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Large-scale machine learning models are at the heart of headline-grabbing technologies like OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 and Google’s LaMDA. They’re impressive, to be sure, capable of generating images and text convincing enough to pass for a human’s work. But developing the models took an enormous amount of time and compute power — not to mention cash.

After flagging concerns over the financial risks associated with non-fungible tokens, some of China’s authorities are putting forward guidance on how to best make use of the novel technology. The government of Shanghai says it supports “leading companies to explore building NFT exchanges,” according to the city’s 14th Five Year Plan on the digital economy

In the midst of absolutely no internal chaos whatsoever, Twitter’s accessibility team launched a much-requested feature test. Ten percent of users, who make up the test group, will be served reminders to add image descriptions to their photo uploads. Image descriptions, or alt text, are exactly what they sound like: descriptions of what appears in

Ring, the maker of internet-connected video doorbells and security cameras, said in its latest transparency report that it turned over a record amount of doorbell footage and other information to U.S. authorities last year. The Amazon-owned company said in two biannual reports covering 2021 that it received 3,147 legal demands, an increase of about 65%

China’s Tesla challenger Xpeng isn’t content with just making electric vehicles. It’s also betting on ridable robot unicorns for kids. Xpeng Robotics, a bionic robot maker affiliated with Xpeng, just raised an impressive $100 million in a Series A round led by IDG Capital, at a time when venture investments are slowing in China. Other

The $2.5 million Rimac Nevera all-electric hypercar has begun rolling off the assembly line, launching on the world stage as the fastest production car and an emblem of the Croatian EV maker’s advanced battery technology. The sleek, low-slung 1,914-horsepower two-seater is the first model to test the strength of the November merger between French supercar

Industrial robots are big, hulking things. They are, at once, designed to operate alongside humans, while also posing potential bodily risk to our soft, fleshy exterior. It’s precisely for this reason that vibrant world of human-robot interaction has sprung up around the industry. With human workers remaining an integral part of the robotic workplace, how

Linktree announced today that it’s launching a new mobile app on iOS and Android to make it easier for users to access its service. The new app will allow users to create a Linktree, add and manage links, customize their design and more from their phones. The goal of the app is to make it

In a letter to Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren expressed alarm that abortion-related content is receiving strange treatment on Meta’s platforms. Just after the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, Motherboard found that posts offering to provide abortion pills were being removed

Crypto owners tend to be more generous when donating to charity than other investors, research shows. Whether that’s because of their strong sense of community or because of the lucrative tax benefits of doing so is anyone’s guess, but nonetheless, savvy charities have taken note of the trend and sought to leverage it. That’s part

Tiger Global, one of the biggest winners from the technology bull market, plans to decelerate the pace of its investments in startups for two quarters, the latest in a series of high-profile investors becoming cautious as the market embraces a downturn. The New York-headquartered firm – which invested in 361 deals in 2021, according to

In less than two weeks, on July 21 to be precise, the global robotics and AI community will converge online for TC Sessions: Robotics. Engage with the leading visionaries, scientists, founders, makers and investors. It’s a full day exploring the latest trends, challenges and successes in an industry that continues to profoundly change the way

Hello, friends! Welcome back to Week in Review, where we quickly recap the most read stories on TechCrunch from the last 7 days. The goal: If you had a busy week, you should be able to skim WiR and still have a pretty good sense of what happened in tech. Want it in your inbox?

Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. With down rounds looming, startup founders have a lot less dealmaking leverage than they did in 2021. If new to the fundraising game, the

Elon Musk is formally trying to end his bid to buy Twitter. After hinting heavily that he no longer wanted the company in tweets attacking Twitter over its bot calculations and an ominous story in The Washington Post this week reflecting his thinking, Musk’s legal team is taking steps to terminate his $44 billion deal

Tesla shares received an upwards bump in after-hours trading Friday as investors reacted positively to Elon Musk’s move to terminate his $44 billion deal to buy Twitter. Tesla shares rose 14.51% to close at $752.29 on Friday. The share price continued to edge higher after regular trading hours by as much as 3.39%, before settling

Roger Hurwitz Contributor Roger Hurwitz is a founding partner at Volition Capital. He focuses primarily on investments in software and technology-enabled business services. More posts by this contributor Should SaaS founders be raising capital now? The don’ts of debt for fast-growing startups It feels like almost any company is a tech company in one way

Argo AI, the autonomous vehicle technology startup backed by Ford and Volkswagen, has laid off about 150 people and slowed the pace of hiring, making it the latest tech company to reduce its workforce as recession fears grow. The layoffs account for about 5% of its more than 2,000 global workforce, according to sources familiar

The National Traffic Highway Safety Administration has opened an investigation into a fatal crash involving a Tesla, according to documents viewed by TechCrunch. The investigation, which was opened in July, is the latest in a long string of inquiries by NHTSA’s Special Investigations program into crashes involving Tesla vehicles. This fatal crash, in which a

In the construction business, time is money. But with so many moving parts, it can be extremely challenging for construction companies to manage the administrative aspects of their finances. Adaptive, an 11-month-old startup that has set out to give construction teams better tools to manage their back offices, has raised $6.5 million in a seed

As companies adopt new tools to accommodate remote ways of work, it’s becoming tougher for their workforces to keep track of and manage information across internal services. It’s not just the C-suite that’s being challenged — lower-level employees, too, are having to wrestle with employers’ now-sprawling catalogs of apps. According to Statista, the average enterprise

After a successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2019, the Espresso Display is back with version 2 of its USB-C powered, ultraportable second monitor for people who love to get things done while on the road. Darrell tried out a preproduction unit of the original version of the display a couple of years ago, concluding that

Over five years after the release of the Nintendo Switch, fans are salivating for news about a new console, whether that be a rumored Switch Pro or Switch 2. Last night, it seemed almost certain that a new console was on its way. As Twitch streamer Shokio wrote on Twitter, Nintendo had just made YouTube

Creating and grading tests is one of the most time-consuming tasks teachers need to deal with. In Vietnam, a startup called Azota wants to help with an online software platform that not only helps educators develop and proctor tests, but also automatically grades them using information from Vietnamese teaching materials. The company announced today it

Jordan Kretchmer founded Rapid Robotics with the mission of simplifying robotics for manufacturing by providing out-of-the-box automation solutions. Founded in 2019, the company quickly gained the attention of top VCs, including Bee Partners, which led Rapid Robotics’ seed round and participated in each of the following rounds. Hear Rapid Robotics’ pitch and learn why robotic

This week on the TechCrunch Podcast our host, Managing Editor Darrell Etherington talks with TC’s Amanda Silberling about VidCon and the creator economy coming of age. He also speaks to Aria Alamalhodaei about NASA and Rocket Lab launching a scouting mission for a future orbital Moon base. And as always, you’ll get a rundown of

Remember Meizu, the once-promising competitor to Xiaomi? The Alibaba-backed Chinese smartphone maker is making a comeback — in a way — as it gets acquired by the founder of Geely, China’s largest private automaker and Volvo’s parent comapny. China’s smartphone industry is notoriously competitive. Founded in 2003, Meizu has been making affordable, trendy Android-based smartphones

Hello and welcome back to Max Q. I hope all my American readers had a restful Independence Day. In this issue: Rocket Lab launches NASA’s CAPSTONE mission The first images from James Webb Space Telescope are almost here News from AWS, SpaceX and more Don’t forget to sign up to get the free newsletter version

WeWork India has fixed a data security lapse that exposed the personal information and selfies of tens of thousands of people who visited WeWork India’s coworking spaces to the internet. Security researcher Sandeep Hodkasia found visitor data spilling from the check-in app on WeWork India’s website and used to sign-in at the dozens of WeWork

Indonesian wealth management app PINA’s founding team While many of Indonesia’s investment apps are focused on hooking first-time investors with low fees and starting deposits, PINA is targeting the middle-to-upper classes with wealth management services. The app announced today that it has raised $3 million in seed funding from AC Ventures, Vibe.VC and Y Combinator,