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Egypt’s Mtor nabs $2.8M pre-seed for its online auto parts marketplace

Egyptian online auto parts marketplace Mtor has raised $2.8 million in pre-seed investment led by MENA-focused venture capital firm Algebra Ventures. Other investors that participated in the round inc

Fortnite is expanding its horizons with a Lego building game and a Rock Band successor

The first fruit of the partnership between Fornite-maker Epic Games and Lego is due out this week — along with a pair of other games within a game that expand Fortnite’s horizons considerably.

For $200, George Santos will gossip with you on Cameo

George Santos, Republican ex-congressman, certified grifter and unlikely gay icon, is now on Cameo. Santos’ stint in Congress — checkered with a slew of criminal fraud charges, a House ethics

Cruise faces fines in California for withholding key details in robotaxi accident

Cruise keeps getting kicked while it’s down. The General Motors-owned robotaxi company may face fines and sanctions after failing to disclose details of an October 2 incident — specificall

Kodiak’s military prototype AV is a Ford F-150 pickup

Kodiak Robotics has unveiled its first autonomous test vehicle for the U.S. Department of Defense, a Ford F-150 pickup truck that the startup has upfitted with its software and sensor stack. The DOD i

UK age assurance guidance for porn sites gives thumbs up to AI age checks, digital ID wallets and more

The U.K.’s Internet regulator has set out draft guidance for how porn sites will need to meet a newly introduced hard legal requirement to prevent children accessing adult content. So, yep, thos

Max Q: A Starlink terminal and a Kuiper terminal walk into a bar

Welcome back to Max Q! In this issue: Why space parachutes are so hard, a new lawsuit alleging safety issues at Blue Origin, news from Loft Orbital, Relativity Space and more

‘Animate Anyone’ heralds the approach of full-motion deepfakes

As if still-image deepfakes aren’t bad enough, we may soon have to contend with generated videos of anyone who dares to put a photo of themselves online: with Animate Anyone, bad actors can pupp

Mastercard launches Shopping Muse, an AI-powered shopping assistant

Mastercard is launching a new generative AI shopping tool called “Shopping Muse” that is designed to help users get personalized product recommendations. The tool is powered by Dynamic Yie

A Y Combinator-backed startup called Velt wants to make more apps collaborative

Online collaboration has become routine thanks to productivity apps like Google Docs and team design platform Figma, among others, but there are still hosts of internet-connected applications where us

Atomic Industries closes $17M seed to exascale America’s industrial base

In 2014, investor and entrepreneur Peter Thiel infamously posed the distinction between companies that deal in “atoms” versus those that deal in “bits.” In its crudest terms, the f

AI invades ‘word of the year’ lists at Oxford, Cambridge and Merriam-Webster

Few would disagree that 2023 was, in the world of technology at least, dominated by artificial intelligence. The dictionaries have taken note in their “word of the year” lists, and notably

The makers of pro photography app Halide venture into video with Kino, due this February

Lux, the startup and makers of the popular pro photography app Halide and others, is venturing into video. The team today announced its plans to debut a new app, Kino, arriving in roughly two months&#

23andMe confirms hackers stole ancestry data on 6.9 million users

On Friday, genetic testing company 23andMe announced that hackers accessed the personal data of 0.1% of customers, or about 14,000 individuals. The company also said that by accessing those accounts,

A comprehensive list of 2023 tech layoffs

Last year’s techwide reckoning continues. The tech industry has seen more than 240,000 jobs lost in 2023, a total that’s already 50% higher than last year and growing. Earlier this year, mass work

AssemblyAI lands $50M to build and serve AI speech models

Companies are betting big on generative AI to gain a competitive edge. But adoption challenges remain. According to a recent survey from EY, a significant portion of businesses looking to embrace gene

Spotify’s layoffs make sense when you consider its margins and market

Spotify is simply tinkering with its economics so that it is more attractive to investors. That means it needs to pay fewer salaries.

Tesla’s cheapest vehicle is losing half its tax credit next year

Tesla’s lowest-priced vehicle, the rear-wheel-drive Model 3, won’t be eligible for the full $7,500 federal tax credit as of next year.  Tesla started warning buyers (and window-shoppers)

Twilio lays off another 5% of employees following activist pressure

Just a few hours after Spotify announced a large round of layoffs, Twilio is also announcing hundreds of job cuts. Around 5% of the company’s workforce will be impacted. Today’s news proves that w

Threads downloads return to growth as X adds Walmart to its advertiser exodus

Recent efforts by Meta to grow Threads’ install base have been working. According to a new analysis of app store trends, Instagram Threads is now outpacing X, formerly Twitter, at least in terms
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