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Investment in consumer technology startups has been stagnant since 2022 as turbulent macroeconomic conditions and rising inflation have made VCs wary of consumer purchasing power. Over the past few years, most AI investments have focused on acquiring enterprise customers that offer fat checks, multi-year contracts, and rapid scale-up paths. But one venture capital firm believes the consumer sector is gearing up for a comeback in 2026. “This is going to be the year of the consumer,” Vanessa Larco, a partner at venture firm Premise and a former partner at NEA, said on this week’s episode of the Equity podcast. Larco…
BlackBerry is back, sort of. Mobile keyboard maker Clicks Technology last week announced its debut phone with a physical keyboard, the $499 Communicator. The company also offers a separate $79 sliding physical keyboard that fits any device. At CES, TechCrunch spoke with Jeff Gadway, chief marketing officer and co-founder of Clicks, and got a hands-on look at the latest prototypes of the upcoming smartphones. The device features a BlackBerry-like keyboard and messaging-focused touchscreen, and runs Android 16 under the hood. This means Communicator can run any Android app. The company partnered with Niagara Launcher, a minimalist launcher, to display apps…
Researchers at the University of Southampton have developed a promising new way to boost the body’s immune system’s response to cancer. They used a specially designed multifaceted antibody to make the immune response more active against cancer-killing T cells. Antibodies work by “capturing” and “clustering” multiple immune cell receptors, thereby boosting the signal that tells T cells to attack cancer. They achieved this by focusing on an immune receptor called CD27, which requires a matching key (ligand) to activate T cells. This ligand is naturally produced in response to infection, but cancers lack this signal, and T cells are able…
Scientists may be closing in on one of cosmology’s most enduring mysteries. University of Sheffield experts investigating the deepest workings of the universe have discovered new evidence suggesting that two of the universe’s most mysterious components, dark matter and neutrinos, may not be as isolated as once thought. The discovery could reshape our understanding of how the universe evolved and suggest that the standard picture of the universe may be incomplete. The elusive nature of dark matter and neutrinos Dark matter is thought to make up about 85% of all matter in the universe, but it cannot be seen directly.…
Google announced a new AI Inbox for Gmail, designed to give you a personalized overview of your tasks and keep you informed of important updates. Gmail is also launching AI overview in search and a Grammarly-like “proofreading” feature. Additionally, Gmail offers several AI features to all users that were previously only available to paid users. The new AI Inbox tab has two sections: Suggested tasks and Topics to keep up with. The first section provides a summary of the highest priority emails that require action. For example, your bill is due tomorrow, or you need to call your dermatologist to…
Spangle, the AI e-commerce startup founded by former Bolt CEO Maju Kuruvilla, has raised $15 million in a new funding round, valuing the company at $100 million. The Series A round, led by NewRoad Capital Partners, comes more than a year after the Seattle-based startup raised a $6 million seed round at a $30 million pre-money valuation. The startup said Madrona, DNX Ventures, Streamlined Ventures and strategic angel investors also participated, bringing total funding to $21 million. Retailers are facing a shift in how consumers find products online, as AI tools, social platforms, and recommendation engines increasingly influence purchasing decisions…
Jan 08, 2026Ravie LakshmananCybersecurity / Hacking News The internet never stays quiet. Every week, new hacks, scams, and security problems show up somewhere. This week’s stories show how fast attackers change their tricks, how small mistakes turn into big risks, and how the same old tools keep finding new ways to break in. Read on to catch up before the next wave hits. Honeypot Traps Hackers Cybersecurity company Resecurity revealed that it deliberately lured threat actors who claimed to be associated with Scattered LAPSUS$ Hunters (SLH) into a trap, after the group claimed on Telegram that it had hacked the…
Chainguard, the go-to source for open source, has a unique perspective on how modern organizations are actually using open source software and where they face risks and operational burdens. With a growing customer base and an extensive catalog of over 1,800 container image projects, 148,000 versions, 290,000 images, 100,000 language libraries, and nearly 500 million builds, you can see the reality of what our teams pull, deploy, and maintain on a daily basis, and the vulnerabilities and remediation that comes with it. That’s why they created “The State of Trusted Open Source,” a quarterly update on the open source software…
The UK Atomic Energy Agency (UKAEA) has launched a major new phase in fusion research as its flagship MegaAmp Spherical Tokamak (MAST Upgrade) enters its fifth scientific campaign. This six-month program marks a significant step towards the delivery of the UK’s first fusion power plant prototype and strengthens the UK’s position at the forefront of global fusion innovation. The campaign, involving more than 200 scientists from more than 40 international organizations, will deliver around 950 carefully controlled plasma pulses. Each pulse represents a short period of time during which the superheated plasma is confined within the machine, providing valuable data…
January 8, 2026Ravi LakshmananNetwork security/vulnerabilities Cisco has released updates that address medium-severity security flaws in Identity Services Engine (ISE) and ISE Passive Identity Connector (ISE-PIC) using public proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits. This vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-20029 (CVSS score: 4.9), exists in the licensing feature and could allow an authenticated, remote attacker with administrator privileges to access sensitive information. “This vulnerability is due to improper parsing of XML processed by the Cisco ISE and Cisco ISE-PIC web-based management interfaces,” Cisco said in an advisory Wednesday. “An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by uploading a malicious file to the application.” Successful exploitation of…