Technically, the poke never really left Facebook. The classic feature from Facebook’s early days lets users get a friend’s attention with a virtual nudge of sorts. While the poke fell out of use ages ago, the company has more recently seen an uptick in its use among younger users, which has now prompted it to…
Stripe is funding a new blockchain company called Tempo, co-founder CEO Patrick Collison announced on Thursday. Tempo is aimed at high-volume processing of stablecoins — coins that help reduce crypto’s notorious volatility because they are pegged to a stable asset like the U.S. dollar. That’s not surprising given that Stripe acquired stablecoin company Bridge. What…
The luxury membership platform Vivrelle, which allows customers to rent high-end goods, announced Thursday the launch of an AI personal styling tool called Ella as part of its partnership with fashion retailers Revolve and FWRD. The launch is an example of how the fashion industry is leveraging AI technology to enhance customer experiences and is…
Waymo has been cleared to serve its first airpot in California: San Jose Mineta International. The company announced Thursday that it will start testing its robotaxis there in the coming months, and that it plans to start offering commercial rides by the end of the year. The company has spent years working toward serving airports…
We’re excited to announce that Roelof Botha, managing partner of Sequoia Capital and one of the most influential voices in venture capital, will join us live onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27–29 at Moscone West in San Francisco. For more than two decades, Botha has helped shape some of the world’s most…
Google’s latest video-generation model, Veo 3, is coming to Google Photos. The new model, available on the mobile app’s “Create” tab, will allow users in the U.S. to turn their still images into video clips. Google Photos already offers video generation through its recently added “Photo to video” feature, but the company says the addition…
Google is bringing improved translation to Circle to Search, its feature that allows users to quickly search for any information on their screen by using gestures like circling, highlighting, scribbling, or tapping. The company announced on Thursday that users can now see translations as they scroll. “Translation is one of the most-used features in Circle…
Privacy-focused consumer tech company DuckDuckGo launched a subscription plan last year that bundled a VPN service, personal information removal, and identity theft restoration. The company said Thursday that the subscription now gives users access to the latest AI models through Duck.ai without paying extra. The Duck.ai chatbot is free to use, and users get access…
During a press conference on Monday, Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, showed off a Huawei smartphone that China’s President Xi Jinping gifted him, calling it “the best phone in the world,” and making a bold claim. “The Americans can’t hack it, neither their spy planes, nor their satellites,” Maduro said. The phone looked like a Mate…
Francesco Cacciatore is a self-proclaimed skeptic. Yet after spending two decades in the European aerospace industry and hitting, as he put it, a “crisis,” he made an undeniably optimistic bet: he started a space company. “You ask yourself, ‘What am I doing?’” he said in a recent interview. “I got offered some interesting opportunities, but…
