Tech

Zoë Schiffer: Our colleague, Dell Cameron, reported that according to the findings, the 2,000 total files include people who’ve actually never been formally charged with a crime, and about 95 minors. There were also dozens of cases where CBP agents left the charges field blank in the paperwork. In other files analyzed by Georgetown, officers invoked civil penalties as the …

Renowned roboticist Rodney Brooks has a wake-up call for investors pouring billions into humanoid robot startups: you’re wasting your money. Brooks, who co-founded iRobot and spent decades at MIT, is particularly skeptical of companies like Tesla and Figure trying to teach robots dexterity by showing them videos of humans doing tasks. In a new essay, he calls this approach “pure …

The same mildly flat indent on the stem of each bud indicates the location of the touch/squeeze controls, and there are black spots where heart rate sensors, wear detection sensors, and microphone ports hide. As with previous models, silvery tips bless the end of each elephant trunk, where a beamforming mic aims at your lips for maximum fidelity. These are …

The idea of hiring your “first critical engineer” is getting a serious reality check at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, October 27–29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West. Join Lauri Moore, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and David Cramer, co-founder and chief product officer at Sentry, and Zach Lloyd, founder and CEO of Warp, on the Builders Stage for a candid conversation about …

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing, the Republican policy apparatus went immediately to work. The Heritage Foundation, which published Project 2025, and its spinoff, the Oversight Project, issued a call for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to designate “Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism,” or TIVE, as a domestic terrorism threat category. The push comes as President Donald Trump just signed …

Silicon Valley flooded the news this week with headlines about wild AI infrastructure investments. Nvidia said it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI. Then OpenAI said it would build out five more Stargate AI data centers with Oracle and Softbank, adding gigawatts of new capacity online in the coming years. And it was later revealed that Oracle sold …

Fintech Checkout.com announced on Friday that it reached a $12 billion valuation as part of an employee stock buyback program.  On the one hand, very few startups ever achieve decacorn status, so $12 billion is nothing to sneeze at. It’s a valuable enough company to have landed its founder and CEO Guillaume Pousaz on Forbes’ billionaire list. On the other, …

The video game company Electronic Arts is nearing a $50 billion sale to a group of investors including Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. EA is best known for its annual sports titles in franchises like Madden NFL, FIFA, and NBA Live, as well as video game series like …

Fifteen years after “The Social Network,” Aaron Sorkin will write and direct a sequel film called “The Social Reckoning,” set for release on October 9, 2026. Jesse Eisenberg will not reprise his breakout role as Mark Zuckerberg, but instead will be replaced with the more sallow, serious Jeremy Strong. Best known for playing Kendall Roy in “Succession,” Strong is known …

YouTube Music is testing AI music hosts that provide relevant stories, fan trivia, and commentary about what you’re listening to, the company announced on Friday. The move comes two years after Spotify launched an AI DJ that delivers a curated selection of music alongside AI-powered spoken commentary about the tracks and artists you like. YouTube Music’s new feature builds on …