Temu’s low cost marketplace faces formal probe in EU over raft of DSA compliance concerns
The European Union has expanded its scrutiny of online marketplaces by opening a formal proceeding on Chinese low cost ecommerce platform, Temu, under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Commission announced Thursday. Enforcers of the online governance framework will now dial up their oversight of Temu. The bloc’s suspicions are
Read more2024 looks set to be another record-breaking year for ransomware — and it’s likely going to get worse
This year, 2024, looks set to be the most profitable yet for hackers, with four ransom demands paid in the tens of millions of dollars. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreNFL quarterback turned-founder Colin Kaepernick on the challenges facing disrupters
Former NFL quarterback and civil rights activist Colin Kaepernick took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 on Wednesday to talk about the challenges that people who want to disrupt something are facing — both inside and outside of the tech world. “One of the biggest challenges that you will likely
Read moreAurora Innovation delays commercial autonomous truck launch to 2025
Autonomous vehicle technology startup Aurora Innovation is targeting April 2025 for commercial deployment of its autonomous trucks, pushing its timeline back by about a quarter. The company had originally planned to launch by the end of 2024. The company said it delayed the launch so it can continue to validate
Read moreAnd the winner of Startup Battlefield at Disrupt 2024 is . . . Salva Health
Over the last three days, 20 startups participated in the incredibly competitive Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt. These 20 companies were selected as the best of the Startup Battlefield 200 and competed for a chance to take home the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000. After three days of intense pitching,
Read morePerplexity’s CEO punts on defining ‘plagiarism’
Perplexity’s CEO, Aravind Srinivas, wouldn’t say how Perplexity defines “plagiarism” in an on stage interview with Devin Coldewey at TechCrunch’s Disrupt 2024 conference. It’s a touchy subject. News Corp’s Dow Jones and the New York Post have sued Perplexity over what they describe as a “content kleptocracy.” Many other news sites have expressed
Read moreRivian’s chief software officer says in-car buttons are ‘an anomaly’
The trend of big touchscreens in cars has left many yearning for the not-so-distant days when most user interactions happened with physical buttons. But Rivian’s chief software officer Wassym Bensaid believes using buttons in a car is an “anomaly.” “It’s a bug. It’s not a feature,” Bensaid said Wednesday at
Read moreAI models get more election questions wrong when asked in Spanish, study shows
AI models are struggling to accurately answer election-related questions in Spanish. That’s according to a new study from the AI Democracy Projects, a collaboration between Proof News, fact-checking service Factchequeado and the Institute for Advanced Study in San Francisco. The study found a sharp disparity between the factuality of English- and
Read moreZoox co-founder on Tesla self-driving: ‘they don’t have technology that works’
Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson doesn’t believe Tesla will launch a robotaxi ride-hailing service in California (or anywhere else) next year despite what Elon Musk recently claimed. The “fundamental issue is they don’t have technology that works,” Levinson said Wednesday at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. “And by works, I want
Read moreThe cybsecurity problems and opportunities facing open-source startups
Open-source software is everywhere, and in everything.Many startups are pursuing explicitly open-source business models. But every company out there that builds software has at least some dependency on open-source code. Recent security issues, however, have made it plain that open-source software is a target for state-level hackers.So, how can we
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