Author: Jason

Colossal Biosciences, known for its outlandish goal to resurrect the woolly mammoth by 2028, is claiming steady progress. It’s evidence: Genetically engineering mice to have mammoth-like fur. To engineer the woolly mouse, the company’s scientists found mouse versions of mammoth genes and then used CRISPR to edit mice embryos, Dr. Beth Shapiro, chief science officer… Read more

OpenAI on Monday said it is supporting a new consortium called NextGenAI that would focus on supporting AI-assisted research at top universities. NextGenAI, whose 15 founding academic partners include Harvard, the University of Oxford and MIT, will be funded with $50 million in research grants, compute funding, and API access from OpenAI, the company said.… Read more

Venture investment to startups founded by women in Europe declined 12% in 2024, but it was in line with the 11% decrease in venture investment overall. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. Read more

Poland’s space agency (POLSA) says it is working to restore services following a cybersecurity incident. POLSA, the Polish government agency responsible for the country’s space activities, said in a post on X that it had “immediately disconnected” its network from the internet after detecting the cyberattack on Sunday. POLSA’s website remains offline at the time… Read more

Apple has introduced new 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Air models with the M3 chip. The new iPad Air can be pre-ordered starting Tuesday, and will launch on March 12. The 11-inch model starts at $599 and the 13-inch starts at $799. The iPad Air with M3 comes in four colors. While the new iPad Air… Read more

Cross-border trade could become significantly more challenging with the wave of new tariffs getting introduced across different markets. Today, in a timely piece of news, a London-founded startup called Swap — which is building tools for e-commerce companies to better navigate the cross-border trading world — is announcing $40 million in funding to expand. Iconiq… Read more

As more people turn to AI chatbots like ChatGPT to look things up on the internet, the way companies approach their online presence has to change. Scrunch AI wants to help enterprises better prepare for a world in which more AI bots and agents visit their website than humans do. Scrunch AI says its platform… Read more

Agents are the next big thing in AI. Some define these “agents” differently from others, but the general idea is, they’re AI-powered tools that can perform tasks autonomously. The agent hype has reached a fever pitch, but one startup was relatively early to the game: LlamaIndex. Founded by former Uber research scientists, Jerry Liu and… Read more

Despite clouds of uncertainty looming over the economy and geopolitics, people still want to travel. Demand for travel is in fact expected to grow by 12% this year, working out to 1.75 billion “arrivals,” according to analysts at Oxford Economics. To meet that demand, Mews, which provides a SaaS platform for hotel management, has raised… Read more

Uber users in Austin now have a choice between a Waymo robotaxi and a human driver. The two companies officially launched Tuesday the “Waymo on Uber” robotaxi service in Austin as part of a partnership that has deepened in recent months. The launch comes just days before SXSW, the annual tech, music, film, and comedy… Read more