Jasper Health, a cancer care platform startup, laid off a substantial part of its workforce, TechCrunch has learned.
You thought the hottest rap battle of the summer was between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. You were wrong. It’s between Canva and an enterprise CIO. At its Canva Create event…
Alex Taub, a longtime founder with multiple exits under his belt, believes it’s time to disrupt the meme industry. “I have this big thesis that meme tech is going to…
Fintech
TechCrunch Minute: How Synapse’s collapse could impact 100 fintech startups
9:00 AM PDT • May 29, 2024
Synapse has arrived at its resting place in the graveyard of fallen startups. After years of missteps and struggles, the banking-as-a-service fintech Synapse officially has…
In the video, a crowd is roaring at a packed summer music festival. As a beat starts playing over the speakers, the performer finally walks onstage: It’s the Joker. Clad…
AI
Using memes, social media users have become red teams for half-baked AI features
5:21 pm PDT • May 23, 2024
“Running with scissors is a cardio exercise that can increase your heart rate and require concentration and focus,” says Google’s new AI search feature. “Some say it can also improve…
Media & Entertainment
Ticketmaster antitrust lawsuit could give new hope to ticketing startups
8:58 am PDT • May 23, 2024
The United States Department of Justice and 30 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, for alleged monopolistic practices. Live Nation and…
Government & Policy
The Biden campaign is looking to hire a seasoned meme lord
3:32 pm PDT • May 22, 2024
President Joe Biden needs a meme manager.
Featured Article
Meta’s new AI council is composed entirely of white men
Meanwhile, women and people of color are disproportionately impacted by irresponsible AI.
2:37 pm PDT • May 22, 2024
AI
TechCrunch Minute: ChatGPT’s new voice sounds eerily similar to Scarlett Johansson’s
9:00 AM PDT • May 22, 2024
Sam Altman might like the movie “Her” a little too much. When his company, OpenAI, debuted its GPT-4o model last week, onlookers noted that Sky,…
Crypto
Farcaster, a crypto-based social network, raised $150M with just 80K daily users
12:58 pm PDT • May 21, 2024
Farcaster, a blockchain-based social protocol founded by two Coinbase alumni, announced on Tuesday that it closed a $150 million fundraise. Led by Paradigm, the platform also raised money from a16z…
Gaming
TechCrunch Minute: Adobe lodges branding complaint against indie emulator app Delta
9:00 AM PDT • May 21, 2024
It’s been a wild few months for the developers behind Delta, a retro game emulator app. Their latest hiccup came when Adobe accused the app…
Social
As a US ban looms, TikTok announces a $1M program for socially driven creators
8:42 am PDT • May 21, 2024
TikTok is pulling out all the stops to prevent its impending ban in the United States. Aside from initiating legal action against the U.S. government, that means shaping up its…
AI
TechCrunch Minute: Slack may be training its AI off of your messages — and opting out is harder than you’d think
9:00 AM PDT • May 20, 2024
Slack is under fire for its shady policies around using customer data to train its AI. According to Slack’s privacy principles, customer data like messages…
Media & Entertainment
TechCrunch Minute: Here’s why the video portal between NYC and Dublin shut down
9:00 AM PDT • May 17, 2024
If you were planning to check out the Portal, we have some bad news: The 24-hour livestream installation connecting Dublin and New York City has…
Social
Mark Zuckerberg’s makeover: Midlife crisis or carefully crafted rebrand?
11:58 am PDT • May 16, 2024
For Mark Zuckerberg’s 40th birthday, his wife got him a photoshoot. Zuckerberg gives the camera a sly smile as he sits amid a carefully crafted re-creation of his childhood bedroom.…
If you write the words “cis” or “cisgender” on X, you might be served this full-screen message: “This post contains language that may be considered a slur by X and…
In the most anticlimactic way possible, Nintendo on Tuesday confirmed years of rumors: The Nintendo Switch 2 console is on the way. “We will make an announcement about the successor…
Whether you love or hate celebrity culture, the Met Gala is an event. Those less jaded among us get to see all of the biggest stars take their boldest fashion…
Featured Article
The Kendrick-Drake feud shows how technology is changing rap battles
It seems we’re all in agreement: Kendrick Lamar defeated Drake in one of the most engrossing rap battles of the decade. To add insult to injury, Drake also threw himself into legal hot water when he deepfaked the late rapper Tupac. The tension between Lamar and Drake goes back decades, but this latest flare-up began…
3:50 pm PDT • May 6, 2024
Apple finally updated its App Store guidelines to allow global developers to host retro game emulators on iOS. Now, you don’t need to jailbreak your iPhone or download any sketchy…
Featured Article
10 years in the making, retro game emulator Delta is now No. 1 on the iOS charts
Video game emulator Delta’s decade-long struggle against the iOS App Store began with a school-issued TI-84 calculator. When Riley Testut was a sophomore in high school, he showed his friends how to load illicit software onto their bulky graphing calculators. Such behavior was generally discouraged at school, but he wasn’t plotting to cheat on a…
10:34 am PDT • May 3, 2024
Government & Policy
Bill to strengthen national tipline for missing and exploited children heads to Biden’s desk
9:25 am PDT • April 30, 2024
A bipartisan bill designed to protect children from online sexual exploitation is headed to President Biden’s desk. Proposed by Senators Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-SC), the bill aims…
Social
Social media companies have too much political power, 78% of Americans say in Pew survey
3:27 pm PDT • April 29, 2024
Finally, something that both sides of the aisle can agree on: social media companies are too powerful. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, 78% of American adults…
Featured Article
Will a TikTok ban impact creator economy startups? Not really, founders say
President Joe Biden signed a bill on Wednesday that could ban TikTok — for real this time. After so many false starts and stops, some creator economy founders and their clients are rolling their eyes. They’ve been through this before. “I think two years ago, this would have been devastating,” Karat Financial co-founder and co-CEO…
1:15 pm PDT • April 27, 2024
Featured Article
Gen Z is losing its political voice on social media
President Joe Biden signed the bill this week that could ban TikTok from the U.S. if its parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell the platform. According to young political content creators, the ban could decimate Gen Z’s access to political news and information. “An unfortunately large amount of 18- to 24-year-olds find out information about local…
11:27 am PDT • April 25, 2024
Social
Post News, the a16z-funded Twitter alternative, is shutting down
12:13 pm PDT • April 19, 2024
Post was backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Scott Galloway, an NYU professor and tech commentator, but the platform never disclosed how much it raised.
Featured Article
Don’t blame MKBHD for the fate of Humane AI and Fisker
Humane AI raised more than $230 million before it even shipped a product. And when it finally released its Ai Pin — which costs $699 plus a $24 monthly subscription — pretty much every tech reviewer came to the same disappointing realization: This much-hyped product, which promises to disrupt the smartphone’s dominance, is not very…
1:00 pm PDT • April 17, 2024
Social
AirChat, the buzzy new social app, could be great — or, it could succumb to the same fate as Clubhouse
12:43 pm PDT • April 17, 2024
Over the weekend, another social media platform exploded into the fray: AirChat. The app is like a combination of Twitter and Clubhouse. Instead of typing a post, you speak it.…
Social
Reddit CPO talks new features — better translations, moderation and dev tools
10:00 am PDT • April 17, 2024
It’s a big year for Reddit. After its IPO, the platform is planning a slew of product features for the year ahead, and — spoiler alert — most of them…
