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Arizona proposes law that would shift wildfire liability from utilities to insurers
Arizona lawmakers are debating a bill that would protect utilities from wildfire-related lawsuits, a move that would likely send shockwaves through the insurance industry. The bill would make it harder to prove that utilities are to blame for wildfires started by faulty or poorly maintained equipment while also limiting damages. In exchange for reduced liability,…
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No one knows what the hell an AI agent is
Silicon Valley is bullish on AI agents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said agents will “join the workforce” this year. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted that agents will replace certain knowledge work. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that Salesforce’s goal is to be “the number one provider of digital labor in the world” via the company’s…
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iPhone and Android users will soon be able to send encrypted RCS messages to each other
Text messages sent between iPhones and Android devices will soon benefit from end-to-end encryption (E2EE), after the GSM Association (GSMA) yesterday published new specifications for the Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol that include support for cross-platform E2EE. RCS is a long-standing effort to enable SMS-style cross-platform communications with richer features, such as group messaging, typing…
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Developer of Lockbit ransomware gets extradited to the United States
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that Rostislav Panev, who developed code and maintained infrastructure for LockBit, is now in U.S. custody. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
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US lawmakers urge UK spy court to hold Apple ‘backdoor’ secret hearing in public
U.S. bipartisan lawmakers say the U.K. order gagging Apple from disclosing the demand is unconstitutional. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
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Kerry Washington invests in wedding marketplace Cheersy
Kerry Washington is expanding her angel investment portfolio, serving as lead investor in the pre-seed round of the wedding marketplace Cheersy. Cheersy, which was founded in 2024 by Amy Shack Egan, helps couples find day-of service wedding coordinators and has raised a total of $550,000, from other investors including Christina Tosi, the founder of Milk…
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UK’s secret iCloud backdoor order triggers civil rights challenge
The U.K. government’s secret order to Apple demanding it backdoor the end-to-end encrypted version of its iCloud storage service has now been challenged by two civil rights groups, Liberty and Privacy International, which filed complaints Thursday. They called the order “unacceptable and disproportionate” and warned of “global consequences” as the access order is thought to…
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Trump family is reportedly in talks to acquire stake in Binance’s US arm
President Trump’s family has been weighing an investment in Binance.US, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. The investment would come just a couple of years after Binance’s U.S. arm pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering regulation. As part of that guilty plea, Binance’s founder Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ, paid a…
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SoftBank buys $676M old Sharp plant for its OpenAI collab in Japan
SoftBank is marching ahead on its ambitions to build out a major AI operation in its home market of Japan, on its own steam and in strategic partnership with others like OpenAI. On Friday, the tech company confirmed it would pay $676 million for factory previously used by Sharp to build LCD panels to convert…
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Waymo was slapped with nearly 600 parking tickets last year in SF alone
Waymo now has more than 300 driverless vehicles zipping passengers around San Francisco, but while they follow traffic laws, parking is another matter entirely. According to city records cited by the Washington Post, these rolling robots racked up 589 citations totaling $65,065 in fines last year for parking violations that ranged from blocking traffic to…