Donald Trump announces Elon Musk will co-lead Department of Government Efficiency

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that Elon Musk will co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, the acronym of which spells out DOGE, Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency. The CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, Neuralink, and owner of X, will lead the…Read More

Generative disinfo is real — you’re just not the target, warns deepfake tracking nonprofit

Many feared that the 2024 election would be affected, and perhaps decided, by AI-generated disinformation. While there was some to be found, it was far less than anticipated. But don’t let that fool you: the disinfo threat is real — you’re just not the t…Read More

Bluesky is seeing an exodus of unhappy X users following the election

X, formerly Twitter, is no longer the “digital town square” it once promised to be. Following the results of the U.S. presidential election, floods of users unhappy with the app’s latest direction are moving over to a competing app, Bluesky. Bluesky’s decentralized social media…Read More

Now anyone in LA can hail a Waymo robotaxi

Waymo has opened its robotaxi service to everyone in Los Angeles, sunsetting a waitlist that had grown to 300,000 people. The Alphabet-backed company said starting Tuesday anyone can download the Waymo One app to hail a ride in its service area, which is now about 80 square miles in Los Angeles County.…Read More

Apple’s geoblocks on media services in EU draw consumer protection ire

Apple’s pile of regulatory woes in the European Union has ticked up again: the iPhone maker is being accused of unlawfully discriminating against consumers by applying restrictions on how several of its media services can be accessed around the bloc. Consumer protection a…Read More

Signal gets new video call features, making it a viable alternative to Zoom, Meet and Teams

Privacy-focused messaging app Signal is adding new features for video calls, including links, reactions and a calls tab, in a bid to pose as an alternative to Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. The highlight of the update is a new “Calls” tab, which…Read More

Agicap secures $48 million for its cash flow management platform

On average, Agicap’s clients manage 15 different bank accounts each. So the chief financial officers (CFOs) working for these companies sometimes struggle to make sure that there will be enough money in the right bank account to pay employees and suppliers across different s…Read More

SmartBank secures $26M for its personal finance management app

The majority of the aging population in Japan still prefers using cash for transactions, according to a recent report citing government data. In 2023, cashless transactions in Japan totaled 126.7 trillion yen ($885 billion), accounting for 39.3 percent of all spending in the country,…Read More

Indonesian VC firm Intudo raises $125M across two funds

Intudo, the Indonesia-only venture capital firm, said it has raised $125 million across two investment funds — $75 million for Intudo Ventures IV, and $50 million for another fund that will invest in downstream natural resources and renewable energy. Intudo said Fund IV will invest in I…Read More

Amazon confirms employee data stolen after hacker claims MOVEit breach

Amazon has confirmed that employee data was compromised after a “security event” at a third-party vendor. In a statement given to TechCrunch on Monday, Amazon spokesperson Adam Montgomery confirmed that employee information had been involved in a data breach. “Amazon and AWS s…Read More

Amazon confirms employee data stolen after hacker claims MOVEit breach

Amazon has confirmed that employee data was compromised after a “security event” at a third-party vendor. In a statement given to TechCrunch on Monday, Amazon spokesperson Adam Montgomery confirmed that employee information had been involved in a data breach. “Amazon and AWS s…Read More

Intuitive Machines CEO: ‘We now have the platform for a lunar economy’

Steve Altemus is optimistic. And as CEO of Intuitive Machines, which made history with the first ever successful moon landing performed by a private company, he has good reason. But that was just the opening act of his company’s plans to build “a full stack: all the pieces you…Read More

From self-driving cars to AI that writes enterprise software: Cogna founder raises $15M

A founder who was an early mover in the race to build autonomous vehicles has raised $15 million for his next act: a startup that claims its AI can write enterprise software on its own. Cogna — as the U.K.-based startup is called — is led by Ben Peters, the…Read More

Brazilian fintech Tako emerges from stealth with sizable seed round led by a16z and Ribbit Capital

Running payroll is hard in any country, but perhaps especially so in Brazil thanks to consistently changing laws and extremely influential unions that make it significantly harder to get it right. Fernando Gadotti struggled with this as the…Read More