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What does Jack Ma's return to the spotlight mean?

What does Jack Ma's return to the spotlight mean? 18 hours ago João da Silva Business reporter CCTV A meeting between Chinese president Xi Jinping and some of the country's foremost business leaders this week has fuelled excitement and speculation, after Alibaba founder Jack Ma was pictured at the event. The charismatic and colourful Mr Ma, who was one of China's most prominent businessmen, had withdrawn from public life after criticising China's financial sector in 2020. His reappearance at

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

Nissan’s latest desperate gamble—see if Tesla will buy the company

Senior politicians in Japan are not going to let Nissan die easily. The automaker has been struggling for some time now, with an outdated product portfolio, ongoing quarterly losses, and soon, the closure of factories and thousands of layoffs. The Japanese government has been trying to find a suitor and had hoped that Honda would do its patriotic duty and save its rival from extinction. That deal—one branded "a desperate move" by former Nissan CEO and fugitive from Japanese justice Carlos Ghosn

Game Developers Fear Anti-Trans Measures Could Hit Their Industry Next

Ashley Poprik has never been the model for a video game character. As a writer on projects like Spider-Man 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, they work on games, not as characters within them. In 2023, however, a cabal of angry gamers was convinced otherwise. They were furious over how Spider-Man 2’s Mary Jane looked; more specifically, they complained, she simply wasn’t hot enough. The problem, these gamers falsely claimed, was that Poprik—then a writing intern with no ability to change a charac

What does Jack Ma's return to the spotlight in China mean?

What does Jack Ma's return to the spotlight in China mean? 5 hours ago João da Silva Business reporter CCTV A meeting between Chinese president Xi Jinping and some of the country's foremost business leaders this week has fuelled excitement and speculation, after Alibaba founder Jack Ma was pictured at the event. The charismatic and colourful Mr Ma, who was one of China's most prominent businessmen, had withdrawn from public life after criticising China's financial sector in 2020. His reappear

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

Software engineering job openings hit five-year low?

Hi, this is Gergely with a bonus issue of the Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter. In every issue, I cover topics related to Big Tech and startups through the lens of engineering managers and senior engineers. This article is an excerpt from last week's The Pulse, issue – full subscribers received the below details seven days ago. To get articles like this in your inbox, subscribe here. Many subscribers expense the newsletter – if you have a learning & development budget, here's an email you could se

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,

Cherryrock Capital raises new $172M fund from all-star investors to back diverse founders

Cherryrock Capital, founded by ex-TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot, announced Wednesday the closing of its $172 million Fund I with an all-star limited partner list that includes JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, MassMutual, Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, Reid Hoffman, Mellody Hobson, and Sheryl Sandberg. Brown-Philpot told Bloomberg that the fund actually closed in January. The firm launched in 2023 during what was a challenging period for fundraising in the venture industry. As a result, B

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

Volvo’s ES90 sedan will be built with a Nvidia supercomputer

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. Volvo’s next electric vehicle, the ES90 midsized luxury sedan, sounds like its got some serious computing chops. The new EV will come with a dual Nvidia Drive AGX Orin configuration, making it the “most powerful car Volvo ever created in terms of core computing capacity,” the company claims today. The new supercomputer is

This smart thermostat compay is considering charging users for its app

In a first for a smart thermostat company, Tado is exploring charging its customers £1 / €1 a month just to control their devices from its app. Multiple users have reported that Tado, manufacturers of smart thermostats, radiator valves, and heat pump controllers for Europe and the UK, sent a message through their app alerting them to the impending charge. The Verge reached out to Tado to confirm this, but the company declined to comment. According to a post on the Tado community forum earlier t

Amazon is shutting down its app store on Android

Amazon will discontinue its app store for Android on August 20 this year. The company sent a notice to developers indicating that they will no longer be able to submit new apps to the store. The company said on a support page that it will also discontinue its Coins digital currency, which could be used to purchase games and apps on the app store. “Starting August 20, 2025, you will no longer have access to the Amazon Appstore on your Android device. We will also be discontinuing the Amazon Co

AI-coding startup Codeium in talks to raise at an almost $3B valuation, sources say

Codeium, an AI-powered coding startup, is raising a new round of funding at a $2.85 billion valuation, including fresh capital, according to two sources with knowledge of the deal. The round is being led by returning investor Kleiner Perkins, the people said. The new round comes just six months after Silicon Valley-based Codeium announced that it had closed a $150 million Series C at a $1.25 billion post-money valuation led by General Catalyst with participation of Kleiner Perkins and Greenoak

Microsoft deploys new state of matter in its first quantum computing chip

Microsoft on Wednesday announced Majorana 1, its first quantum computing chip. The achievement comes after the company spent nearly two decades of research in the field, but Microsoft claims that building Majorana 1 required that it create an entirely new state of matter, which it is referring to as a topological state. Microsoft's quantum chip employs eight topological qubits using indium arsenide, which is a semiconductor, and aluminum, which is a superconductor. "The difficulty of developi

These Are 27 of the Best TV Shows on Netflix That Won't Disappoint

Netflix has become a reliable platform for dating shows with a twist, like Love Is Blind, the one where you have to get engaged immediately, or Too Hot To Handle, the one where everyone has to be celibate. On the Japanese series Is She The Wolf? the big twist is more along the lines of The Traitors or The Mole: Planted among all of the legitimate contestants searching for love is a decoy. In the very first episode, you learn that one woman brought on the show is not allowed to fall in love, and

After raising $1 billion, fintech Varo closes another $29 million, replaces founder CEO

Fintech Varo has been hoping to raise a $55 million Series G round but has, so far, closed on $29 million to date, according to a recent SEC filing. Varo declined to comment on this new round but the fintech has raised just over $1 billion in funding since its 2015 inception, according to PitchBook. It wouldn’t be the first time its fundraising didn’t go as hoped for. In 2023, Varo raised a $50 million equity round at a lower valuation ($1.85 billion post-money) than its massive and, it said,

Italian media groups file criminal complaint over the WhatsApp hack on journalists

The fallout continues from the recent WhatsApp hacking campaign (by a still-unconfirmed entity) that targeted nearly 100 journalists and activists. Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that a collection of Italian media groups has filed a criminal complaint with the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office. They hope to discover who installed the zero-click spyware, which was made by the Israeli-founded Paragon Solutions. According to Bloomberg, the complaint describes the spyware as an "intolerable intrusio