Google offers ‘voluntary’ buyouts to hardware and platform teams

The move comes ahead of expected layoffs as Google continues to “push a little further” with cost cuts.

Posted in Tech | Tagged | Comments Off on Google offers ‘voluntary’ buyouts to hardware and platform teams

Meta turns to solar — again — in its data center-building boom

The announcement comes as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg maintains the company’s ambitious AI strategy, which will require hefty capital investments in data centers.
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Posted in Tech | Tagged | Comments Off on Meta turns to solar — again — in its data center-building boom

Stablecoins are finding product market fit in emerging markets

Five years ago, SpaceX launched Starlink, which has since grown into its biggest revenue driver, expanding to over 100 countries. But as Starlink scaled, it faced a major hurdle: accepting payments in developing markets, where traditional banking infrastructure is unreliable, slow, and prone to blocking transactions. Many local banks across Africa, Latin America and Asia […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Posted in Tech | Tagged | Comments Off on Stablecoins are finding product market fit in emerging markets

DeepSeek’s Safety Guardrails Failed Every Test Researchers Threw at Its AI Chatbot

Security researchers tested 50 well-known jailbreaks against DeepSeek’s popular new AI chatbot. It didn’t stop a single one.

Posted in Business | Tagged | Comments Off on DeepSeek’s Safety Guardrails Failed Every Test Researchers Threw at Its AI Chatbot

DeepSeek’s Answers Include Chinese Propaganda, Researchers Say

Since the Chinese company’s chatbot surged in popularity, researchers have documented how its answers reflect China’s view of the world. Some of its responses amplify propaganda Beijing uses to discredit critics.

Posted in Tech | Tagged | Comments Off on DeepSeek’s Answers Include Chinese Propaganda, Researchers Say

Swiss tax authority forced to buy Bahamas domain name after URL typo

What do you do if a web address you printed on a physical flyer contains a typo, and you send that flyer to more than 100,000 households? Well, if you’re the Swiss canton (“state”) of Basel-Stadt, you buy the domain that contains the typo, and create a redirect to the correct URL. As Swiss news […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Posted in Tech | Tagged | Comments Off on Swiss tax authority forced to buy Bahamas domain name after URL typo

Microsoft is forming a new unit to study AI’s impacts

Microsoft says that it’s creating a new unit, the Advanced Planning Unit (APU), within its Microsoft AI business division that will help the company understand the societal, health, and work implications of AI the company hopes to build. Microsoft AI, which encompasses Microsoft’s Copilot, Bing, and Edge products, is becoming core to Microsoft’s growth strategy […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Posted in Tech | Tagged | Comments Off on Microsoft is forming a new unit to study AI’s impacts

WeDoSolar pivots to B2B, after stake acquired by Chinese solar giant

Last year Wind and solar energy overtook fossil fuels to provide 30% of the EU’s electricity. With that in the background, startups in the solar space have been riding a generational change in how we get our power. In 2022 we covered how a small B2C European startup planned to bring solar to homes via […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Posted in Tech | Tagged | Comments Off on WeDoSolar pivots to B2B, after stake acquired by Chinese solar giant

AI startup Perplexity sued for alleged trademark infringement

Perplexity, the venture-backed startup building AI-powered search products, has been sued in federal court for allegedly violating another company’s trademark. In a complaint filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, attorneys representing a company called Perplexity Solved Solutions accuse Perplexity of infringing on its trademark rights by using the […]
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Posted in Tech | Tagged | Comments Off on AI startup Perplexity sued for alleged trademark infringement

A brief history of mass-hacks

Hackers are increasingly abusing bugs in popular enterprise software to target big companies in mass-hacking campaigns
© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Posted in Tech | Tagged | Comments Off on A brief history of mass-hacks