Tech News

In a victory for Tesla, a California federal judge ruled over the weekend that a group of Tesla owners cannot pursue in court claims that the company falsely advertised its automated features. Instead, they will have to face individual arbitration. U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam’s ruling isn’t a win for the defensibility of Tesla’s advanced

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive the newsletter every weekend in your inbox. Subscribe for free.  Welcome back to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B.

If you’re an early-stage founder, the crazy days of 2021 are a distant memory. Money is tight, and the process of getting more is as unsettled as ever. The past few tumultuous years have tossed out the milestones that defined previous Series A benchmarks. But that doesn’t mean the game is lost. At this year’s

As tech companies begin to monetize generative AI, the creators on whose work it is trained are asking for their fair share. But so far no one can agree on whether or how much artists should be paid. A recent open letter from the Authors Guild signed by more than 8,500 writers, including Margaret Atwood,

It’s that time of the week again, folks — time for Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s newsletter that recaps the past few days in tech. The news cycle never sleeps, and it’s exhausting — this reporter knows all too well. But fortunately, neither does WiR. Our curated list of the top stories this week will

Streamers are leaving Kick en masse in protest of the platform’s lack of safety guidelines, after a prominent creator streamed an encounter with a sex worker without informing her that there were other people present. She was briefly prevented from leaving after she expressed discomfort, while Kick’s CEO posted laughing emotes in the stream chat. 

Volkswagen’s $2.1 billion plan to launch a dedicated electric-vehicle factory in Wolfsburg, Germany is kaput.  The automaker instead reportedly plans to modify its existing plants in Zwickau and Wolfsburg to handle production of a new flagship EV — the postponed Project Trinity — and an all-electric Golf hatchback.  This tracks with an earlier statement from

SpaceX won its first contract for Starshield, the defense-focused version of its Starlink satellite internet service, from the U.S. Space Force. The one-year contract has a maximum value of $70 million, a U.S. Air Force representative told Bloomberg. The contract “provides for Starshield end-to-end service via the Starlink constellation, user terminals, ancillary equipment, network management

In a live chat earlier this month, Elon Musk said X would charge users “a small monthly payment” to use its service — a necessity, he explained, in order to combat the “vast armies of bots” on the platform. But in an interview this week at the Code Conference, X CEO Linda Yaccarino seemed to

Adobe officially launched Photoshop for the web on Wednesday for all users with paid plans. The web version, which was in beta for almost two years, is now available with Firefly-powered AI tools such as generative fill and generative expand. The company said that the tools in the toolbar on the web is based group

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has closed the investigation into a mishap that occurred last September during a launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle, with the regulator saying that Blue must implement 21 corrective actions before it can fly New Shepard again. New Shepard was grounded after a September 2022 launch ended with an

The payment landscape in Africa is still fragmented, with several payment operators providing different payment options to customers as well as businesses. Due to this fragmentation, payment failures are inevitable due to factors such as invalid cards, inactive accounts and high dispute rates. One of the few startups working on payment orchestration to address this

OpenAI is in discussions to possibly sell shares in a move that would boost the company’s valuation from $29 billion to somewhere between $80 billion and $90 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing people familiar with the talks. In April, OpenAI picked up just over $300 million in funding from backers such

GIC is in talks to invest in the Indian startup Vegrow, which runs a business-to-business marketplace for fruits, two sources familiar with the matter said. The Singapore sovereign fund is evaluating leading a $40 million Series C funding round in Vegrow, the sources said. The talks, which have not finalized and so the terms could

Storybutton, a new audio player for kids, aims to be the go-to alternative to screened devices for the 12 and under set. Created by kid-friendly podcaster Jim Jacob (“Mr. Jim”), Storybutton wants to improve the way kids listen by moving the podcast experience off phones and tablets. Storybutton costs $99.99 and features an easy-to-use design

Amazon said Monday it has agreed to invest up to $4 billion in the AI startup Anthropic as the e-commerce group steps up rivalry against Microsoft, Meta, Google and Nvidia in the fast-growing sector that many technologists believe could be the next great frontier. The e-commerce group said it will initially invest $1.25 billion for

The person a founder chooses to back their company is important beyond the capital these investors provide. Each backer brings specific experiences and networks that can help founders in various ways. Getting the right people involved in a company early is instrumental in helping it grow. Ashley Mayer, a co-founder and GP at Coalition Operators;

Welcome to the TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. The Perkins School for the Blind has identified over 1,400 companies that are designing and building products specifically for people with disabilities. I met

Welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter covering the past few days in tech. The TC crew — including this reporter — is coming off the high of Disrupt, which hopefully some of you, dear readers, were able to attend in person. Fret not if you didn’t — there’s always next year, and

PhonePe launched the Indus AppStore Developer Platform on Saturday, promising no platform fee or commission on in-app purchases as the Walmart-backed fintech races to win Android developers in Google’s largest market. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which has amassed over 450 million registered users on its payments app, said developers can start registering and uploading their apps

AquaLith has its eye on a billion-dollar market opportunity: new types of battery cell components that don’t rely on the scarce metals normally used in lithium-ion battery packs, which are increasingly in demand with the rise of electric vehicles. According to McKinsey & Company, revenues along the lithium-ion battery value chain will grow from $85

Meta-owned Twitter rival Threads has finally added a way to switch between multiple accounts without logging out. The social networking app announced Thursday that users can now swap accounts on its mobile apps by long pressing on the profile icon in the bottom right. Users can tap on the “Add profile” option after the long

Ten years ago, Brad Brochocki was working for a solar startup in Denver. At the end of the year, the owners said they couldn’t give a holiday cash bonus, but instead wanted to give Brochocki more equity in the company. “I was in my young 20s at the time and equity wasn’t something that really

During the last two days, 20 startups pitched their companies as part of TechCrunch Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2023. These 20 companies were selected as the best of the Startup Battlefield 200 and competed for a chance to take home the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Expert judges asked the hard questions after the onstage

Founded by the former vice president of AI at Meta, Jerome Pesenti, Sizzle is a free AI-powered learning app that generates step-by-step answers to math equations and word problems. The company recently launched four new features, including a grading capability, a feature that regenerates steps, an option to see multiple answers to one problem and

Africa’s agricultural sector has a significant social and economic impact, per McKinsey. The percentage of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa exceeds 60%, while agriculture accounts for approximately 23% of the region’s gross domestic product. But despite the apparent opportunity in the agricultural sector, it is difficult for Africa to successfully participate in global supply chains

As the most valuable company in the world, Apple extends its massive footprint into every corner of industry that it touches. With that footprint comes a vast responsibility to conduct itself responsibly in terms of sourcing materials, labor and the energy necessary to ship well over two billion mobile devices on its course to becoming

Plan A, a carbon accounting and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) reporting platform for corporations, has raised $27 million in a Series A round of funding led by U.S. VC giant Lightspeed Venture partners. Technically the funding is an extension of a $10 million Series A round it announced nearly two years ago, meaning for

Earlier this year, the U.S. government indicted Russian hacker Mikhail Matveev, also known by his online monikers “Wazawaka” and “Boriselcin,” accusing him of being “a prolific ransomware affiliate” who carried out “significant attacks” against companies and critical infrastructure in the U.S. and elsewhere. The feds also accused him of being a “central figure” in the

Kenya-based EV startup Roam has unveiled a new shuttle bus model dubbed Move, coming as the East African country continues to push for the adoption of electric vehicles. Roam (formerly Opibus) now plans to ramp up its production of the Move bus, and expand its charging infrastructure as it anticipates a growth in EV bus