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Although AI chatbots are getting better at answering questions, summarizing documents, and solving mathematical equations, they still act like helpful assistants for one user at a time. They aren’t designed to manage the heavy lifting of real collaboration, like coordinating people with competing priorities, tracking decisions over time, and keeping teams aligned over time. Humans&, a new startup founded by alumni from Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI, and Google DeepMind, believes bridging that gap is the next major frontier for foundational models. This week, the company raised $480 million in a seed round to build a “central nervous system” for the…

In recent months, some major players in science fiction and popular culture have taken stronger stances against generative AI. Separate decisions by San Diego Comic-Con and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) demonstrate the depth of opposition to AI in some creative communities — not only that, but music distribution platform Bandcamp also recently banned generative AI. In December, SFWA announced updates to the Nebula Award rules. While works written solely using large language models would be ineligible, authors who used LLM “at any point in the writing process” would now have to disclose their use, and award…

Welcome to TechCrunch Mobility. A central hub for news and insight on the future of transportation. To receive this in your inbox, sign up for free here. Just click on TechCrunch Mobility. As I was about to send out this newsletter, I received a little breaking news. The National Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation into Waymo after its robotaxis were repeatedly spotted illegally passing stopped school buses in at least two states. Read the full text here. Now, let’s move on to the regular program… Tesla made several moves this week, and just before its quarterly profits fell, aimed…

Bending Spoons, a 12-year-old tech conglomerate based in Milan, has quietly become one of the tech industry’s most prolific buyers, now owning companies such as Meetup and WeTransfer, among many others, but is largely unknown to the public. So what exactly is Bending Spoon? Despite its catchy name, the company attracts significantly less attention and usually only makes headlines when it adds another well-known brand to its portfolio. The latest is Eventbrite, which it agreed to acquire for $500 million last December. But Bending Spoons is neither a traditional private equity firm nor a pure financial investment vehicle. Its focus…

If your Gmail account didn’t seem to be working properly on Saturday, you’re not alone. However, Google says the issue has been resolved. According to Google Workspace’s official status dashboard, the issue began Saturday morning around 5 a.m. Pacific Time, with users experiencing both “misclassified emails in their inboxes and additional spam alerts.” For me, this meant my primary inbox was filled with messages that would normally appear in my promotional, social, or update inboxes, and spam alerts appeared on emails from known senders. Other users complained on social media that “all the spam is coming straight to my inbox”…

Imagine going to the hospital with a bacterial ear infection and the doctor saying, “There are no other options.” It may sound dramatic, but antibiotic resistance is bringing that scenario closer to reality for more and more people. In 2016, a Nevada woman died from a bacterial infection that was resistant to all 26 antibiotics available in the United States at the time.In the United States alone, more than 2.8 million cases of antibiotic-resistant diseases occur each year. Globally, antimicrobial resistance is associated with nearly 5 million deaths annually.Bacteria naturally evolve in ways that make drugs that kill them less…

Although no total solar eclipse has occurred since the Great American Eclipse on April 8, 2024, there will be two total solar eclipses in the next two years.The first total solar eclipse will grace parts of Greenland, Iceland, and Spain on August 12, 2026. The second solar eclipse will occur on August 2, 2027, in parts of North Africa, southern Spain, and the Middle East, and has been dubbed the “solar eclipse of the century.”Here’s what you need to know about the back-to-back sky sights. you may like Solar eclipse in August 2026 Total path in August 2026. “GE” indicates…

Over the past 5,000 years, East Africa has become arid. Now, new research has found that this change may be accelerating continental separation.A study published in the journal Scientific Reports in November found that the formation of faults in the East African Rift Valley has accelerated since the water levels of the massive lake have declined.Christopher Scholz, the study’s lead author and geologist, physicist, and professor emeritus at Columbia University, said the findings highlight the bidirectional relationship between climate and plate tectonics. you may like “Usually we think of it the other way around: mountains are built and that changes…

More than a decade has passed since Google Glass smart glasses were announced in 2013 and then quickly withdrawn due to low adoption rates. A later (and lesser-known) second version was released in 2017 and was aimed at the workplace. They were phased out in 2023.In December 2025, Google made new commitments to its smart glasses to release two new products in 2026. But why are Google smart glasses struggling while other companies are succeeding? And can Google succeed a third time?What’s clear from the developments in wearable technology over the past decade is that successful products are built into…

simple factsWhat it is: Helix Nebula (also known as NGC 7293 and Caldwell 63), a planetary nebulaLocation: 655 light years away, in the constellation AquariusShare date: January 20, 2026Stunning new images of the Helix Nebula captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal the death throes of stars like our Sun, and perhaps a harbinger of the fate of our own solar system.The Helix Nebula, also known as the “Eye of God” or “Eye of Sauron,” is one of the closest, most colorful, and best-studied planetary nebulae in the universe. This famous nearby starscape is destined for JWST’s near-infrared…