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FTC chair warns Google about Gmail’s ‘partisan’ spam filters

Andrew Ferguson, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Trade Commission, recently expressed concern that “Alphabet’s administration of Gmail is designed to have partisan effects.” In a letter addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Ferguson pointed to a recent story in the New York Post describing complaints by Targeted Victory (a consulting and PR firm that’s worked with the Republican National Committee and Elon Musk’s X) claiming that Gmail flags emails linking to the Republican fundrais

US spy chief says UK has dropped its Apple backdoor demand

The U.K has dropped its demand for special access to Apple’s cloud systems, or a “backdoor,” following negotiations with the Trump administration, according to U.S. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard. “As a result, the U.K. has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a ‘back door’ that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties,” Gabbard wrote in a post on X. She also claimed that she worked along Presid

SoftBank makes $2B investment in Intel

Japanese conglomerate SoftBank has agreed to make a $2 billion investment in Intel in a deal described as a commitment to advanced technology and semiconductors in the United States. The agreement, in which SoftBank will buy Intel common stock, was announced Monday after markets closed. SoftBank will pay $23 per share of Intel common stock. Shares of Intel, which closed at $23.66, popped more than 5% in after-hours trading. SoftBank Group Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said in a statement that

NASA has sparked a race to develop the data pipeline to Mars

For decades, NASA built and flew its own relay orbiters and spacecraft to ferry valuable data back to Earth. Now the agency is shifting to buying connectivity as a service, much like it does for launch and astronaut transport. That pivot has sparked a race, with major contenders pitching ways to keep Mars missions online. What’s at stake isn’t a single contract: it’s the data pipe to Mars. This new approach, which will mix NASA assets and commercial infrastructure, would gradually replace the

US government seized $1M from Russian ransomware gang

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday it has seized the servers and $1 million in bitcoin from the prolific Russian ransomware gang behind the BlackSuit and Royal malware. According to the press release, a coalition of global law enforcement agencies, including from the U.S., Canada, Germany, Ireland, France, U.K., and others, seized four servers and nine domains on July 24. In addition, authorities also seized around $1 million in cryptocurrency. BlackSuit and Royal are two diffe

Nvidia unveils new Cosmos world models, infra for robotics and physical uses

Nvidia on Monday unveiled a set of new world AI models, libraries, and other infrastructure for robotics developers, most notable of which is Cosmos Reason, a 7-billion-parameter “reasoning” vision language model for physical AI applications and robots. Also joining the existing batch of Cosmos world models are Cosmos Transfer-2, which can accelerate synthetic data generation from 3D simulation scenes or spatial control inputs, and a distilled version of Cosmos Transfers that is more optimized

Impersonators are targeting companies with fake TechCrunch outreach

Hi, thanks as always for reading TechCrunch. We want to talk with you quickly about something important. We’ve discovered that scammers are impersonating TechCrunch reporters and event leads and reaching out to companies, pretending to be our staff when they absolutely are not. These bad actors are using our name and reputation to try to dupe unsuspecting businesses. It drives us crazy and infuriates us on your behalf. Anecdotally, this isn’t just happening to us; fraudsters are exploiting the

This Detroit startup is turning to utilities to make home efficiency upgrades cheaper

Ask any homeowner: renovation projects are no fun at all. From finding a contractor to determining a fair price, the process is rife with uncertainty. Plenty of startups have popped up to help homeowners tackle electrification projects, including installing solar panels and replacing gas furnaces with heat pumps. But they still struggle with the cost question: acquiring customers is often more than half the battle. Pearl Edison thinks the answer is utilities. “As much as anything, we are leve

Do startups still need Silicon Valley? Hear from the founders and funders challenging old assumptions at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

As the startup world descends on San Francisco for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 — happening October 27–29 at Moscone West — one question looms large: does building in Silicon Valley still give founders an edge? With 10,000+ startup and VC leaders gathering for this milestone Disrupt, the conversation around access, geography, and opportunity has never been more timely. On the Builders Stage, Anh-Tho Chuong (Lago), Davice Hall (Revolution), and Heather Doshay (SignalFire) lead a must-attend session f

Astronomer winks at viral notoriety with ‘temporary spokesperson’ Gwyneth Paltrow

After spending the past week-plus in the headlines due to a seemingly inescapable social media scandal, data operations startup Astronomer is trying to shift the narrative with a tongue-in-cheek video starring actress and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow. Paltrow was, of course, previously married to Coldplay singer Chris Martin. And it was at a Coldplay concert in Massachusetts that the company’s CEO Andy Byron and Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot were apparently caught dancing together on the “

Astronomer CEO resigns following Coldplay concert scandal

Andy Byron, the startup executive at the center of an extraordinary social media furor, has resigned as CEO of data operations startup Astronomer. Byron, who is married, was captured on a Coldplay concert “kiss cam” with his arms around the company’s chief people officer Kristin Cabot. After Byron and Cabot quickly tried to hide from the camera, Coldplay singer Chris Martin joked, “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” Video of the awkward incident soon went spectacularly

Slack bolsters search with AI, adds transcriptions and summaries for huddles

As the race to bake in AI features into productivity apps intensifies, Slack is bolstering search on its app with AI features, adding transcription and summaries for huddles, and a way to see recaps of channels and threads. Using AI, Slack now lets you search across channels as well as connected apps (like Google Drive, Salesforce and Teams) to surface relevant files and conversations. This feature will be available on Slack’s Business and Enterprise plans. Image Credits: Slack The company is