January 2024
Three San Francisco supervisors receive threats following YC President Garry Tan’s tweet
Aaron Peskin says Garry Tan’s now deleted X post did “harm to democratic discourse.”
India weighs more penalties on Paytm, including revoking payments bank license
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is discussing more penalties on Paytm Payments Bank and may reach a decision within days, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch, as…
Reliance-backed Viacom18 agrees to buy 60% of Disney’s India unit, report says
Reliance-backed Viacom18 has reached an agreement to buy 60% of Disney’s India unit, WSJ reported Thursday citing unnamed sources, creating a pathway for the Indian conglomerate to form a $10…
Paytm to terminate business with Paytm Payments Bank after central bank’s clampdown
Paytm said Thursday that it will cease work with its associate Paytm Payments Bank and accelerate plans to partner with other banks, after India’s central bank barred Paytm Payments Bank…
Tesla sued for allegedly mishandling hazardous waste in California for years
Tesla has been sued by 25 California counties alleging the automaker has repeatedly mishandled hazardous waste at facilities throughout the state. The lawsuit was filed after months of settlement talks…
Media startup The Messenger disintegrates, leaving staff nothing
They say don’t shoot the messenger, but what if The Messenger shoots itself? Media startup The Messenger burst on the scene last May with $50 million in hand, aggressively hiring…
Autonomous vehicle company Motional is about to lose a key backer
Autonomous vehicle company Motional is losing capital support from one of its primary backers as it aims to commercialize a robotaxi service in 2024. Automotive supplier Aptiv — the other…
Featured Article
Apple Vision Pro: Day One
It’s Friday, February 2, 2024. Today is the day. You’ve been eyeing the Vision Pro since Tim Cook stepped onstage with the product at last year’s WWDC. Longer than that, really, if you factor in the years of rumors, leaks and renderings. The price wasn’t anywhere near what you had hoped, but it’s a first-gen product.…
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Senate hearing with five social media CEOs was a missed opportunity
Five social media CEOs were sworn in on Wednesday for what could have been the most eventful children’s online safety hearing yet. But even with some of tech’s most powerful figures under oath, the four-hour hearing was anti-climactic. The Senate subpoenaed recently appointed X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Discord’s Jason Citron and Snap’s Evan Spiegel to…
Featured Article
Spice up your desktop with these unusual keyboards from Keychron, HHKB, Cloud Nine and others
Mechanical keyboards are everywhere these days, and there’s a larger variety now than ever before. If you’re looking to pick one up but want to look beyond the most common layouts and types, read on. Here are eight mechanical keyboards that stick out from the pack. Feker Alice 80 My first Alice board! And to…
Europcar says someone likely used ChatGPT to promote a fake data breach
On Sunday, a user in a well-known hacking forum advertised what they claimed was a cache of stolen data from the rental car giant Europcar. The user claimed to have…
Social media apps can rise quickly and burn out just as fast, but taking a step back and looking at those trends on a longer timeline offers a better glimpse…
It’s not hard to spot the human pain in the market today.
No one likes robocalls to begin with, but using AI-generated voices of people like President Biden makes them even worse. As such the FCC is proposing that using voice cloning…
X CEO Linda Yaccarino claims company has 90M US users, less than 1% are teens
During today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing focused on kids’ online safety, X CEO Linda Yaccarino downplayed the social network’s reach among younger users, when she noted that less than 1%…
Snap CEO says 20 million US teens use Snapchat, but only 200,000 parents use its Family Center controls
During today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on kids’ online safety, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel shared that 20 million teenagers use Snapchat in the United States and that around 200,000 parents…
Apple fixes zero-day bug in Apple Vision Pro that ‘may have been exploited’
A day after reporters published their first hands-on review of Apple’s Vision Pro, the technology giant released its first security patch for the mixed reality headset to fix a vulnerability…
Securing generative AI-based applications from prompting attacks, ensuring that they don’t leak sensitive data or create malicious output or results that may violate privacy regulations is becoming a real business.…
Justice hits eBay for $59M for selling obviously illegal pill-counterfeiting gear
You don’t need to resort to the dark web to find your illicit pill counterfeiting presses and molds. Just go to eBay and you can get one like new for…
Featured Article
Apple Vision Pro’s secret weapon? Mindfulness
More than anything, Apple’s Vision Pro is a beginning. There are moments while using it that feel like a porthole into a different world and — just maybe — the future. It’s imperfect, sure, but it’s an undeniable accomplishment after so many decades of extended reality false starts. Using the headset for even a few…
Ask Sophie: What are the USCIS H-1B lottery and filing fee updates?
Sophie Alcorn, attorney, author and founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley, California, is an award-winning Certified Specialist Attorney in Immigration and Nationality Law by the State Bar Board…
Threads is working on surfacing Trends, says Instagram head Adam Mosseri
Instagram Threads will adopt another Twitter/X feature: Trends, the company has confirmed. In a reply to a user on the app, Instagram head Adam Mosseri noted that work on such…
Featured Article
US disrupts China-backed hacking operation amid warning of threat to American infrastructure
The U.S. government announced Wednesday it had disrupted a China-backed hacking operation targeting U.S. critical infrastructure, amid warnings that Beijing is preparing to cause “real-world harm” to Americans in the event of a future conflict. Speaking during a U.S. House of Representatives committee hearing on cyber threats posed by China, FBI director Christopher Wray told…
Mark Zuckerberg defends teenage creators’ right to public Instagram accounts
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Meta, commented in today’s Senate hearing on children’s online safety that teenagers should be able to be creators and share their content widely. Senator…
Microsoft, X throw their weight behind KOSA, the controversial kids online safety bill
On the eve of Wednesday’s Big Tech hearing (both Big Tech and a big hearing — five CEOs are testifying as we speak), Microsoft stepped up to back a controversial…
Metronome’s usage-based billing software finds hit in AI as the startup raises $43M in fresh capital
Metronome, a startup that helps software companies offer usage-based billing, has raised $43 million in a Series B funding round led by NEA. Existing backers Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst…
Nearly two months after Castro, the third-party podcast app, announced it was seeking new ownership, the company revealed today that it has officially been bought by Bluck Apps, an independent…
Cerulean empowers ocean pollution watchdogs with orbital observation
The vastness of the ocean allows polluters to evade detection in all but the most egregious violations. SkyTruth aims to change that with Cerulean, an orbital monitoring platform for coastal…
Mark Zuckerberg says Apple and Google should manage parental consent for apps, not Meta
In today’s congressional online safety hearing, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg again pushed back at the idea that businesses like his should be responsible for managing parental consent systems for kids’…
Twin Labs automates repetitive tasks by letting AI take over your mouse cursor
Meet Twin Labs, a Paris-based startup that wants to build an automation product for repetitive tasks, such as onboarding new employees to all your internal services, reordering items when you’re…
