpenMind wants to be the Android operating system of humanoid robots

Many companies are focused on building robots, or the hardware components to help them move, grip objects, or interact with the world around them. OpenMind is focused under the hood. The Silicon Valley-based startup is building a software layer, called OM1, for humanoid robots that acts as an operating system. The company compares itself to being the Android for robotics because its software is open and hardware agnostic. Stanford professor Jan Liphardt, the founder of OpenMind, told TechCrunc

Baidu plans to expand its robotaxis to Europe with Lyft deal

Baidu will bring its driverless taxis to Europe next year via a partnership with U.S. ridehailing firm Lyft , as the Chinese tech giant looks to expand its autonomous vehicles globally. The robotaxis will initially be deployed in the U.K. and Germany from 2026 with the aim to have "thousands" of vehicles across Europe in the "following years," the two companies said. Lyft has had very little presence in Europe until last week when it closed the acquisition of Germany-based ride hailing company

Paid subreddits plan on hold as company prioritizes search engine plans

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman confirmed plans for paid subreddits earlier this year but now says that the initiative has been de–prioritized. However, he says that the company still believes in the opportunity, suggesting that a Reddit paywall of some kind will be introduced at some stage … Paid subreddits plan Huffman first hinted at the plan last year, but didn’t go into any details. We will unlock the door for new use cases, new types of subreddits that can be built that may have exclusive con

Airbnb guest says host used AI-generated images in false $9,000 damages claim

WTF?! One of the many fears about AI use becoming widespread is that people can now alter images – sometimes convincingly – without any technical skills. An example of this surfaced recently when an Airbnb guest said a host manipulated photos in a false £12,000 ($9,041) damage claim. The incident took place earlier this year when a London-based woman booked a one-bedroom apartment in New York's Manhattan for two-and-a-half months while she was studying, reports The Guardian. She decided to leav

A dedicated skin-to-brain circuit for cool sensation in mice

Researchers at the University of Michigan have illuminated a complete sensory pathway showing how the skin communicates the temperature of its surroundings to the brain. This discovery, believed to be the first of its kind, reveals that cool temperatures get their own pathway, indicating that evolution has created different circuits for hot and cold temperatures. This creates an elegant solution for ensuring precise thermal perception and appropriate behavioral responses to environmental change

'A black hole': New graduates discover a dismal job market

Recent graduates looking to enter an increasingly shaky labor market are painting a dire picture of their job search: “A black hole,” one said. “I’m disheartened,” said another. “I almost feel like it wasn’t worth going to school,” said a third. NBC News asked people who recently finished technical school, college or graduate school how their job application process was going, and in more than 100 responses, the graduates described months spent searching for a job, hundreds of applications and

Topics: 000 job jobs said school

Figma CEO's path from college dropout and Thiel fellow to tech billionaire

In this article FIG Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Dylan Field, co-founder and CEO of Figma, signs the guestbook on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York on July 31, 2025. Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images Mark Zuckerberg may be the most famous college-dropout-turned-tech-billionaire. Dylan Field is the latest, after his design startup Figma soared in its stock market debut this week. The two entrepreneurs have something else in common: close ties to Pete

The uproar over Vogue’s AI-generated ad isn’t just about fashion

Sarah Murray recalls the first time she saw an artificial model in fashion: It was 2023, and a beautiful young woman of color donned a Levi’s denim overall dress. Murray, a commercial model herself, said it made her feel sad and exhausted. The iconic denim company had teamed up with the AI studio Lalaland.ai to create “diverse” digital fashion models for more inclusive ads. For an industry that has failed for years to employ diverse human models, the backlash was swift, with New York Magazine c

Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

“A lot of factors contributed to this, but speed limits are one of the most important,” said Roni Utriainen , traffic engineer with the city’s Urban Environment Division. Authorities described the milestone as exceptional and credited long-term planning, targeted infrastructure changes, and lower speed limits. Helsinki has completed an entire year without a single traffic-related fatality, according to city and police officials. The last recorded death occurred in early July 2024 in the Kontul

Ethereum turns 10: From scrappy experiment to Wall Street’s invisible backbone

watch now CANNES — Ten years ago, Vitalik Buterin and a small band of developers huddled in a drafty Berlin loft strung with dangling lightbulbs, laptops balanced on mismatched chairs and chipped tables. They weren't corporate titans or venture-backed founders — just idealists working long nights to push a radical idea into reality. From that sparse office, they launched "Frontier," Ethereum 's first live network. It was bare-bones — no interface, no polish, nothing user-friendly. But it could

ThinkPad designer David Hill on unreleased models

Interview Launched in 1992, the boxy black ThinkPad with its little red nub remains the quintessential business productivity notebook. Unlike commercial offerings from competitors such as Dell and HP, Lenovo's laptop has a following of people who collect old models and celebrate each new innovation. If you bought a ThinkPad between 1995 and 2017, it was probably designed under the oversight of David W. Hill, who served as lead designer under both IBM and Lenovo for those 22 years. We caught up

How Florida quietly surpassed California in solar growth

Solar energy is booming across the U.S. and, for the first time, Florida is catching up to industry powerhouses Texas and California. Despite removing climate change from its official state policy in 2024, Florida added more utility-scale solar than California last year, with over 3 gigawatts of new capacity coming online. "This is not a fluke," said Sylvia Leyva Martinez, senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie. "Florida is now shaping national solar growth." The surge is being driven by utilities,

ThinkPad designer David Hill spills secrets, designs that never made it

Interview Launched in 1992, the boxy black ThinkPad with its little red nub remains the quintessential business productivity notebook. Unlike commercial offerings from competitors such as Dell and HP, Lenovo's laptop has a following of people who collect old models and celebrate each new innovation. If you bought a ThinkPad between 1995 and 2017, it was probably designed under the oversight of David W. Hill, who served as lead designer under both IBM and Lenovo for those 22 years. We caught up

What founders should think about if looking to raise a Series C

Startup founders face a perplexing and even contradictory capital market in 2025, according to Sapphire Ventures partner Cathy Gao. “Capital isn’t scarce. But access to that capital is harder than ever,” she said. Gao, who spoke at TechCrunch’s All Stage conference in July, said it’s possible for startup founders, especially those in later Series C stage, to navigate this particular economic environment. And they need to start with a reality check. To begin, she said, it’s important to note th

Tesla Found Partly Liable in 2019 Autopilot Death

A Miami jury found Tesla partially liable Friday in a 2019 crash that killed one person and injured another—all while the driver of the Model S used the automaker’s Autopilot driver assistance feature. The jury found Tesla liable for $200 million in punitive damages, plus an additional $43 million in compensatory damages. (Because of state laws, the company will likely end up paying less.) A jury found the automaker one-third responsible for the crash; it found the driver of the Tesla, who sett

Tesla partly liable in Florida Autopilot trial, jury awards $200M in damages

A jury in federal court in Miami has found Tesla partly to blame for a fatal 2019 crash that involved the use of the company’s Autopilot driver assistance system. The jury assessed punitive damages only against Tesla, CNBC reported. The punitive fines coupled with a compensatory damages puts the total payments to around $242.5 million. Neither the driver of the car nor the Autopilot system braked in time to avoid going through an intersection, where the car struck an SUV and killed a pedestr

Tim Cook holds company-wide meeting to address Apple’s AI woes

Just one day after revealing its financial results and fielding questions about Apple’s lag in AI, Tim Cook turned inward, holding what Bloomberg described as an ‘hourlong pep talk’ during a company-wide all-hands meeting. Here are the details. ‘Apple must do this. Apple will do this. This is sort of ours to grab’ As reported by Mark Gurman, Tim Cook held a company-wide meeting today at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park, and stated that “the AI revolution is ‘as big or bigger’ as the intern

Atlassian terminates 150 staff

Atlassian CEO and co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes sent the video titled “Restructuring the CSS Team: A Difficult Decision for Our Future” to staff on Wednesday morning (30 July), informing them that 150 staff had been made redundant. The video reportedly did not make it seem that the decision was difficult, but rather said it would allow its staff “to say goodbye”. The video itself did not announce who was leaving, but it told employees they would have to wait 15 minutes for an email about their

Tesla Found Partly Liable in 2019 Autopilot Death

A Miami jury found Tesla partially liable Friday in a 2019 crash that killed one person and injured another—all while the driver of the Model S used the automaker’s Autopilot driver assistance feature. The jury found Tesla liable for $200 million in punitive damages, plus an additional $43 million in compensatory damages. (Because of state laws, the company will likely end up paying less.) A jury found the automaker one-third responsible for the crash; it found the driver of the Tesla, who sett

Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

Los Angeles-based private equity firm Freeman Spogli & Co. is in the process of buying Philz Coffee for $145 million, according to documents shared with stockholders and obtained by Mission Local. Philz board members, which include former CEO Phil Jaber and his son, Jacob Jaber; representatives from investment firms Summit Partners and TPG Growth; and CEO Mahesh Sadarangani will receive payouts or bonuses from the deal. Those who hold common stock, like employees who bought stock during or aft

Atlassian terminates 150 staff with pre-recorded video

Atlassian CEO and co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes sent the video titled “Restructuring the CSS Team: A Difficult Decision for Our Future” to staff on Wednesday morning (30 July), informing them that 150 staff had been made redundant. The video reportedly did not make it seem that the decision was difficult, but rather said it would allow its staff “to say goodbye”. The video itself did not announce who was leaving, but it told employees they would have to wait 15 minutes for an email about their

Amazon stock sinks 8% after earnings: Here are the key takeaways

In this article AMZN Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Amazon CEO Andy Jassy looks on during an Amazon Devices launch event in New York City, U.S., February 26, 2025. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters Amazon on Thursday reported second-quarter earnings that beat expectations on most metrics, but the results weren't good enough to please Wall Street. Amazon stock slid following the release and throughout the conference call. Shares were down about 8% Friday. The

Reddit puts its plans for paid subreddits on hold

Reddit is reversing course on its plans to put some subreddits behind a paywall, at least for now. CEO Steve Huffman said the company is "shifting resources away" from the effort as it doubles down on search . During the company's recent earnings call, Huffman said that Reddit was "deprioritizing" its work on "user economy" initiatives in order to put more resources into turning the site into a "go-to search engine." In a follow-up AMA on Reddit, he confirmed this includes pausing work on paid

Feds Launch Experiment to Have Medicare Cover GLP-1 Weight Loss Drugs

The federal government may not have closed the window on paying for GLP-1 weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Zepbound after all. The Trump administration is reportedly planning to conduct an experiment that will allow some people to have obesity drugs covered by their Medicaid and Medicare plans. The Washington Post first broke the news Friday morning, having reportedly obtained documents from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services outlining the plan. It would enable state Medicaid prog

At 17, Hannah Cairo solved a major math mystery

Cairo followed this advice. In the fall of 2023, her family moved to Davis, 60 miles northeast of Berkeley. There, her older brother enrolled as a freshman at UC Davis, and her parents allowed her to commute to Berkeley on Tuesdays and Thursdays. By the spring, she was going five days a week and taking several more classes. She recalls it as a time in her life when she began to feel full of possibility. “I had started making friends, and I was feeling good,” she said. After the spring semester

Reddit Shifting Towards Search as Company Wants to Become a Search Engine

You may not need to add "Reddit" to your Google searches for much longer -- now, you can go straight to the source. In his Q2 letter to shareholders, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said the company will integrate its search function with Reddit Answers, which is currently available in the US and 11 other countries, "into a single search experience." Reddit will make the search box more visible on the app, bringing it "front and center." "Whether you're a new user opening the app for the first time