Blue Origin successfully launches its first crewed mission since 2022
Blue Origin has successfully completed its NS-25 mission, resuming crewed flights for the first time in nearly two years. The mission brought six tourist crew members to the edge of space, including artist and former Air Force Captain Ed Dwight. In 1961, Dwight was selected by President John F. Kennedy
Read moreHollywood agency CAA aims to help stars manage their own AI likenesses
Creative Artists Agency (CAA), one of the top entertainment and sports talent agencies, is hoping to be at the forefront of AI protection services for celebrities in Hollywood. With many stars having their digital likeness used without permission, CAA has built a virtual media storage system for A-list talent —
Read moreOpenAI and Google lay out their competing AI visions
Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review. This week had two major events from OpenAI and Google. OpenAI’s spring update event saw the reveal of its new model, GPT-4o, which has voice and vision capabilities that can turn ChatGPT into a virtual assistant seemingly aspiring to be “Her.” Hot off
Read moreExpedia says two execs dismissed after ‘violation of company policy’
Expedia says Rathi Murthy and Sreenivas Rachamadugu, respectively its CTO and senior vice president of core services product & engineering, are no longer employed at the travel booking company. In a statement shared with Bloomberg and elsewhere, Expedia said Murthy and Rachamadugu are “no longer employed at Expedia Group” due
Read moreWith AI startups booming, nap pods and Silicon Valley hustle culture are back
When Jeffrey Wang posted to X asking if anyone wanted to go in on an order of fancy-but-affordable office nap pods, he didn’t expect the post to go viral. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
Read moreVCs and the military are fueling self-driving startups that don’t need roads
A new crop of early-stage startups — along with some recent VC investments — illustrates a niche emerging in the autonomous vehicle technology sector. Unlike the companies bringing robotaxis to city streets, these startups are taking their tech off-road. Two recent entrants — Seattle-based Overland AI and New Brunswick-based Potential
Read moreDeal Dive: Sagetap looks to bring enterprise software sales into the 21st century
When the founders of Sagetap, Sahil Khanna and Kevin Hughes, started working at early-stage enterprise software startups, they were surprised to find that the companies they worked at were trying to sell their innovative tech through old-school methods like repeated cold emails and calls. Khanna, a former product marketer, and
Read moreThis Week in AI: OpenAI moves away from safety
Keeping up with an industry as fast-moving as AI is a tall order. So until an AI can do it for you, here’s a handy roundup of recent stories in the world of machine learning, along with notable research and experiments we didn’t cover on their own. By the way, TechCrunch plans
Read moreAdobe comes after indie game emulator Delta for copying its logo
After Apple loosened its App Store guidelines to permit game emulators, the retro game emulator Delta — an app 10 years in the making — hit the top of the App Store’s charts. But the increased attention also brought the threat of legal action, as Adobe targeted Delta for sporting
Read moreMeta’s latest experiment borrows from BeReal’s and Snapchat’s core ideas
Meta is once again taking on its competitors by developing a feature that borrows concepts from others — in this case, BeReal and Snapchat. The company is developing a feature for Instagram called “Peek” that would allow users to post authentic pictures that can only be viewed once. While Snapchat
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