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Disney and Universal Studios file suit against Midjourney for copyright infringement

Disney and NBCUniversal have filed a joint suit against AI company Midjourney alleging copyright infringement on their various properties. The complaint, filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, includes images created by Midjourney that feature a wide variety of protected characters from each company’s various properties, including Star Wars, Shrek, The Simpsons, Despicable Me and others. The 110-page suit alleges that the AI company “helped itself to countless” copyrighted works when tr

The Browser Company’s new AI browser rolls out to private beta testers

The Browser Company’s new AI-powered browser is now available in an invite-only beta. Called Dia, the browser was first announced towards the end of 2024, and is built around the deep integration of what its maker calls "the most personal AI on the market". Dia allows you to "chat with your tabs" and will adapt and learn the more you use it. You can open an AI chat on any webpage without having to leave the tab, where the built-in bot can search the web, compare websites, answer questions about

Erie Insurance confirms cyberattack behind business disruptions

Erie Insurance and Erie Indemnity Company have disclosed that a weekend cyberattack is behind the recent business disruptions and platform outages on its website. Erie Indemnity Company is the management company for the Erie Insurance Group, a property and casualty insurer with over 6 million active policies. The company provides auto, home, life, and business insurance policies through independent agents. Since Saturday, June 7, Erie Insurance has been suffering from widespread outages and bu

How long it takes to know if a job is right for you or not

A few eagle-eyed readers have noticed that it’s been 4 weeks since my last entry in what I have been thinking of as my “niblet series” — one small piece per week, 1000 words or less, for the next three months. This is true. However, I did leave myself some wiggle room in my original goal, when I said “weeks when I am not traveling”, knowing I was traveling 6 of the next 7 weeks. I was going to TRY to write something on the weeks I was traveling, but as you can see, I mostly did not succeed. Oh

Apple Is Pushing AI Into More of Its Products—but Still Lacks a State-of-the-Art Model

Apple continued its slow-and-steady approach to integrating artificial intelligence into devices like the iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch on Monday, announcing a raft of new features and upgrades at WWDC. The company also premiered the Foundation Models framework, a way for developers to write code that taps into Apple’s AI models. Among the buzzier AI announcements at the event was Live Translation, a feature that translates phone and FaceTime calls from one language to another in real time. Appl

Tesla’s Robotaxis Are Rolling Out Soon—With One Big Unanswered Question

Self-driving vehicle developers don’t usually love talking about “teleoperation”—when a human guides or drives robot cars remotely. It can feel like a dirty secret. Shouldn’t an autonomous vehicle operate, well, autonomously? But experts say teleoperations are, at least right now, a critical part of any robot taxi service, including Tesla's Robotaxi. The tech, though impressive, is still in development, and the autonomous systems still need humans to guide them through less-common and especiall

How Waymo Handles Footage From Events Like the LA Immigration Protests

Thousands of people across the United States poured into the streets this week to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies, joining a nationwide wave of resistance that began in Los Angeles. One of the most widely shared images from the city, where federal authorities have sent almost 5,000 active-duty Marines and National Guard members, is of five Waymo robotaxis that were vandalized and set on fire. The incident has become one of the most recognizable symbols of the demonstratio

Reddit is looking for a new product boss

is a news editor covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme. Reddit’s first-ever chief product officer, Pali Bhat, is leaving the company in “the coming months,” spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt confirmed to The Verge. Bhat, a former Google executive, joined Reddit in October 2021. “His tenure was about as clear pre / post test as we could run,” CEO Steve Huffman said in an internal message about the change provided by Rathschmidt. “He dev

How to delete your 23andMe data

DNA testing service 23andMe filed for bankruptcy protection in March, sparking concerns about what could happen to the genetic data of the company’s 15 million customers. Pharmaceutical giant Regeneron announced in May that it was buying the genetic testing company for $256 million following a bankruptcy auction. While the company has said it will maintain 23andMe’s privacy practices, it also stated that it would use the 23andMe data to aid the discovery of new drugs. When 23andMe filed for ba

Sam Altman-backed Coco Robotics raises $80M

In Brief Los Angeles-based Coco Robotics, a startup building last-mile delivery robots, announced it raised $80 million on Wednesday. The funding round included angel investors Sam Altman and Max Altman, both returning investors, in addition to VC firms like Pelion Venture Partners and Offline Ventures, among others. This brings the company’s total funding to more than $120 million. The company last raised a $36 million Series A round in 2021. Coco’s zero-emissions robots can hold 90 liters’

Anne Wojcicki has a new offer to take 23andMe private, this time for $74.7 million

23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki and New Mountain Capital have submitted a proposal to take the embattled genetic testing company private, according to a Friday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Wojcicki and New Mountain have offered to acquire all of 23andMe's outstanding shares in cash for $2.53 per share, or an equity value of approximately $74.7 million. The company's stock closed at $2.42 on Friday with a market cap of about $65 million. The offer comes after a turbulent y

ChatGPT’s weekly user base has exceeded the entire US population

Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority TL;DR ChatGPT has crossed 400 million weekly users, marking a 33% increase in just three months despite rising AI competition. More people are adopting ChatGPT through word of mouth, with personal use driving its continued growth. OpenAI’s enterprise business is also expanding, now with 2 million paying users as companies integrate AI into their workflows. The AI chatbot battle continues to reshape the tech landscape, but OpenAI — the company behind ChatGP

What to expect at Mobile World Congress 2025: Nothing, Samsung, Xiaomi and more

On March 3, Mobile World Congress will kick off in Barcelona, Spain. While it’s not the premier show it once was, many of the smartphone industry’s leading players still attend the conference and frequently launch new devices there. Typically, we hear from companies like Lenovo, Arm, Xiaomi, Dell and more at the conference, as well as standards organizations like the GSMA on developments in areas like 5G or SIM technology. And judging by the event agenda on the MWC website, we will be seeing at

Robot with 1,000 muscles twitches like human while dangling from ceiling

On Wednesday, Clone Robotics released video footage of its Protoclone humanoid robot, a full-body machine that uses synthetic muscles to create unsettlingly human-like movements. In the video, the robot hangs suspended from the ceiling as its limbs twitch and kick, marking what the company claims is a step toward its goal of creating household-helper robots. Atherton, California-based Clone Robotics designed the Protoclone with a polymer skeleton that replicates 206 human bones. The company bui

Meta raises executive bonuses by up to 200% after cutting 5% of its workforce

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years.TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust A hot potato: Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has described 2025 as "an intense year" as the company looks to streamline its business. Part of that involves laying off 5% of its workforce, close to 4,000 people. The company is also giving its executives more money, having just approved a plan giving them bigger bonuses – up to 200% of their base salary. According to an SEC filing submitted yesterday, Met

Shares of Hims & Hers tumble 23% after FDA says semaglutide is no longer in shortage

Shares of Hims & Hers Health tumbled more than 23% on Friday after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that the shortage of semaglutide injection products has been resolved. Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk's blockbuster weight loss drugs Wegovy and diabetes treatment Ozempic. Those medications are part of a class of drugs called GLP-1s, and demand for the treatments has exploded in recent years. As a result, digital health companies like Hims & Hers have been pr

The Morning After: Apple reveals its new cheapest iPhone. What’s missing?

The price has been bumped up, but so have the specs. If you couldn’t stomach $800 for a new iPhone with Apple Intelligence, don’t worry: Apple just announced the iPhone 16e. At $599, it strikes a balance on specs, which is the soft and cosy way to say it doesn’t have everything. It has a lot, though. With a 6.1-inch screen, it’s a much bigger device than the 4.7-inch iPhone SE, with a notch for FaceID (no more TouchID), USB-C (adios, Lightning) and the company’s A18 processor. There’s also an

ChatGPT's AI agent Operator is now available for most Pro users

It's now out for most regions where ChatGPT is also available, though the EU isn't included. Operator is now out in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UK and most places where ChatGPT is also available, OpenAI has announced. The company launched Operator in the US back in January, introducing it as an "agent that can go to the web to perform tasks" for the user. Operator can handle various browser-based tasks for users, such as filling out forms, making restaur

Meta approves plan for bigger executive bonuses following 5% layoffs

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears at the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024. Executives at Meta stand to get bigger bonuses this year. The company said in a corporate filing Thursday that it had approved "an increase in the target bonus percentage" for its annual bonus plan for executives. Meta's named executive officers could earn a bonus of 200% of their base salary under the new plan, up from the 75% they earned previously, according to the filing. The updated b

61 US startups became unicorns in 2024: Here’s the full list

Despite the tight venture capital market, unicorns are still being created every month. Using data from Crunchbase, CB Insights, and PitchBook, TechCrunch tracked down the newly minted unicorns so far this year. The list includes Elon Musk’s xAI, which is already valued at a staggering $24 billion, as well as a good number of other AI startups. But cybersecurity, health tech, and fintech have also done well. This list will be updated throughout the year, so check back and see the powerhouses ra

OpenAI tops 400 million users despite DeepSeek's emergence

Brad Lightcap of OpenAI. Courtesy: OpenAI OpenAI appears to be growing quickly despite increasing competition. The San Francisco-based tech company had 400 million weekly active users as of February, up 33% from 300 million in December, the company's chief operating officer, Brad Lightcap, told CNBC. These numbers have not been previously reported. Lightcap pointed to the "natural progression" of ChatGPT as it becomes more useful and familiar to a broader group of people. "People hear about it

Elon Searching for Investors Gullible Enough to Pour More Money Into Twitter

In 2022, Elon Musk placed a bid of almost $44 billion to acquire Twitter, which he then tried to worm out of. With his back against the wall after a brief skirmish in the courts, Musk chose to honor his original purchase agreement and take over the platform. Flash forward to the present day, and X-formerly-Twitter has lost upward of 79 percent of its original value after neo-Nazis flocked to the platform and big-name advertisers fled in droves. Now, in a somewhat rare move for the richest man

OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 May Arrive Next Week, but GPT-5 Is Just Around the Corner

OpenAI may be preparing to slap a new coat of paint on ChatGPT with an updated AI model, GPT-4.5, as early as next week. If that’s not enough to get users excited, the Sam Altman-led company is on the path toward its ultimate model while trying to hint that this next step will finally achieve “AGI.” Spoiler alert: it won’t. Based on anonymous sources, the Verge’s Tom Warren first reported that OpenAI’s next model could hit the scene sometime this month. Microsoft reportedly plans to host the co

Rivian reports first quarter of ‘positive gross profit’

is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State. Rivian announced a significant milestone today, reporting its first “positive gross profit” in its fourth quarter earnings for 2024. It was a sign that the struggling company’s efforts to slash costs through the gut overhaul of its R1 electric vehicles is starting to yield some positive results. But dark clouds loom ahead,

Beta Technologies’ bet on electric flight and Hyundai’s new Tesla charging port comes up short

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Fifteen years ago, I started writing about a little EV startup that was trying to survive even as others failed in the clean tech boom-and-bust cycle. Back then Tesla had captured the interest of some celebrities and EV enthusiasts — but it was a small circle. A lot has changed since then, including the profile of its largest shar

Bankrupt Nikola wants to sell its whole business by April

Electric trucking startup Nikola is hoping to sell what remains of its whole business as early as April, lawyers for the company told a judge Thursday during the first hearing of its bankruptcy case in Delaware. The lawyers claimed Nikola already has at least three interested buyers (who they did not name) and that the company hopes to solicit other bids, with a submission deadline likely in late March. If Nikola can’t find a buyer willing to take on the whole business, the company will pivot

Jeep’s parent company announces ‘hands free, eyes off’ driving feature

is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State. Stellantis, the parent company of Jeep, Dodge, and Ram, announced its first “hands free, eyes off” partial autonomous driving feature. The company is pitching this new feature, which is called STLA AutoDrive, as for drivers who want to reclaim “valuable time” while stuck in stop-and-go traffic. But that said, Stellantis is

UK healthcare giant HCRG confirms hack after ransomware gang claims theft of sensitive data

U.K. healthcare giant HCRG Care Group has confirmed it’s investigating a cybersecurity incident after a ransomware gang claimed to have breached the company’s systems to steal troves of sensitive data. HCRG Care Group is one of the largest independent providers of community health and care services in the United Kingdom. The organization, previously known as Virgin Care and now owned by Twenty20 Capita, partners with National Health Service trusts and local authorities around the U.K. to delive

Apple resists UK regulator demands to open up iOS browsers, citing security risks

Recap: After Apple began allowing alternate iOS browser engines in compliance with new European regulations, the United Kingdom began arranging the framework for similar action, much to the Cupertino giant's chagrin. A proposed stipulation regarding updates to Apple's WebKit engine is particularly noteworthy. Apple continues to fight the UK Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) efforts to regulate the iOS web browser market. The iPhone maker responded to the agency's proposed remedies with

Microsoft Majorana 1 chip promises real quantum computing within years, not decades

Forward-looking: Microsoft has unveiled a new quantum chip called "Majorana 1" that claims will make scaled, real-world quantum computing a reality in just years rather than decades. It's palm-sized and has a delightfully retro look yet Microsoft claims it will eventually pack more theoretical computing power than all the world's current classical computers combined. The Majorana 1 comes after nearly two decades of research. The big claims come thanks to Microsoft's unique approach to the quant