X, formerly Twitter, has started rolling out its new encrypted messaging feature called “Chat” or “XChat.” The company claims the new communication feature is end-to-end encrypted, meaning messages exchanged on it can only be read by the sender and their receiver, and — in theory — no one else, including X, can access them. Cryptography…
Isotopes came out of stealth on Thursday with a healthy $20 million seed round. It offers an AI agent to solve a problem that data analytics products have struggled with for decades: The people who know how to run the big data infrastructure are not the ones who actually need to use the data. With…
Snapchat is launching a new Lens that lets users create and edit images using a text-to-image AI generator, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The new “Imagine Lens” is available to Snapchat+ Platinum and Lens+ subscribers. Imagine Lens allows users to create, edit, and recreate Snaps by entering their own prompts. They can then share the…
Tesla has proposed a new 10-year compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk that could be worth as much as $1 trillion even as the EV maker’s car business stumbles and it sets its sights on humanoid robotics and AI. The company has tied the compensation to a number of benchmarks, one of which involves increasing…
Apple is hosting its new hardware event on September 9 at 10 a.m. PT. The company is expected to release its iPhone 17 lineup, along with updates for the Apple Watch and AirPods. As always, there are many rumors circulating, including bigger screens and improved cameras for the iPhone 17 models and the introduction of…
Having built and sold e-commerce shipping startup Deliverr to Shopify for $2.1 billion in 2022, co-founder and CEO Harish Abbott knows the logistics industry well. Abbott felt that many manual tasks in logistics could be automated using AI. That’s why last year he launched Augment, which offers an AI assistant called “Augie” that can take…
Nepal has ordered internet service providers to block access to major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X, after the companies failed to comply with local registration rules — drawing criticism from media rights groups and raising concerns over censorship and free expression. On Thursday, Nepal’s Ministry of Communication and Information Technology directed…
OpenAI says it’s developing an AI-powered hiring platform to connect businesses and employees, a service that would put the outfit in close competition with LinkedIn. The product is called the OpenAI Jobs Platform, and the company expects to launch the service by mid-2026, an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch. OpenAI CEO of Applications Fidji Simo announced…
X’s long-awaited encrypted DM feature, XChat, is becoming more widely available. Though the feature shipped in beta in May, XChat is now accessible for more users, including those who do not subscribe to X Premium. Separate from the existing DM inbox, XChat is end-to-end encrypted. The chat system supports media uploads, group chats, pinned messages,…
Like many startups, climate tech companies often face a “valley of death” that lies between early-stage funding and growth capital that helps proven technologies reach commercial scale. But because climate tech startups are often hardware focused — physical problems tend to require physical solutions, after all — this valley of death tends to be a lot wider….
