Boom goes supersonic and Elon promises a self-driving service by summer
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! In case you missed it, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company would launch a paid ride-hailing service with a fleet of
Read moreAmazon cuts jobs in Sustainability department
Amazon is eliminating roles in its Communications and Sustainability departments, per an internal memo seen by TechCrunch. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreUS Justice Department says cybercrime forum allegedly affected 17 million Americans
U.S. prosecutors accused an Argentinian national living in Spain of being an “active administrator” of Nulled, one of the two hacking forums seized and shut down by authorities. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreMicrosoft signs massive carbon credit deal with reforestation startup Chestnut Carbon
The 25-year deal would enable Chestnut Carbon to reforest 60,000 acres of land across Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreWaymo employees can hail fully autonomous rides in Atlanta now
Waymo said it is launching fully driverless robotaxi rides for employees in Atlanta, an important step before the company opens the service up to members of the public later in 2025. This is the latest signal of Waymo’s push into new markets, and it comes two months after the company
Read moreDeepSeek database left user data, chat histories exposed for anyone to see
DeepSeek has secured a “completely open” database that exposed user chat histories, API authentication keys, system logs, and other sensitive information, according to cloud security firm Wiz. The security researchers said they found the Chinese AI startup’s publicly accessible database in “minutes,” with no authentication required. The exposed information was
Read moreElevenLabs, the hot AI audio startup, confirms $180M in Series C funding at a $3.3B valuation
ElevenLabs, one of the more popular startups working in the field AI audio, said Thursday that it has raised a Series C round of $180 million, valuing the company at $3.3 billion post-money. a16z and ICONIQ Growth are co-leading investment. Rumors of the fundraise were first reported by TechCrunch. The
Read moreHow DeepSeek changed Silicon Valley’s AI landscape
Chinese AI lab DeepSeek provoked the first Silicon Valley freak-out of 2025 after releasing open versions of AI models that compete with the best technology OpenAI, Meta, and Google have to offer. DeepSeek claims to have built its models highly efficiently and quickly, and is providing these models at a
Read moreThreads adds a ‘media’ tab and the ability to tag people in photos
Meta’s newer social network Threads announced on Thursday that it’s introducing a dedicated “media” tab for both photos and videos, only days after its rivals, including X (formerly Twitter) and the startup Bluesky, did the same for videos. In addition, Meta will also now allow users to tag people in
Read moreMark Zuckerberg teases a 2025 return to ‘OG Facebook’
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg teased a “return to OG Facebook” as part of his key goals for 2025 in Wednesday’s Q4 earnings call with investors. While the company was short on details as to what specific changes lay in store, it’s clear that Meta is in desperate need of younger
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