Bluesky launches blue check verification

Bluesky announced on Monday that it is rolling out blue check verification, confirming previous rumors that this feature was on its way to the platform. Like Twitter’s original blue check (RIP), Bluesky’s blue check will verify that notable accounts are legitimate, making it easy for users to trust that an…Read More

Uncovered emails showed how Meta struggled to keep Facebook culturally relevant

With the first week of Meta’s antitrust trial behind us, documents shared by the U.S Federal Trade Commission (FTC) offered more insight into Meta’s internal struggles to keep Facebook relevant. In emails from 2022, Meta executives mulled different visions for Fac…Read More

Famed AI researcher launches controversial startup to replace all human workers everywhere

Every now and then, a Silicon Valley startup launches with such an “absurdly” described mission that it’s difficult to discern if the startup is for real or just satire. Such is the case with Mechanize, a startup whose founder – and the non-profit AI rese…Read More

TikToker sues Roblox over her Charli XCX ‘Apple’ dance

TikTok content creator Kelley Heyer sued the video game Roblox for using her dance to Charli XCX’s “Apple” without permission. Heyer posted the viral dance in June 2024, which fed off of the hype of Charli XCX’s hit summer album Brat. The dance became so popular that Charli XCX inc…Read More

Instagram’s new Blend feature creates a custom reels feed for you and your friends

Instagram on Thursday announced that it’s rolling out Blend, a new feature that lets you create a custom, personalized reels feed for you and your friends. Blends are invite-only and can be created with a singular friend or with a group chat. The custom feeds are r…Read More

Bluesky feed builder Graze raises $1M, rolls out ads

Graze, a startup that lets people build and monetize custom feeds for Bluesky’s social network, has attracted new capital. Pre-seed investors, led by Betaworks and Salesforce Ventures, have invested $1 million in the company’s small team, which is working to give users control over their…Read More

Deel’s CEO is now in Dubai, complicating Rippling’s lawsuit

Rippling’s efforts to serve Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz have been significantly complicated by the fact that Bouaziz and his lawyer are now in Dubai, according to internal correspondence seen by TechCrunch. The UAE is a country with a reputation of being a safe haven for those wanting to avo…Read More

Google’s newest AI model is designed to help study dolphin ‘speech’

Google’s AI research lab, Google DeepMind, says that it has created an AI model that can help decipher dolphin vocalizations, supporting research efforts to better understand how dolphins communicate. The model, called DolphinGemma, was trained using data from the Wild Dolph…Read More

Tech tariff exemptions are only temporary, according to Trump’s commerce secretary

The tech industry may not be safe from new tariffs, according to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The Trump administration announced Friday evening that consumer electronics such as laptops and smartphones would be exempt from the tariffs it unveiled e…Read More

The xAI–X merger is a good deal — if you’re betting on Musk’s empire

When Elon Musk announced that his AI startup, xAI, had acquired his social media company, X (formerly known as Twitter), in an all-stock deal, it raised some eyebrows. But in many ways, the deal made sense. xAI’s chatbot, Grok, was already deeply integrated with X, X was floun…Read More

Stripe CEO says company management regularly asks customers for ‘candid feedback’

Digital payments platform Stripe invites customers to join its management team meetings on a bi-weekly basis so it can get “candid feedback,” according to co-founder Patrick Collison. In an April 8 post on X, the fintech giant’s CEO said the company has a customer…Read More

Meghan Markle has made another angel investment

Meghan is stepping further into the world of business and entrepreneurship.  In an interview with Fortune, Meghan revealed that she is an angel investor in the healthcare company Midi, which provides a virtual platform to help treat women experiencing menopause and other health-related concerns. …Read More

MIT study finds that AI doesn’t, in fact, have values

A study went viral several months ago for implying that, as AI becomes increasingly sophisticated, it develops “value systems” — systems that lead it to, for example, prioritize its own well-being over humans. A more recent paper out of MIT pours cold water on that hyperbolic notion, dra…Read More

Tapestry’s app can now de-dupe your social feeds

Tapestry, a new app designed to organize the open social web, is adding a valuable feature to help people who are keeping up with multiple social networks: It will now remove duplicate posts from your feed. That means if you follow the same person across social networking services like Bluesky a…Read More

Waymo may use interior camera data to train generative AI models, sell ads

Waymo is preparing to use data from its robotaxis, including video from interior cameras tied to rider identities, to train generative AI models, according to an unreleased version of its privacy policy found by researcher Jane Manchun Wong.  The draft language reveals…Read More