Technology
Every year, TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield pitch contest draws thousands of applicants. We whittle those applications down to the top 200 contenders, and of them, the top 20 compete on the big stage to become the winner, taking home the Startup Battlefield Cup and a cash prize of $100,000. But the remaining 180 startups all blew…
If you’re someone who struggles to stay on task or simply want to boost your productivity as the new year approaches, there are several apps and extensions you can try that are designed to help you focus by blocking out distractions. Whether you need to limit social media scrolling or block off time to be…
After 33 years, Bernardo Quintero decided it was time to find the person who changed his life — the anonymous programmer who created a computer virus that had infected his university decades earlier. The virus, called Virus Málaga, was mostly harmless. But the challenge of defeating it sparked Quintero’s passion for cybersecurity, eventually leading him…
Waymo appears to be testing adding Google’s Gemini AI chatbot to its robotaxis in an effort to integrate an AI assistant that would accompany riders and answer their queries, according to findings by researcher Jane Manchun Wong. “While digging through Waymo’s mobile app code, I discovered the complete system prompt for its unreleased Gemini integration,”…
Waymo is shipping a software update to help its robotaxis navigate disabled traffic lights during power outages “more decisively,” the company said Tuesday in a blog post that explains why its self-driving vehicles got stuck at intersections during a blackout in San Francisco this past weekend. Waymo said the self-driving system in its robotaxis treats…
There was a time when most Americans had little to no knowledge about their local data center. Long the invisible but critical backbone of the internet, server farms have rarely been a point of interest for folks outside of the tech industry, let alone an issue of particularly captivating political resonance. Well, as of 2025,…
Nvidia has struck a non-exclusive licensing agreement with AI chip competitor Groq. As part of the deal, Nvidia will hire Groq founder Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra, and other employees. CNBC reported that Nvidia is acquiring assets from Groq for $20 billion; Nvidia told TechCrunch that this is not an acquisition of the company and…
The excitement for the European startup market was hard to ignore at the annual Slush conference in Helsinki last month. But the actual data on the state of the region’s venture market shows a different reality. The upshot: The European market has not recovered from the global venture capital reset that occurred in 2022 and…
A group of writers, including Theranos whistleblower and “Bad Blood” author John Carreyrou, is filing a lawsuit against Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, xAI, and Perplexity, accusing the companies of training their models on pirated copies of their books. If this sounds familiar, it’s because another set of authors already filed a class action suit against…
Amazon-owned Zoox issued a recall Tuesday over concerns its autonomous driving system caused vehicles to cross over the center lane line near intersections or block crosswalks. The voluntary recall of its software affected 332 vehicles, according to documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). While there have not been any collisions associated…
