Tech

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed SB 53, a first-in-the-nation bill that sets new transparency requirements on large AI companies. SB 53, which passed the state legislature two weeks ago, requires large AI labs – including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Google DeepMind – to be transparent about safety protocols. It also ensures whistleblower protections for employees at those companies.   In addition, SB 53 creates a mechanism for AI companies and the …

Charlie Javice, founder of the financial aid startup Frank and Forbes 30 under 30 alumnus, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud. The fintech startup had been acquired by JPMorgan Chase in 2021 for $175 million. The bank later accused Javice of lying about its customer base; the founder claimed the company had 4 million customers, when …

DeepSeek has gone viral. Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week after its chatbot app rose to the top of the Apple App Store charts (and Google Play, as well). DeepSeek’s AI models, which were trained using compute-efficient techniques, have led Wall Street analysts — and technologists — to question whether the U.S. can maintain its lead in the AI race …

A Faraday Future electric SUV caught fire at the startup’s Los Angeles headquarters early Sunday morning, leading to an explosion that blew out part of a wall, the fire department told TechCrunch. The fire was extinguished in 40 minutes, and no injuries were reported. Damage to the building — a smaller two-story structure next to the larger portion of the …

Job seekers in all fields can expect to soon be doing a lot more initial screening interviews. While that may sound like positive news, it doesn’t mean that there will suddenly be more open positions. Instead, recruiters, often bogged down with determining which applicants are qualified for the next round, will outsource the routine screening tasks — like checking backgrounds, …

Facebook is rolling out features that aim to bring fans closer to their favorite creators: fan challenges and customized top fan badges. The fan challenges feature will allow creators to prompt their followers with specific challenges. Followers can participate by making a reel or a post as a response. To encourage more engagement and participation, the particular challenge hashtag will …

Researchers at DeepSeek on Monday released a new experimental model called V3.2-exp, designed to have dramatically lower inference costs when used in long-context operations. DeepSeek announced the model with a post on Hugging Face, also posting a linked academic paper on GitHub. The most important feature of the new model is called DeepSeek Sparse Attention, an intricate system described in …

ChatGPT users in the U.S. can now make Etsy and Shopify purchases within conversations, marking a next step towards the future of online shopping – both for consumers and the platforms that control product discovery, recommendation, and payments. In other words, OpenAI might be on the path to reshaping who holds power in e-commerce.  OpenAI’s new “Instant Checkout” feature is available to ChatGPT Pro, Plus, and Free logged-in users buying from U.S.-based Etsy …

Venture capital is filled with investors who claim they’ve got inside access to the next big thing. Meanwhile, Gabriel Jarrosson, a French engineer-turned-YouTuber-turned-investor, has built his VC firm around a single filter: if it isn’t a Y Combinator company, he won’t invest in it. That discipline pushed Jarrosson from filming scrappy venture explainers in Paris to managing more than $12 …

It’s no secret that vibe coding — using AI-powered coding tools to build apps and websites via natural language prompts — is exploding in popularity. In July, Swedish vibe-coding startup Lovable hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) just eight months after launch. It plans to close the year at $250 million ARR and thinks it will hit $1 …