Tech Crunch

The list of 1,223 victims in 51 countries hints at the “true scale of the spyware problem,” per one researcher.

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 […]

OpenAI, like many AI labs, thinks AI benchmarks are broken. It says it wants to fix them through a new program. Called the OpenAI Pioneers Program, the program will focus on creating evaluations for AI models that “set the bar for what good looks like,” as OpenAI phrased it in a blog post. “As the […]

Anthropic announced on Wednesday that it’s launching a new, very expensive subscription plan for its AI chatbot Claude: Max. An answer to OpenAI’s $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro tier, Max comes with higher usage limits than Anthropic’s $20-per-month Claude Pro subscription as well as priority access to the company’s newest AI models and features. A bit confusingly, […]

YouTube on Wednesday announced an expansion of its pilot program designed to identify and manage AI-generated content that features the “likeness,” including the face, of creators, artists, and other famous or influential figures. The company is also publicly declaring its support for the legislation known as the NO FAKES ACT, which aims to tackle the […]

Sean Plankey’s nomination to head up CISA will be blocked, for now.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) may have to pay a fine of $1 billion or more to resolve a U.S. export control investigation related to a chip it made that was used in a Huawei AI processor, according to a report by Reuters. TSMC did not provide any further comments as it is now “in […]

Doing laundry can be a chore. It takes time and is tedious. Few of us like to do it. So it’s no surprise that startups have emerged to take that load off your back — literally. And investors are lining up to fund new and older players alike.  Eleven-month-old NoScrubs has just raised $2 million […]

Hosting platform WordPress.com on Wednesday launched a new AI website builder that allows anyone to create a functioning website using an AI chat-style interface. The feature, which is being made available to WordPress users for free, is targeted at entrepreneurs, freelancers, bloggers, and others who need a professional online presence, the company says. At this […]

Instagram appears to be quietly testing locked reels that viewers would have to unlock with a code and a provided hint. The feature is a simple way to increase engagement with the creator’s content, but it could also offer creators and celebrities a way to share exclusive reels with their most dedicated fans, who are […]