Author: Jason
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a16z backs Base Power in $200M round for home backup batteries
The money will fund a rapid expansion, including dozens more megawatt-hours of battery storage and plans for a domestic battery factory. Read more
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Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams says company targeted ads at teens based on their ‘emotional state’
Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Director of Global Public Policy for Facebook and author of the recently released tell-all book “Careless People,” told U.S. senators during her testimony on Wednesday that Meta actively targeted teens with advertisements based on their emotional state. This claim was first documented by Wynn-Williams in her book, which documents… Read more
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A Waymo robotaxi got trapped in Chick-fil-A drive-through
A Waymo robotaxi caused a traffic jam at a Chick-fil-A in Santa Monica, California, this week after getting stuck in the fast food restaurant’s drive-thru lane. Waymo confirmed the incident, which was first reported by local broadcast station KTLA 5, to TechCrunch via email. Waymo told TechCrunch that there weren’t any passengers in the robotaxi.… Read more
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Whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams accuses Meta of colluding with China
Sarah Wynn-Williams, Facebook’s former head of Global Public Policy, testified before the U.S. Senate today about the company’s relationship with China. According to Wynn-Williams, the company now known as Meta worked directly with the Chinese Community Party (CCP) to “undermine U.S. national security and betray American values,” she said. She alleges that Facebook created custom-built… Read more
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Nvidia’s H20 AI chips may be spared from export controls — for now
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang appears to have struck a deal with the Trump administration to avoid export restrictions on the company’s H20 AI chips. The H20, the most advanced Nvidia-produced AI chip that can still be exported from the U.S. to China, was reportedly spared thanks to a promise from Huang to invest in new… Read more
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Threads is testing a feature that lets you follow the same creators you follow on X
Meta is starting to test a new feature in Threads that lets users follow the same creators they follow on X, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. “We’re currently testing a way for you to find and follow creators from other platforms on Threads, making it easier to connect with the people and conversations that matter… Read more
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Ilya Sutskever taps Google Cloud to power his AI startup’s research
OpenAI co-founder and former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever’s new AI startup, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), is using Google Cloud’s TPU chips to power its AI research, part of a new partnership the companies announced on Wednesday in a press release. Google Cloud says SSI is using TPUs to “accelerate its research and development efforts toward building… Read more
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Canoo CEO can buy bankrupt EV startup’s assets, judge rules
The sale of bankrupt EV startup Canoo’s assets to its CEO has been okayed by the judge overseeing the case. After evaluating a number of limited objections to the sale, Judge Brendan Shannon said in a hearing Wednesday he believes the process was fair, and that no one else but Canoo CEO Anthony Aquila made… Read more
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Court document reveals locations of WhatsApp victims targeted by NSO spyware
The list of 1,223 victims in 51 countries hints at the “true scale of the spyware problem,” per one researcher. Read more
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More good news for New York startups: Lerer Hippeau raised another $200M
New York’s A-list venture capital seed fund, Lerer Hippeau, announced it closed a ninth $200 million fund on Wednesday. That’s a step up from its eighth fund, which closed at $140 million, it said. With the new fund, Lerer Hippeau has $1.4 billion of assets under management. Since its inception in 2010, Lerer Hippeau has… Read more