The California State Assembly took a big step toward regulating AI on Wednesday night, passing SB 243 — a bill that regulate AI companion chatbots in order to protect minors and vulnerable users. The legislation passed with bipartisan support and now heads to the state Senate for a final vote Friday. If Governor Gavin Newsom…
Perplexity, the AI-powered search startup that competes with Google by providing conversational answers to user queries, has secured $200 million in new capital at a $20 billion valuation, The Information reported. The fresh funding comes just two months after the company raised $100 million at an $18 billion valuation, according to a July report in…
Anthropic reported a service outage impacting APIs, Console, and Claude earlier this afternoon. Users on GitHub and Hacker News noted issues with Claude at around 12:20 p.m. ET, with Anthropic releasing a status update eight minutes later, noting that its APIs, Console, and Claude AI were down. At press time, the company said it had…
Meta is introducing a few new features for its crowdsourced fact-checking program, Community Notes, launched in the U.S. earlier this year. Now users will be notified when they’ve interacted with a post on Facebook, Instagram, or Threads that receives a Community Note. Plus, anyone can now request a note or rate a note if it’s…
If you’ve heard of Arc Boats, the Los Angeles startup founded in 2021 by former SpaceX employees, it’s likely because you’ve seen its sleek sport boats. But the company’s also been pushing into the far less glamorous world of tugboats and now has its first big order — worth $160 million. The company announced Wednesday…
We recently unveiled the Going Public Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 — a new destination for founders navigating the complexities of company building, from early traction to IPO and beyond. Today, we’re excited to announce new agenda additions that bring even more insight and firepower to the stage, shown only at the 20th anniversary celebration…
It’s been a long road for the 20-year-old fintech Klarna to make it to an IPO. But on Wednesday, the company successfully landed on the New York Stock Exchange, having raised $1.4 billion, largely for its existing investors, rather than itself. The fintech giant sold shares at $40, above its announced range of $35 to…
There’s been great interest in what Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab is building with its $2 billion in seed funding and the all-star team of former OpenAI researchers who have joined the lab. In a blog post published on Wednesday, Murati’s research lab gave the world its first look into one of its projects: creating…
There are times when you may want to prevent videos and GIFs from automatically playing in your social media feeds. This could be because you’re trying to conserve cellular data, limit the addictiveness of these apps, or maintain better control over your viewing experience, as when a video is going viral that you don’t wish…
With Anduril’s help, Australia has done what the U.S. Navy has struggled to accomplish: transition an extra-large undersea drone from white board to under contract in just three years. Anduril announced Tuesday that a fleet of its XL uncrewed undersea vehicle (XLUUV) “Ghost Shark” will begin operations in Australian waters next year under a massive…
