Welcome back to review week! I’m Karyne Levy, the assistant managing editor at TechCrunch. I am writing this newsletter from here. I’m excited to be here!
This week we’re checking out everything about SXSW. Waymo’s expansion into Silicon Valley. Intel’s new CEO. Tiktok’s new suitor. And why is Deepseek not receiving VC money? Let’s get to that!
Environmental Impact: The FBI, EPA, EPA Inspectors and the Treasury have requested Citibank freeze accounts of several nonprofit and state government agencies. The account was frozen in February, but the new documents produced details of the publication that were unknown until it was revealed in court filings this week.
SXSW is coming to an end. This week, TechCrunch reached SXSW in Austin, riding a Waymo Taxis to learn Mark Cuban’s thoughts on AI, deciphering the T-shirt worn by Bluesky CEO (who had a swipe at Mark Zuckerberg).
Intel’s new chief: Intel has appointed Lip-Bu Tan as its next CEO. Tan, a longtime high-tech investor born in Malaysia, previously served as CEO of Cadence Design Systems, said Intel will become an “engineering-centric company” under his leadership. And he will have his work cut out for him.
This is TechCrunch review week, summarizing the biggest news of the week. Want to deliver this to your inbox as a newsletter every Saturday? Sign up here.
news
New Era: Rad Power Bikes has a new CEO just a few days after the previous CEO resigned. Having spent years turning back low-performing companies in both consumer and B2B spaces, Kathi Lentzch will take over the e-bike company as he continues to move away from consumers directly from consumers in favor of a retail-based approach.
Backdoor Policy: Last month, it was revealed that the UK government secretly ordered Apple to create a “backdoor” and that authorities will have access to cloud-retained data for all Apple customers. US lawmakers are asking the UK’s oversight court to hold a public hearing on Apple’s potential challenge to the UK government’s secret legal needs.
Food for Thinking: Brian Johnson – an investor and founder behind The Do not Die Movement – wants to start a “Foodome” sequence. His goal is to test as many foods as possible and create a public database where people can donate money to test specific foods and brands for toxins.
No Parking: Waymo’s 300 unmanned vehicles in San Francisco have earned parking tickets. Cars’ 589 parking violations were fined a total of $65,065 last year.
Open Sesame: AI Company Sesame has released a base model used by Maya, a surreal voice assistant. The model is also open source. This means it can be used commercially.
Tickk, Tiktok: The deadline for finalizing Tiktok sales to US companies is coming soon. Now, another suitor shows Oracle, which is Oracle. Sources told information that Tiktok’s parent company, Baitedan, supports Oracle over other companies.
Little Tech’s Hero: Y Combinator wrote a letter this week to the White House, urging the government to support European digital market laws aimed at breaking the market power of big technology. It is unclear how the White House will respond.
Caviar Dream: Trump’s family has been considering investing in vinance.
It was easy: I’m not against AI. Especially if that helps me become more efficient. For example, consider a new feature that we deployed in Gmail this week. You can now add events to Google Calendar directly from your email. cool!
He got him: the co-founder of Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange, was arrested in India. Last week, the US Department of Justice accused Aleksej Besciokov of personally approving a transaction with Garantex in connection with North Korean government hackers and other cybercriminals.
Pokémon Sold: The company behind Viral Sensation Pokémon Go, Niantic sells its gaming division to Scopely for $3.5 billion. Niantic said it will focus on building real 3D maps through a new standalone entity called Niantic Spatial.
Deepseek, Deep Pocket? There is a lot of interest, but Chinese AI company Deepseek has not acquired VC money. Charles Rowlett does a number of reasons.
New Day, New Deal: Openai has signed a five-year, $11.9 billion contract with GPU heavy cloud service provider CoreWeave. But the amount isn’t the only reason this transaction is eye-opening. Before this transaction, CoreWeave’s biggest customer was Microsoft.
Waymo One: Waymo has expanded its early rider program across Silicon Valley, and now offers Robotaxi rides to some people in Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Sunnyvale. The new territory is added to the 55-square-mile coverage already available in the San Francisco Gulf region.
Cool, Cool: Meta fact checks have been overhauled. Starting Tuesday, the company will begin releasing versions of its Community Notes for Facebook, Instagram and US thread users.
I have a question. Three years after its release, exactly how lockdown mode works is still a mystery. There is no explanation as to why it requires some of the actions it needs. Also, some of that notifications are very confusing.
analysis
Written on the wall: Openai’s new creative writing AI is impressive, but it feels like one kid from a high school fiction club is working hard enough to sound deeply. AI can unleash clever metafiction, but critics say its writing lacks real emotion and originality, making it a show-off rather than a true storyteller.
Source link
