Tech

You’ve doubtless heard of hybrid cars, but what about a hybrid cement or glass plant? Likely not, since nearly all of them today run on fossil fuels. But that might change soon — one startup has developed a way to incorporate electric heat into existing facilities. And like a hybrid car, it lets companies save money while also using fewer …

The RAM crisis has prompted another company to jack up hardware prices. Meta says it will be increasing the price of Quest headsets on April 19. The Meta Quest 3 will get a $100 hike to $599, while the Quest 3S will be $50 more expensive at $350 (for a version with 128GB of storage) and $450 (256GB). Meta is blaming …

Cristóbal Valenzuela, the co-founder and CEO of AI video-generation startup Runway, now valued at north of $5 billion, may not be winning over more hearts and minds in the anti-AI, creative crowd with his recent comments about AI’s potential in Hollywood. At Semafor’s World Economy Summit this week, the AI executive suggested that studios should take the $100 million they spend …

A Microsoft Surface tablet at Lumen Field in Seattle on Wednesday running Copilot as it’s seen by Seahawks and other NFL personnel who use the devices and technology during games. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) When Bill Belichick famously spiked a Microsoft Surface tablet as the New England Patriots head coach in 2016, the moment was a symbol of frustration …

Meta is raising the prices of its virtual reality headsets due to the rising cost of memory chips, the company announced on Thursday. Starting April 19, the price of the Meta Quest 3S (128GB) and Meta Quest 3S (256GB) will go up by $50 to $349.99 and $449.99, respectively. The price of the Meta Quest 3 is going up by …

The core promise of new AI platforms is that you can describe your task to the AI assistant, let it plan the task and use the relevant tools for you, and keep your preferences in mind for future tasks. This is especially important for design professionals, as they want to have a predictable, automated workflow for creating content and media …

Spotify has a new look today for listeners on tablets. The streaming service’s updated tablet UI now provides adaptive orientation, switching between portrait and landscape layouts rather than simply resizing the interface when changing how the device is held. Spotify’s tablet app now sports a collapsible sidebar so listeners can take advantage of their larger screen space when watching a …

Adobe isn’t the only company releasing a new AI assistant this week. Ahead of its Create event in Los Angeles today, Canva announced Canva AI 2.0. Building on its existing AI assistant, the company is billing the release as its most significant update since the platform first launched in 2013, and the culmination of years of investment to build its …

Fashion giant Express has patched its website to fix a security flaw that allowed anyone to view other people’s order details and personal information, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. At least a dozen of Express’ customer orders had been publicly listed in web search engine results. The security flaw exposed order confirmation pages on Express’ online store, revealing details of purchases …

The promise of physical AI is that engineers will be able to program physical agents the same way they do digital ones.  We’re not there yet. Robotics is still held back by a paucity of data from physical spaces. To train their machines, companies need to build mock-up warehouses to test their machines, while an entire industry is springing up …