Chipmaker Qualcomm is trying to buy rival Intel, according to multiple reports. The Wall Street Journal first broke the news late Friday that Qualcomm had approached Intel about a takeover. The New York Times then corroborated the story, while also saying no official offer has been made. Even if there is an offer, its not [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Black Forest Labs, an image GenAI startup that only came out of stealth two months ago, has closed a a monster new round, sources say. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Elon Musk, the CEO of X and various other companies with the letter X in their names, is in regulators crosshairs after skipping testimony this month in an investigation related to Musks takeover of Twitter. In a filing today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said that it intended to seek sanctions against Musk [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Flow, Adam Neumanns co-living startup, opened a compound with 238 apartments in Saudi Arabias capital, Riyadh, and Forbes has some details. The opening included an Aztec-themed hot chocolate ceremony and tote bags with the words holy s Im alive on them. The rent for the furnished units starts at $3,500 a month and includes hotel-style [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

X went back online in Brazil earlier this week, three weeks after Elon Musks platform was blocked under orders from Brazils Supreme Court. That prompted Brazils top court to fine X Corp. nearly $1 million for every day the platform remained accessible in the country. However, Cloudflares CEO Matthew Prince tells TechCrunch that X going [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Cards Against Humanity is suing Elon Musks space exploration company, SpaceX, for $15 million after it allegedly dumped construction equipment all over the game companys private land in Texas. An email, posted on Threads, went out to around 150,000 Cards Against Humanity Saves America donors. Those donors contributed $15 seven years ago to help the [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Belfius is leading Alans Series F funding round of 173 million (around $193 million at current exchange rates). 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

An Indian edtech startup has secured $210 million in fresh financing amid a tough funding environment for edtech companies in the country. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

California Governor Gavin Newsom is currently considering 38 AI-related bills, including the highly contentious SB 1047, which the states legislature sent to his desk for final approval. These bills try to address the most pressing issues in artificial intelligence: everything from futuristic AI systems creating existential risk, deepfake nudes from AI image generators, to Hollywood [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A final report by the UNs high level advisory body on artificial intelligence makes for, at times, a surreal read. Named Governing AI for Humanity, the document underlines the contradictory challenges of making any kind of governance stick on such a fast developing, massively invested and heavily hyped technology. On the one hand, the report [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Fal.ai, a dev-focused platform for AI-generated audio, video, and images, today revealed that its raised $23 million in funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Black Forest Labs co-founder Robin Rombach, and Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. Its a two-round deal: $14 million of Fals total came from a Series A tranche led by Kindred Ventures; [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The company is in various stages of developing and piloting a range of initiatives focused on dealing with bad actors, harassment, spam, fake accounts, video safety, and more. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

iOS 18 offers the most control over the look and feel of your iPhone's user interface than any other version of Apple's mobile operating system to date. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

At its Made on YouTube event on Wednesday, the company announced a new dedicated space for creators to interact with their fans and viewers. The space, called Communities, is kind of like a Discord server built into a creators channel. With Communities, YouTube is hoping creators wont need to use other platforms like Discord or [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

On Tuesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed some of Americas toughest laws yet regulating the artificial intelligence sector. Three of these laws crack down on AI deepfakes that could influence elections, while two others prohibit Hollywood studios from creating an AI clone of an actors body or voice without their consent. Home to the majority [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Every month, 400,000 free members upgrade to paid memberships, the company says. According to Patreon, Autopilot improved the rate of free-to-paid membership upgrades by an average of 19% in testing. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Discord will now offer audio and video calls that even the company won't be able to listen in on. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Are we at peak social media yet? Its an interesting question to ponder after the launch of an iOS app offering a social media experience just for one (i.e. you). At a glance, SocialAI which is billed as a pure AI Social Network looks like Twitter but theres one very big twist on [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

EasyDMARC, a B2B SaaS startup out of Armenia that aims to simplify email security and authentication, said it has raised $20 millionin a Series A round. 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The head of Slack, Denise Dresser, tells TechCrunch she is shifting the business chat platform into a work operating system, specifically by making Slack a hub for AI applications from Salesforce, Adobe, and Anthropic. The companys CEO sees Slack as more than a place to chat with your coworkers, but do users want that? And [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Myntra, Indias largest fashion e-commerce platform, is trialling a four-hour delivery service in four Indian cities, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch, a dramatic acceleration from its standard 2-3 day delivery timeframe as the surge of quick commerce reshapes consumer behavior. The Flipkart Group-owned firm is piloting the fast-tracked delivery service in cities [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

AWS today announced that it is transitioning OpenSearch, its open source fork of the popular Elasticsearch search and analytics engine, to the Linux Foundation with the launch of the very aptly named OpenSearch Foundation. AWS first launched the OpenSearch project in 2021, after Elastic changed its license for its Elasticsearch and Kibana projects to its [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Platforms to connect apps that wouldnt normally talk to each other have been around for a minute (see: Zapier). But they have not gotten dramatically simpler to use if youre nontechnical. Generative AI has lowered the barrier to entry somewhat. However, getting the most out of these platforms and fixing things when they break [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

A decade after the wildly popular game Flappy Bird disappeared, an organization calling itself The Flappy Bird Foundation announced plans to re-hatch the official Flappy Bird game. But this morning, the games creator Dong Nguyen posted a characteristically terse comment stating that he has nothing to do with the revival, and that he did not [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Port of Seattle released a statement Friday confirming that it was targeted by a ransomware attack. The attack occurred on August 24, with the Port (which also operates the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport) saying it had experienced certain system outages indicating a possible cyberattack. The Port is now describing this as a ransomware attack by [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Blockchain technology is all about decentralization and virtualization. So its a little ironic that humans love to come together in person at big blockchain events. Such was the case last week in Seoul, where a record 17,000 people and 300 speakers came together for Korea Blockchain Week. Like traditional tech conferences, the event featured a [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Nick Frosst, the co-founder of $5.5 billion Canadian AI startup Cohere, has been a musician his whole life. He told TechCrunch that once he started singing, he never shut up. Thats still true today. In addition to his full-time job at Cohere, Frosst is also the front man of Good Kid, an indie rock band [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Martin Casado, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, will tackle one of the most pressing issues facing todays tech world AI regulation only at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, taking place at Moscone West in San Francisco on October 28-30. Casado is a pioneering figure in software-defined networking and is a key player in the [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Telegram has had a tough few weeks. The messaging apps founder, Pavel Durov, was arrested in late August and later released on a 5 million bail in France, charged with running a company complicit in distributing child sexual abuse material and facilitating drug trafficking and organized fraud. Predictably, that crashed the price of the networks [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

If youre wondering if your Facebook and Instagram posts have been used to train AI models at parent company Meta, the answer is almost certainly yes. Thats probably not a huge surprise. Meta already announced that its using user content and data to train AI but this week, its global privacy director, Melinda Claybaugh, [] 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.