Technology
Everyone said AI would kill apps. Instead, new app launches are soaring. According to a new analysis from market intelligence provider Appfigures, worldwide app releases in the first quarter of 2026 were up 60% year-over-year across both Apple’s App Store and Google Play. That percentage was an even higher 80% when looking at the iOS…
Jack Zhang was 34 years old, three and a half years into running a startup, and sitting across from one of the most powerful investors in Silicon Valley. Michael Moritz of Sequoia had invited him to his home — a place with, Zhang recalls, a couple of floors and a view straight to the Golden…
At a trendy venue near the San Francisco pier, Sam Altman’s verification project World celebrated its next evolution and rapid expansion of its ambitions. And it’s starting with Tinder. Tools for Humanity (TFH), the company behind the World project, announced Friday plans to integrate its verification tech into dating apps, event and concert ticketing systems,…
OpenAI is losing two of the architects of its most ambitious moonshots. Kevin Weil, who led the company’s science research initiative, and Bill Peebles, the researcher behind AI video tool Sora, both announced their departures on Friday. The exits come as OpenAI consolidates around enterprise AI and its forthcoming “superapp.” The departures follow OpenAI’s decision…
Uber launched a new feature on Friday that lets customers return purchased items without leaving their home. The new returns feature, which is accessed through the Uber Eats app, is the latest effort by Uber to add “stickiness” to its app by offering services that extend beyond its core ride-hailing and delivery businesses. There are…
AI video generation startup Luma has launched Innovative Dreams, a production company built in partnership with Wonder Project, a streaming service that produces religious films and TV on Amazon Prime. The tie-up’s first show will be called “The Old Stories: Moses,” starring British actor Ben Kingsley and set to launch this spring on Prime Video. …
Few venture firms have bet more aggressively on AI than Sequoia Capital, and it isn’t slowing down. The Silicon Valley stalwart has raised roughly $7 billion for a new fund, according to Bloomberg. Sequoia declined TechCrunch’s request for comment. The money will go toward what the firm calls its “expansion strategy” — essentially its late-stage…
More than three years after the emergence of generative AI, AI-assisted coding remains by far the most popular and lucrative use case for the technology. Although multiple companies — including Anthropic, maker of Claude Code, as well as Cursor and Cognition — are already vying for dominance, investors believe there is room for at least…
Bluesky’s website and app are still struggling on Thursday after experiencing service interruptions that COO Rose Wang attributed to a denial-of-service attack. According to the social network’s status page, the issues began around 2:42 a.m. ET time on Thursday and have continued since. ScreenshotImage Credits:screenshot of Bluesky Currently, the Bluesky site and app will load…
Fashion giant Express has patched its website to fix a security flaw that allowed anyone to view other people’s order details and personal information, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. At least a dozen of Express’ customer orders had been publicly listed in web search engine results. The security flaw exposed order confirmation pages on Express’ online…
