This year, as we celebrate our 20th anniversary, we’re launching our most ambitious events calendar yet for 2025. From intimate roundtables to our flagship Disrupt conference, we’re bringing together the brightest minds in tech, venture capital, and entrepreneurship to continue our legacy of industry-leading gatherings. This milestone year promises unprecedented opportunities for founders, investors, and innovators to connect, share insights, and shape the future of technology.

October 27-29, 2025
San Francisco, California

TechCrunch Disrupt, our flagship event, returns for our 20th anniversary as the definitive gathering place for the tech, venture, and startup worlds. This won’t be your average Disrupt, either. Raising the bar even higher this year, founders whose journeys we have tracked since the start — along with top investors and Silicon Valley’s rising stars — will come together for a three-day celebration of the people and products that have changed, and are continuing to change, the world. 

Our legendary Disrupt stage — which has launched countless tech giants and unicorns since 2005 — stands ready to mint the next generation of pioneers.

Disrupt is more than an event. It is the definitive place to hear and learn from the people who are shaping our technological future. From founders breaking through the noise, to startup enthusiasts joining the ecosystem, to investors seeking the next big thing, Disrupt remains the industry’s most powerful launchpad for success.

With 100+ exhibitors and 10,000+ attendees, these three days of pure opportunity continue our tradition of spotlighting future icons like Mark Zuckerberg, Anne Wojcicki, and Whitney Wolfe Herd. Join the community that’s been discovering and nurturing extraordinary success stories for two decades.

June 5, 2025
Berkeley, California

In an era where artificial intelligence is reshaping every industry, TechCrunch Sessions: AI cuts through the hype to deliver deep, actionable insights for founders, investors, and technologists. This intensive one-day event brings together the pioneers who are building and funding the next generation of AI companies, offering an unparalleled look at where the smart money is flowing and how successful AI startups are navigating this transformative moment. From fine-tuning your AI pitch to scaling infrastructure for millions of users, our carefully curated sessions will equip you with the strategic knowledge needed to thrive in today’s AI-first landscape.

Beyond the headlines and buzzwords, we’re diving deep into the foundational technologies that make modern AI possible. Leading technologists and infrastructure providers will share their expertise in building robust AI systems, from selecting the right hardware stack to implementing efficient data architectures and deploying AI agents at scale. Through interactive demonstrations, candid fireside chats, and extensive networking opportunities, attendees will gain practical insights into the tools and technologies that are powering the AI revolution. Whether you’re a founder looking to integrate AI into your product, an investor seeking the next big opportunity, or a technologist thinking about launching your own startup, this is your chance to connect with the people and ideas shaping the future of artificial intelligence.

July 15, 2025
Boston, Massachusetts

Whether you’re taking your first steps as a founder or scaling toward an IPO, TechCrunch is partnering with Fidelity Investments to bring you TC All Stage, where ambitious companies at every growth phase come to level up. Building on our 20-year legacy of empowering founders, we’ve expanded our signature founder-focused event to serve the entire company life cycle.

At All Stage, early founders crafting their pitch decks sit alongside Series B leaders tackling hypergrowth, creating an unprecedented environment for cross-pollination of ideas and experience. Want to understand better the process of going public? We’ll have you covered on that front, too. Through dozens of specialized breakout sessions, founders and their teams will gain actionable insights on everything from raising seed funding to managing international expansion, recruiting world-class talent, and navigating the path to public markets. 

This intensive day of learning, networking, and relationship-building brings together the most promising companies at every stage, fostering connections that will shape the next generation of tech innovation.

StrictlyVC Event Series

StrictlyVC events bring Silicon Valley’s most influential players together for candid, unscripted conversations that you won’t hear anywhere else. These intimate gatherings cut through the noise to deliver what matters most: authentic insights from top investors, founders, and operators who are shaping the future of technology and venture capital. 

During these signature evening events, you’ll get unfiltered access to the strategies, challenges, and opportunities that are driving the industry forward. No panels, no pitches — just real talk from the people who are in the trenches making the future happen, and spotting the next big trends before they break. It’s the kind of high-signal, high-value networking that can transform your business or career in a single evening. 

April 3: StrictlyVC San Francisco, hosted by Forerunner Ventures

May 12: StrictlyVC London

June 18: StrictlyVC Menlo Park, hosted by Mayfield

October 28: StrictlyVC @ TechCrunch Disrupt

December 4: StrictlyVC Palo Alto, hosted by Playground Global

The post 2025 TechCrunch Events Calendar appeared first on Online Technology News.

The most interesting part is what’s inside the device. Framework is one of the first companies to use AMD’s recently announced Strix Halo architecture, also known as the Ryzen AI Max processors. It’s an all-in-one processing unit that promises some serious performance.

In other words, Framework just designed a PC for two types of customers: people looking for an extremely small gaming PC, or people who want to run large language models on their own computers.

From the outside, the Framework Desktop looks more like a toy than a serious computer. It is a small 4.5L computer built around a mini-ITX mainboard, which makes it smaller than a PlayStation 5 or an Xbox Series X.

It has a customizable front panel with 21 interchangeable plastic square tiles. When you buy a Framework Desktop on the company’s website, you can select tile colors and patterns to create your own front panel.

In addition to the usual ports that you usually get with a mini-ITX mainboard, you’ll find Framework’s iconic expansion cards at the bottom of the device — two at the front, and two at the back. You can select between a wide range of modules, such as USB-C or USB-A ports, a headphone jack, an SD card reader, or even a storage expansion card.

The internals are quite simple: There’s the mainboard with AMD’s accelerated processing unit, a fan, a heat sink, a power supply, and two M.2 2280 NVMe SSD slots for storage.

AMD’s Strix Halo APU is soldered to the mainboard. Framework offers two different configurations — the AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 and the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395. The top configuration comes with 16 CPU cores, 40 graphics cores, and 80MB of cache, while the entry-level configuration comes with 8 CPU cores, 32 graphics cores, and 40MB of cache.

But where’s the RAM? That’s certainly going to be the most divisive design choice since Framework offers 32GB to 128GB of soldered-in RAM. You won’t be able to buy more RAM or upgrade it down the road.

“There is one place we did have to step away from PC norms, though, which is on memory. To enable the massive 256GB/s memory bandwidth that Ryzen AI Max delivers, the LPDDR5x is soldered,” Framework CEO Nirav Patel wrote on the company’s blog.

“We spent months working with AMD to explore ways around this, but ultimately determined that it wasn’t technically feasible to land modular memory at high throughput with the 256-bit memory bus,” he added.

Nevertheless, having as much as 128GB of unified memory unlocks many possibilities when it comes to large language models. Llama 3.3 70B can run without any hiccup using Ollama, llama.cpp, and other open source tools for local AI workloads.

Other open-weight models from Mistral, Nous, Hermes, or DeepSeek should also run fine. Framework also sells the mainboard without a case. For instance, the company has built a mini-rack with four Framework Desktop mainboards running in parallel for AI testing.

The base model of the Framework Desktop starts at $1,099, while the top-end version costs $1,999. Like other Framework computers, the company promises support for Windows as well as popular Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora, or its gaming-focused cousin Bazzite.

Preorders are open now, but shipments will only start in early Q3 2025.

The post Framework’s first desktop PC is optimized for gaming and local AI inference appeared first on Online Technology News.

Accordingly, the 16e isn’t an exciting device. It’s a safe one. It’s an amalgam of earlier iPhones, in a bid to create a product that’s reliable, while keeping costs down. The handset most closely resembles the iPhone 13 and 14, both in dimensions and the inclusion of the display notch up top. The iPhone 15’s Action button is here, but the 16’s Camera Control is absent.

From an innovation standpoint, the iPhone 16e’s most exciting element would have to be its custom C1 modem. That’s not a sentiment you hear too often. Modems are decidedly unsexy. Most consumers only ever acknowledge their existence when theirs goes on the fritz. But it’s not the technology that makes the component interesting. It’s the fact that this is the first time Apple has made one.

While the 16e borrows liberally from earlier Apple handsets, there are elements of the company’s latest flagship that help justify Apple’s new naming scheme. The strongest argument in favor of ditching the familiar iPhone SE branding is the inclusion of another component: the A18. That’s the same processor found on the regular iPhone 16.

This is important for a couple of reasons. The first is that the 16e is $200 cheaper than the iPhone 16, which was, up to now, the cheapest way to get the chip. The second and more important is future-proofing. Apple will continue supporting the chip longer than it will the iPhone 15’s A16 chip.

Beyond bug fixes and security updates, future-proofing also includes Apple Intelligence, the nascent generative AI platform the company is banking on as the future of iPhone. Before last week, the existing iPhone 16 line and the most expensive iPhone 15 models were the only iOS devices capable of running the feature.

A “modern” take on a familiar form factor

Don’t get things tangled, though. The star of this show isn’t a particular piece of silicon. It’s the price. Pricing, after all, is why analysts have pointed the iPhone 16e’s potential to help Apple make up for lost ground in key markets like China and India. In the grand scheme of things, a $200 price drop from the entry-level iPhone isn’t huge, but every bit counts, particularly in developing markets where true flagships can struggle.

But dropping the price point doesn’t automatically translate to a deluge of new iPhone users. Apple faces extremely stiff competition from domestic manufacturers in China — a phenomenon that’s only likely to worsen as trade tensions increase.

There are other complicated factors in markets like India, where both the iPhone 14 and 15 will be around to purchase through retail channels for a while. The iPhone 14’s discontinuation makes finding a new one far more difficult here in the U.S., but the iPhone 15 is still officially available here, starting at $699.

Elements like these obscure the 16e’s position in the current iPhone lineup. A $100 price difference between it and the 15 isn’t insignificant, but it’s nowhere near the price gulf some Android manufacturers put between their mid-tier and flagship devices. Serviceable, cheap Android devices have never been in short demand. The iPhone 16e isn’t a budget device, per se, because Apple doesn’t make budget devices.

Further blurring the lines is the fact that the 16e’s iPhone 14-inspired design doesn’t feel like throwback in the way the last SE did when it was launched in 2022. While the 16e still sports the display notch rather than the Dynamic Island (introduced on the 14 Pro), the overall design of the line hasn’t radically changed over the last couple of years. For this reason, the 16e feels like a “modern” iPhone in a way the last SE didn’t.

That’s a benefit for most potential buyers, but there will undoubtedly be those who will mourn the end of Touch ID in favor of Face ID. The 16e’s arrival also heralds the end of the “small” iPhone. Some will miss the more compact, 4.7-inch display found on the last SE. The 16e’s arrival means that you can no longer purchase an iPhone with a screen under 6 inches.

The iPhone 15, iPhone 16e, and iPhone 16 all sport a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display. The screens are largely the same, but there are a few key differences. The 16e has a notch in the place of the Dynamic Island and tops out at 1,200 nits of brightness compared to the maximum 2,000 nits on the other models. The three handsets share nearly identical footprints and weights.

All three sport a USB-C port (by law), though the 16e doesn’t feature the MagSafe connector on the rear. The handset does charging through the Qi standard, though its speeds top out at 7.5 watts, to the 15’s 15 watts and the 16’s 25 watts. The 16e sports the longest stated battery life of the three phones, at 26 hours to the 16’s 22 hours and the 15’s 20 hours. The new C1 modem played an important part in the 16e extended battery life, being both less power hunger than older silicon and smaller in a way that allowed the company to free up space for a larger battery than the iPhone 16.

Both the iPhone 16 and 16e sport the latest A18 chip with a six-core CPU and 16-core neural engine. The 16e takes a bit of a hit on the graphics processing side with a four-core GPU to the 16’s five cores. All three phones start at 128GB of storage, upgradable to both 256GB or 512GB. The 16 and 16e, meanwhile, sport 8GB of RAM to the 15’s 6GB. That little extra boost of RAM should help with some of that on-device Apple Intelligence processing.

Intelligent design

Apple Intelligence currently features text rewrite, summaries, and generative imagery, created through Image Playground. Is the ability to run Apple’s answer to Google Gemini enough reason to opt for the 16e over the less intelligent iPhone 15? The platform’s usefulness will, of course, vary dramatically between individuals in its current form. But these are very much early days.

Apple is committed to its generative AI offering, and it’s set to be the centerpiece of updates for years to come. I can’t promise any life-changing features on the horizon, but it’s entirely possible you’ll kick yourself in a year or two for deprioritizing the technology.  

Visual Intelligence — Apple’s answer to Google Lens — is also available on the 16e, though the absence of the Camera Control feature means you’ll have to access it by means of the Action Button. More notable than the absence of Camera Control, however, is the presence of a single camera on the rear of the iPhone 16e.

Apple glossed over this fact during the announcement, instead highlighting what it calls a “2-in-1” camera system. Through the magic of computational photography, the iPhone 16e is a single-camera smartphone that “feels” like a two-camera system. This boils down to the 48-megapixel sensor with “integrated telephoto,” which means the image will give you a closer, 12-megapixel version of the image, without majorly sacrificing image quality for zoom.

You will inevitably lose versatility moving from two image sensors to one, even if said image sensor utilizes fancy fusion technology. For some users, this alone is enough to justify the added $100 to $200 to get the iPhone 15 or 16 instead. That said, the 16e is capable of getting some nice shots for a single-sensor handset and certainly marks a big leap over the last iPhone SE.

It comes down to the features you need

Every time the price drops by $100, you’re sacrificing something. That’s how profit margins work. Choosing the best “entry-level” iPhone in the current lineup is less straightforward than it might have been in the past. It comes down to what features you need and what you’re willing to do without.

The 16e is an exercise in feature prioritization. If you need the latest everything, eat the extra $200 and get the regular iPhone 16. If Apple Intelligence isn’t a priority, the iPhone 15 has you covered.

In the end, there’s surprisingly little daylight between the iPhone 16 and 16e. It prioritizes Apple Intelligence through the inclusion of the A18 and 8GB of RAM. The handset makes sacrifices in the name of affordability, like MagSafe, Dynamic Island, Camera Control, and the dual-camera system. If you can live without all those, by all means, save yourself the $200.  

The post Apple iPhone 16e review: An A18 chip and Apple Intelligence for $599 appeared first on Online Technology News.

The company demonstrated the new feature at a press event in New York, where Alexa+ was asked a question about a movie where Bradley Cooper sang a song. After Alexa+ responded that the movie was “A Star Is Born,” the user could then ask Alexa+ to jump to the scene in the movie where he sings.

Amazon notes you can guide Alexa+ to the correct scene using details like the actor or character’s name or a quote, among other things.

In addition, Alexa+ device owners will be able to ask the assistant about the song they heard during the credits of a TV show, even if they don’t know the song’s title or the artist, the company says.

The feature joins a handful of other upgrades that allow Alexa+ to work with other devices in consumers’ smart homes, including tools to move music between rooms, those that offer summaries of events in the smart home (like if the trash was taken out), and other new features that help you create routines (multi-step automation) by voice.

The post Amazon Alexa+ can work with Prime Video and Fire TV to ‘jump to a scene’ in a movie appeared first on Online Technology News.

The cases are available for pre-order starting today and will initially be offered at lower price points than their iPhone counterparts.

The Pixel 9 and 9 Pro cases are available for pre-order for $99, with the price rising to $139 after March 21.

Razr+ and Samsung Galaxy S25 users can get a case for $99, as well (which can be reserved with a $49 down payment). After March 21, both will also increase their price to $139.

The case originally received attention for its retro vibes, which brought back a bit of nostalgia for the BlackBerry era when phone keyboards actually clicked. Clicks went on to sell more than 100,000 of its iPhone cases in more than 100 countries, following its 2024 launch.

However, the iPhone case itself can be awkward to learn to use as the modern smartphone isn’t shaped like Blackberry devices, which were often short, wide, and squat. The weight of the case and iPhone combined can make users feel like they’re fighting gravity when they try to type, leading to a wobbly feeling in the hands.

Even Clicks admits that learning to use its keyboard could be difficult at first and offers help documentation on how to properly hold your phone. Still, at least some of those who train themselves on the new technique have learned to like it.

Like the Clicks iPhone cases, the Android keyboards include metal dome switches for tactile feedback, backlit keys, support for keyboard shortcuts, a microfibre interior, USB-C charging (plus wireless charging for Pixel devices), and more.

There’s also a companion app for saving user preferences.

The Pixel Clicks cases come in Surge (bright yellow) and Onyx (black), and ship in late April.

Razr+ cases come in Electric (bright blue) and Onyx and ship in late May.

Galaxy S25 cases come in Pinot (red) and Onyx and ship in June.

The post Clicks brings its BlackBerry-style keyboard case to Android phones appeared first on Online Technology News.

The U.S. government is leaning hard on tech companies to make more commitments to building their businesses in the country, and Big Tech is falling in line. On Monday, Apple laid out its own plans in that area: It will spend $500 billion over the next four years in areas like high-end manufacturing, engineering, and education covering technologies like artificial intelligence and chip making.

Big projects will include a new factory in Houston, Texas, to produce servers that support Apple’s in-house AI effort, Apple Intelligence; doubling the value of Apple’s U.S. Advanced Manufacturing Fund to $10 billion; a new academy in Michigan to train people to work in next-generation factories; and more R&D.

Some of this is not “new” news. Apple has worked for years with thousands of suppliers across the U.S. in areas like chip making — currently 24 factories across 12 states — alongside directly employing people in the country. Globally, Apple employs 164,000 people, according to recent filings. It does not break out how many of them are in the U.S. specifically. It said today it plans to hire another 20,000 people in the next four years. But again, it does not specify if these people will be in the U.S. or elsewhere.

Nevertheless, Apple’s news is significant because of what it underscores. First, there is the bigger effort that the U.S. has been making to expand its economic footing, specifically to remove some of the reliance that the U.S. currently has on ecosystems outside of the U.S. itself, such as China for manufacturing. The U.S. is waging a fairly drastic effort to shift investment in line with that, for example, by floating new tariffs on certain goods in an effort to drive more national production.

The magic number is $500 billion: It’s also the amount that SoftBank, Oracle, and OpenAI are apparently committing to their own major AI data center project. 

Apple, as a major consumer electronics company, relies heavily on production outside of the U.S. The exercise of laying out plans to invest within the U.S. will not completely replace that, now or ever, but becomes a bone — a very valuable bone — that it can throw to show that it’s making efforts too. 

Second, the focus on artificial intelligence in Apple’s news today should be noted. The major server factory that it will be building will be focused on building machines that can handle AI compute. Similarly, the ecosystem fund and training budget are largely focused on skills and manufacturing of hardware that will be used in AI systems.

Of note: It is not clear what kinds of tax breaks (if any) companies will get on the investments such as the ones Apple listed today. That will be top of mind for companies, their investors, and hopefully the U.S. public. Apple did note that it “remains one of the largest U.S. taxpayers, having paid more than $75 billion in U.S. taxes over the past five years, including $19 billion in 2024 alone.”

The news today, in any case, is being represented as Apple’s own commitment to growing America’s industry profile in the world. 

“We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in a statement. “From doubling our Advanced Manufacturing Fund, to building advanced technology in Texas, we’re thrilled to expand our support for American manufacturing. And we’ll keep working with people and companies across this country to help write an extraordinary new chapter in the history of American innovation.”

One of the bigger specific projects announced today will be a new 250,000-square-foot AI server manufacturing facility in Houston — taking on building services that up to now have been manufactured in other countries. Ground breaks later this year, and it will be completed by 2026, it said.

The project is important not just in value but also intention: Apple is doubling down on how it believes AI will be used within its products and services. So the project is coming along with an expansion of server capacity in Apple’s other data centers in North Carolina, Iowa, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada.

“Teams at Apple designed the servers to be incredibly energy efficient, reducing the energy demands of Apple data centers,” Apple said, although it also claimed these are already run on renewable energy. 

The manufacturing fund, in contrast, will be used to help finance expansions for its partners, including a “multibillion-dollar commitment” to TSMC for advanced silicon made in the latter company’s Fab 21 facility in Arizona. Apple said it is Fab 21’s largest customer.

Apple has not specified how much it has earmarked for educational initiatives aimed at training workforces — although the costs of building factories or investing in frontier-level research and development are likely to be substantial.

The first effort in that vein will be a new Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit, it said, where “Apple engineers, along with experts from top universities such as Michigan State,” will work in consultation with SMBs to help them implement “AI and smart manufacturing techniques.” There are a large number of smaller businesses in that region that have worked in concert in other legacy industries like automotive, and it will be worth watching to see how and if they make the transition as envisioned. 

The post Apple commits $500B to US manufacturing, including a new AI server facility in Houston appeared first on Online Technology News.

Humane’s Ai Pin, which promised to replace your smartphone with a sleek wearable device, is officially dead. After a rocky launch, negative reviews, and returns outpacing sales, the startup is shutting down and selling its assets to HP for $116 million — less than half of what it raised. But what’s next for Humane’s tech, and for the broader category of AI-powered wearables?

Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha are breaking down the week’s tech and startup headlines, including what HP might do with Humane’s resources and talent and how, as Max put it, the Ai Pin was clearly ahead of its time.

Listen to the full episode to hear about:

Equity will be back next week, so stay tuned!

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. 

Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here.

The post AI wearables 1.0: Was Humane’s Ai Pin too ambitious? appeared first on Online Technology News.

The world’s second largest smartphone market (behind China) has fueled significant iPhone sales, with Apple recently cracking the top five vendors in India. A week ahead of the iPhone 16e’s release, however, it’s unclear what impact the device will have on this key market.

In 2024, India became the fourth largest market for Apple, after the U.S., China, and Japan, seeing a record 12 million shipments during the quarter, with 35% YoY growth, per IDC. It is expected to cross the 15 million milestone this year.

But it wasn’t the iPhone SE or iPhone 14 that helped the Cupertino, California, company succeed in the South Asian market. In fact, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 13 were the highest shipped models, with a 6% share of overall smartphone market in Q4.

Even as Apple has expanded in India, the iPhone SE has seen a proportional decline. The iPhone SE (2020) represented 18% of overall iPhone shipments in its launch year, while the iPhone SE (2022) made up 6% of total shipments two years later, per IDC data shared exclusively with TechCrunch. In contrast, the iPhone 13 made up nearly 40% of iPhone shipments in 2022.

According to IDC, iPhone SE shipments in India and globally declined to negligible volume in 2023 and 2024. Neither year saw a new SE release.

Navkendar Singh, associate vice president at IDC India, tells TechCrunch that nearly two-thirds of iPhone volumes in India come from previous-generation models.

Android dominates India’s smartphone market, with an average smartphone of $259. Chinese brands such as Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi have made great strides in the market. However, the iPhone is still top dog in the $600+ market segment, followed by Samsung Galaxy smartphones. This means, in essence, that the iPhone’s biggest competitor is other iPhones.

The iPhone 16e starts at 59,900 Indian rupees (~$689) and goes up to $1,034. In contrast, the older iPhone 15 starts at $804 and iPhone 16 at $919.

In a market like India, where older devices continue to sell, the price difference may not be enough to justify choosing the iPhone 16e over, say, the iPhone 15, given the features the budget phone sacrifices. Retailers, both offline and online, also often sell older models like the iPhone 15 at lower prices than the ones set by Apple to boost sales.

What new features the 16e does offer may not be substantial enough to attract new buyers, given the popularity of the equated monthly installment (EMI) option, which allows users to purchase a high ticket item via installment payments. Roughly half of customers purchasing a premium handset in India ($400-$700) opt to finance their devices this way.

“With EMI offers, the difference in real terms would make many prefer the iPhone 15 or 16 over the iPhone 16Ee,” Singh said.

Apple has expanded Apple Intelligence to a more affordable segment with the iPhone 16e. This could help the company drive more Apple Services revenues over time. However, Apple Intelligence is currently in its infancy and in the U.S. and won’t arrive in India until April.

The 16e is Apple’s latest iPhone to be assembled in India — alongside the other iPhone 16 models. However, local assembly isn’t likely to impact the pricing, at least in the short term.

Sanyam Chaurasia, a senior analyst at Canalys, believed that the iPhone 16e might help Apple attract customers who might otherwise pick up an iPhone 12 or 13 — both of which are still available through retail channels in India.

He added that younger users might also opt for the iPhone 16e, rather than the older 15. “It’s a model which serves a niche audience,” Chaurasia said.

Unlike other emerging markets such as Latin America and Southeast Asia, India is not a telco-driven market where carriers subsidize smartphones by bundling them with their plans. This makes the iPhone 16e a relatively expensive option for Indian buyers.

The timing of launching the iPhone 16e also makes it less attractive, as this is not an upgrade season, which usually falls around Indian festivals in the later part of the year, Chaurasia said.

“Apple is likely to have discounts on the iPhone 16e during the festive season later this year, but there would also be similar discounts on the existing iPhone models, making them even more attractive than this new model,” he stated.

The post In India, Apple’s iPhone 16e faces stiff competition from older models appeared first on Online Technology News.

Murena, the French privacy firm that’s forked Android to deliver so-called deGoogled smartphones, has repeated the trick with a tablet. So if you’re keen to get your hands on a shiny Pixel Tablet — but without the usual bundle of Google apps and services — Murena has you covered.

The Murena Pixel Tablet runs the /e/OS open source operating system, rather than Google’s flavor of Android — hence the promise of a “privacy-focused Android experience” on the device’s 10.95-inch LCD display.

“Enjoy all the performance and versatility you need, while minimising data tracking, having a more secure experience, and with no Google services collecting your personal information,” Murena also writes. It says it added the tablet to the hardware selection it resells with /e/OS installed in response to “significant demand”.

The Pixel Tablet, which comes with 128 GB internal storage and 8 GB RAM, is available to buy from Murena’s online shop for €539 (or $549 in the U.S.).

Being deGoogled, you won’t find the Google Play Store itself on the device. Instead, /e/OS offers an app marketplace called App Lounge where users are able to download apps that are available in Google Play and F-Droid “anonymously” — although accessing paid apps does require signing in with a Google account. (For more on the trade-offs entailed in Murena’s app store workaround, read our earlier review of e/OS.)

While recreating a full app marketplace experience without any links to Google at all is clearly a hard problem, Murena has been busying itself in building privacy-focused alternatives for standalone apps like Google Drive and Office 365. So Pixel Tablet users can tap into a freemium file storage, backup and office suite offering called Workspace, that provides up to 1 GB of storage for free, and paid plans thereafter.

The post Murena now sells a ‘deGoogled’ Pixel Tablet appeared first on Online Technology News.

Humane announced on Tuesday that most of its assets have been acquired by HP for $116 million. The hardware startup is immediately discontinuing sales of its $499 AI Pins. Humane alerted customers who have already purchased the Pin that their devices will stop functioning before the end of the month — at 12 p.m. PST on February 28, 2025, according to a blog post.

After that date, the company says its AI Pins will no longer connect to Humane’s servers. The devices won’t be capable of calling, messaging, AI queries/responses, or cloud access. Humane is advising AI Pin owners to transfer their important photos and data to an external device immediately.

Humane plans to dissolve its customer support team for the AI Pin on February 28. The company says customers who bought an AI pin in the last 90 days are eligible for a refund, according to an FAQ, but anyone who bought a device before then is not.

The news brings an end to the short-lived, buzzy hardware startup. Humane made a splash in April 2024 by launching its AI Pin, which it positioned as a smartphone replacement. The Bay Area startup, founded by ex-Apple employees Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri, raised more than $230 million to create the device.

However, Humane’s AI Pin disappointed many early reviewers and customers, creating a crisis for the company. At one point last summer, Humane’s returns for the AI Pin started outpacing its sales, according to reporting from The Verge. Adding insult to injury, Humane also told customers to stop using the device’s charging case, citing battery fire concerns. In October, the company, which long charged customers $699 for its AI Pin, dropped the price by $200.

HP is acquiring Humane’s engineers and product managers, according to a blog post announcing the acquisition. The Humane team will form the basis of a new group within HP called HP IQ, which it describes as an “AI innovation lab focused on building an intelligent ecosystem across HP’s products and services for the future of work.”

HP will also acquire some of Humane’s technology, including its CosmOS AI operating system. Humane recently showed an ad suggesting the AI operating system could run on a car’s entertainment system, a smart speaker, a TV, and an Android phone. This technology could be used to integrate AI into HP’s personal computers and printers.

Humane had sought to be acquired in May of 2024 for a much higher price, between $750 million and $1 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Humane did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.

The post Humane’s AI Pin is dead, as HP buys startup’s assets for $116M appeared first on Online Technology News.