Tech

As the startup world descends on San Francisco for TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 — happening October 27–29 at Moscone West — one question looms large: Does building in Silicon Valley still give founders an edge? With 10,000+ startup and VC leaders gathering for this milestone Disrupt, the conversation around access, geography, and opportunity has never been more timely. On the Builders …

Android users are now able to edit their photos with AI, Google announced on Tuesday. In Google Photos, users will be able to talk to the AI using natural language to describe how they want to edit their photo via either voice or text, Google says. The feature is designed to make it easier to edit photos without having to …

Big electric trucks are having a hard time. The Cybertruck is a bust, Stellantis just canceled the Ram 1500 EV, and even sales of Ford’s promising F-150 Lightning have been on the decline. But the United States loves trucks. So is the key to making them love electric trucks… a very small one? That’s the bet that California-based startup Telo …

SpaceX boasts an impressive alumni list. Some have gone on to found the sector’s biggest startups; others become astronauts. NASA unveiled its 2025 astronaut class this week, and two familiar names popped out: Anna Menon and Yuri Kubo. Both spent more than a decade at SpaceX, where they played critical roles in the company’s rise to the behemoth it is …

WhatsApp is rolling out the ability for users to translate messages into their preferred language, the Meta-owned company announced on Tuesday. Now, if users see a message in a different language, they can long-press and tap “Translate.” Users can then select the language they want to translate from or to, and download it for future use. WhatsApp notes that message …

While many vibe-coding startups have become unicorns, with valuations in the billions, one area where AI-assisted coding has not yet taken off is on mobile devices. Despite the numerous apps now available that offer vibe-coding tools on mobile platforms, none are gaining noticeable downloads, and few are generating any revenue at all. According to an analysis of global app store …

The future of work is no longer on the horizon — it’s being redefined in real time. On the AI Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Mercor co-founder and CEO Brendan Foody will break down how artificial intelligence is transforming not just how we work, but also who gets to work in the first place. From talent access to hiring pipelines …

Robotics companies often have to deal with a simple but confounding problem: Robots produce a lot of data. Even a simple robot can easily produce up to a terabyte of data per day, since they continuously capture data from cameras and sensors. Sydney, Australia-based Alloy thinks it can help with that issue: The startup is building data infrastructure for robotics companies to help them process and organize all the data their …

Tim Chen, solo VC at his firm Essence VC, said he just closed his fourth fund, a fresh $41 million, without even trying. Limited partner investors were so eager to invest, they preempted it, he told TechCrunch. He didn’t even have time to generate a pitch deck.  A $41 million raise might not sound like much in this age of multibillion-dollar …

Meta has raised the stakes in Big Tech’s fight against AI regulation. The Facebook-maker is investing “tens of millions” of dollars into a new super PAC to fight state-level tech policy proposals that could stifle AI advancement, reports Axios. Meta’s pro-AI PAC, called the American Technology Excellence Project, is the company’s latest effort to combat policies it sees as harmful …