Tech

When former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt, someone from the audience asked him if HBO’s hit satire “Silicon Valley” would be revived. Costolo, who was a writer for the show, essentially answered no (at timestamp 38:17). While the writers talk about that regularly, he said, they don’t pursue it because today’s actual Silicon Valley is so bizarre, …

Deepwatch, a cybersecurity firm that makes an AI-powered detection and response platform, laid off dozens of employees on Wednesday, citing AI as one of the reasons. John DiLullo, CEO at Deepwatch told TechCrunch in an email that the company “is aligning our organization to accelerate our significant investments in AI and automation.” A current Deepwatch employee, who asked not to …

ElevenLabs struck a deal with actors Michael Caine and Matthew McConaughey to AI-generate their voices, the company announced this week. Hollywood and AI have an up-and-down relationship, with AI and its — or lack thereof — guardrails serving among the main concerns that led to the Hollywood strikes a few years ago. Since then, some artists have started to warm up to the idea …

We’re seeing reports across social media that users of Elon Musk’s X are getting stuck in endless loops and, in some cases, getting locked out of their X account, following a mandatory two-factor security change that seems to have gone wrong. On October 24, X said in a post that it was asking users who rely on passkeys or hardware …

A German court ruled that OpenAI’s ChatGPT violated the nation’s copyright laws by training its language models on licensed musical work without permission, multiple news outlets, including The Guardian, reported.   The decision came from a lawsuit that GEMA, the society that handles music rights in Germany, filed last November against OpenAI. The company was ordered to pay an undisclosed amount of damages to GEMA, but said it disagreed with the ruling …

Apple released iOS 26.2 beta 1 last week, introducing several updates, such as the option to customize the Liquid Glass appearance of the iPhone’s Lock Screen clock, the ability to set alarms within the Reminders app, and live translation features for users in the EU, among other improvements. The public release of iOS 26.2 is expected sometime in December. iOS …

YouTube TV’s parent company, Google, has been locked in a standoff with Disney for nearly two weeks. The dispute began when the two companies failed to reach an agreement on a streaming deal. This means that for 12 days and counting, 10 million YouTube TV subscribers like myself have not been able to access Disney-owned TV networks like ABC and …

Search and rescue missions often happen in areas that are difficult for humans to navigate due to extreme weather, rough terrain, or dangerous conditions like smoke or dust. A researcher at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) wants to send robots inspired by bats on these missions instead of humans. Nitin J. Sanket, a professor at WPI, has developed small flying robots …

Crafting a perfect prompt for AI chatbots is often a challenge — so much so that startups are creating roles for prompt engineers. Consumer-facing AI apps are increasingly adding features like suggestion buttons or autogenerated recommendations to nudge customers to use the chatbot more frequently and show them about what the app can do. Hero, a productivity startup founded by …

Internet radio service TuneIn, a competitor of sorts to Sirius XM and other streamers that was valued at around $500 million during its heyday, has sold for just $175 million. The acquirer is the music and technology company Stingray Group, which will pay $150 million at closing and up to $25 million one year later. It financed the deal with …