TechCrunch Industry News

By TechCrunchNews Technology Tech News

TechCrunch Industry News episodes

September 05 Volunteer at TechCrunch Founder Summit in Boston
Our rebranded Boston event, TechCrunch Founder Summit (formerly All Stage), is back on November 4th! And we are looking for some incredible volunteers to help us make this event happen. If you are interested in finding out what goes into building tech events, apply to volunteer.

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3 min
September 04 MapQuest is now the No. 1 US app after bucking Trump’s ‘Lake America’ renaming
The once-dominant mapping app has surged to the top of Apple’s U.S. App Store after refusing to adopt Trump’s “Lake America” name, drawing more than half of its 2026 U.S. downloads in just six days.

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11 min
September 03 Open AI’s Astra model is very good at breaking into computer systems; Uber is laying off 3300; plus Norway considering ban on ‘pervert glasses’
OpenAI previewed the precautions it is taking as it prepares to release Astra, its newest, cyber-critical LLM.
Also, Uber is laying off about 3,300 people, or about 10% of its global headcount, in a bid to reduce management layers and invest more in its ride-sharing, delivery, and robotaxi divisions.
And Norway says wearable camera headsets need to be regulated given their privacy risks.

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7 min
September 02 If space data centers feel far-fetched, why not interstellar travel?;plus, Florida and Texas move to block Flock cameras over privacy concerns
The team behind Starcloud's orbital data centers has a new high-risk space project: Sending a probe to Alpha Centauri.
Also, Flock's searchable network of 130,000 license plate cameras around the U.S. have sparked bipartisan privacy and civil liberties concerns.

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8 min
September 01 The Pentagon now has its own version of ChatGPT and Grok; FTC accused Amazon of running a ‘secret ad surcharge scheme,' plus, Kalshi banned George Santos for life
Versions of OpenAI's ChatGPT and SpaceXAI's Grok will join Google's Gemini on the Pentagon's central portal for AI tools.
Also, Amazon is facing a new lawsuit from the FTC and 22 states for allegedly secretly charging businesses more for advertising.
And Kalshi's disciplinary action comes two months after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission settled charges against Santos.

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9 min
August 31 Musk’s faster path to more gas turbines comes with pollution problem; plus, Caterpillar is bringing what it learned from automating mining to AI implementation
Elon Musk says a secretive new SpaceX foundry will let him cast his own turbine blades and get gas power online 18 months faster than anyone else — but it's a bet on a fuel source that's already triggering lawsuits and health studies everywhere his (and others') turbines have gone in.
Caterpillar has spent decades putting autonomous machines to work at remote mining sites. It's now bringing that experience to AI deployment.

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11 min
August 28 OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and 100 other companies call for action to defend against rogue AI
-Some of the world's largest tech companies and AI startups have come together to decry the current state of cybersecurity and to advertise a new solution that they say can ward off a new generation of cyber threats.
-Barret Zoph, the Thinking Machines co-founder who defected to OpenAI, is now at Google
-Meta’s settlement with 29 states allows it to retain certain data from children under 13 to train and test age-detection models, highlighting a privacy tradeoff built into the deal.

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10 min
August 27 Bill Gates wants to see a robot tax and ‘Human Reserved’ jobs, Z.ai is the AI lab behind the mysterious Ox Alpha, and US seizes domains of Chinese botnet
Gates is mostly in the Responsible AI camp, but there are a few ideas in here we hadn't heard before.
Also, Z.ai confirms it is behind Ox Alpha, the mysterious open AI model topping benchmarks and leaderboards, and its weights are set to be released soon.
And the FBI has seized domains associated with a botnet that allowed Chinese-backed hackers to breach several U.S. government departments.

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8 min
August 26 OpenAI’s Jalapeño chip is built for fast inference at scale; plus, Apple debuts its ‘most powerful chip ever’ in M5 Ultra and M6
First announced last October, Jalapeño was developed by OpenAI in close collaboration with Broadcom, with OpenAI’s own models assisting in the development process.
Also, The M5 Ultra, which Apple deems its “most powerful chip ever,” fuses two dual-die M5 Max chips to form Apple’s first quad-die chip, designed to manage hefty AI workloads.

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7 min
August 25 Instinct’s powerful AI assistant is raising privacy and security concerns; plus, Hugging Face reportedly in talks to be acquired
Early testers are raving about what Instinct can do, but some say the AI assistant’s sweeping access, broad terms and ability to act on users’ behalf come with uncomfortable trade-offs
Also, Hugging Face has reportedly been fielding acquisition offers that would value the company at around $13B. But with the founders' feeling of responsibility to community, doubts arise as to whether a sale will happen.

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9 min