Tech Guest Posts

Twitter, Inc. is now called X Corp, according to a court filing in California. Since Twitter is no longer a public company, it does not have to report updates like name changes to the SEC. But in any case, the new name was spotted in an April 4 document related to far-right activist Laura Loomer’s […].

Life comes at you fast. A couple of months ago I wrote how Smoakland was testing a loophole to sell cannabis by credit card. The test failed, apparently. “Upon further review, it has come to our attention that the way the process was described in the article could potentially be seen as bank fraud. As […].

Rachel Metz / Bloomberg: OpenAI partners with Bugcrowd to launch a bug bounty program, offering rewards from $200 to $20K but excluding some safety issues, like jailbreaks prompts  —  OpenAI will start paying people as much as $20,000 to help the company find bugs in its artificial intelligence systems, such as the massively popular ChatGPT […].

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: Instagram gives brands access to parts of its creator marketplace via two APIs and expands access to the marketplace for brand agencies  —  Instagram announced today that it’s extending access to parts of its creator marketplace via API to make it easier for brands to discover and work … from Techmeme […].

TikTok quietly launched “animated video stickers” for direct messages in February, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. Video stickers essentially work like GIFs and are an expansion of TikTok Stickers, which rolled out last December and allow users to create and upload their own custom images to be used in direct messages. Users can browse through […].

Chinese regulators have proposed restrictive rules around AI models like ChatGPT being built in the country, requiring user identification, security reviews, and prohibiting “any content that subverts state power, advocates the overthrow of the socialist system, incites splitting the country or undermines national unity.” The rules come hot on the heels of Chinese tech companies […].

Former cop and self-declared “geek” Eric Adams held a press conference in Times Square today to let the city know how much he loves police robots. New York City’s mayor presided over a press conference alongside police officials to discuss a pair of pilots designed to increase the city’s surveillance. “I’ve stated this from day […].

Kobie Fuller, a partner at Upfront Ventures, had a notion that there are certain characteristics that every successful enterprise software company shares. You might think that’s not something that’s easily quantifiable or identifiable, maybe just something that any investor knows or senses when they see it. But Fuller decided to sit down and figure out […].

Turo, the peer-to-peer car rental company, plans to block access to third-party services like CarSync and Fleetwire starting April 30, according to an email that hosts received and TechCrunch viewed. Turo confirmed the move, which hosts say will cut them off from essential fleet management tools that allow them to share multiple cars on the platform. […].

If you haven’t noticed, the internet is frequently on fire. Overseas cyberattacks are hitting public services like healthcare at home. Data breaches are the new school “snow days.” Small towns and local governments are largely unable to fend off ransomware attacks on their own. Nation-state hackers are undermining human rights and the security and privacy […].

Kali Hays / Insider: Sources: Elon Musk is working on a new generative AI project at Twitter, recently buying ~10K GPUs, after poaching researchers from DeepMind in recent months  —  – CEO Elon Musk is upping the computational power at Twitter to proceed with an AI play.  — Musk has criticized ChatGPT … from Techmeme […].

Enterprise phone provider 3CX has confirmed that North Korea-backed hackers were behind last month’s supply chain attack that appeared to target cryptocurrency companies. 3CX, which provides online voice, video conferencing and messaging services for businesses, worked with cybersecurity company Mandiant to investigate the attack. Hackers compromised the company’s desktop phone software used by hundreds of […].

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Google launches an app auto-archiving feature on Android, removing over 60% of an app’s local data when the device is low on storage, catching up to iOS  —  On Monday, Google launched a new auto-archiving feature, which removes more than 60% of an unused app’s data from an Android phone to […].

If I’m an investor hoping to determine where robotics goes next after logistics, I’m looking at three key categories: construction, healthcare and agriculture. All are still in their relative infancy and poised for (in my humble opinion) some explosive growth. Agtech robotics is going to be an especially interesting category over the next couple of […].

Mark Tyson / Tom’s Hardware: Microsoft fixes a Windows Defender bug, first reported in 2018, that caused CPU usage spikes in some apps, especially Firefox, in Windows 10 and Windows 11  —  Post-fix you may see MsMpEng.exe CPU usage drop by up to 75%.  —  A performance-sapping conflict between Mozilla Firefox … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/lTKLqkE.

About 10% of startups will fail in their first year. Between years two through five, approximately 70% of companies will go under. But those figures don’t matter when you’re pitching: Investors expect to see a business plan that describes how you plan to reach profitability within 3-5 years. “While it may feel unfamiliar, as a […].

Artifact, the recently launched personalized news app from Instagram’s founders, is today launching a key new feature: a social discussions component. Previously in private testing, the feature introduces a way for users to comment and engage in conversations around news articles they’re reading on the service. With today’s update, all Artifact users will now see […].

Instagram has recently added new features to its Creator Marketplace, a platform where brands can connect with creators to collaborate on sponsored content. The new features include the ability for creators to set their own pricing for branded content deals, and the option for brands to receive and respond to proposals from creators. Additionally, Instagram […].

The automotive industry’s transition to electric vehicles is ushering in a tidal wave of demand for batteries that’s upending national industrial policies, reshaping geopolitics, and sparking a surge of new factories that will pump out billions of cells. It may seem like the sector has exploded overnight, but founders, investors and multinationals have been laying […].