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French startup Ÿnsect was thrust into the spotlight during Super Bowl weekend 2021 when “Iron Man” star Robert Downey Jr. touted the company’s benefits on The Late Show. Now, almost four years later, the insect farming company is in judicial liquidation due to insolvent debts, meaning it is effectively bankrupt. Ÿnsect had been struggling for months, so its demise is not surprising. Still, there’s a lot to learn about how the startup went bankrupt despite raising more than $600 million from Downey Jr.’s Footprint Coalition, taxpayers, and many others. In the end, Ÿnsect was unable to achieve its ambition to…
With loneliness and social isolation becoming more prevalent in recent years, people are increasingly seeking new ways to form platonic connections. In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General even designated this issue as a public health crisis. Remote workers who miss the daily interactions of an office and young people who want to create adult social circles based on shared interests and hobbies are among those seeking meaningful friendships. Thanks to online dating apps, there’s little stigma attached to finding connections online. This has welcomed a new wave of apps focused on fostering friendships and building local communities. Appfigures estimates that…
Naware founder Mark Boysen first tried to kill weeds using a drone and a 200-watt laser. While he and some friends were toying with the idea for a startup, he was thinking about how a family in North Dakota had lost three members to cancer, which the family suspected had something to do with chemicals in the groundwater. Finding a way to kill weeds without chemicals seemed like a solid option. But the laser was a dead end. In an interview with TechCrunch, he said there were too many risks of causing a fire. After a lot of prototyping with…
Smart glasses have been around for a while, but the technology has improved over the years, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claiming that wearables will replace smartphones in the next decade (though, of course, many people disagree). Smart glasses are no longer just futuristic gadgets, but practical tools that people use to communicate, navigate, track fitness, watch movies, enjoy immersive gaming, and more. Whether you want to buy a pair for yourself, buy one as a gift, or simply want to take a look at what’s currently available on the market, we’ve compiled a list of the most appealing options.…
December 26, 2025Ravi LakshmananCryptocurrency/Incident Response TrustWallet is urging users to update their Google Chrome extension to the latest version following what it calls a “security incident” that resulted in approximately $7 million in losses. The issue affects version 2.68, according to the multichain non-custodial cryptocurrency wallet service. According to the Chrome Web Store listing, the extension has around 1 million users. We recommend users update to version 2.69 as soon as possible. “We have confirmed that approximately $7 million has been affected and will ensure that all affected users are refunded,” Trust Wallet said in a post on X. “Supporting…
TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield pitch contest attracts thousands of applicants each year. These entries will be narrowed down to the top 200, and the top 20 will compete on the big stage to win the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000 in prize money. However, the remaining 180 startups all surprised us in their respective categories and are competing in their own pitch competitions. Below is the complete list of Cybersecurity Startup Battlefield 200 selectors and notes on why they joined the competition. AIM intelligence Overview: AIM provides enterprise cybersecurity products that protect against and use AI to protect against emerging AI-powered…
A China-linked Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group has been implicated in targeted cyber espionage operations. In this campaign, adversaries compromised domain name systems (DNS) and requested delivery of its signature MgBot backdoor in attacks targeting victims in Turkiye, China, and India. Kaspersky said the activity was observed from November 2022 to November 2024. The activity is said to be associated with a hacking group called Evasive Panda, which is tracked as Bronze Highland, Daggerfly, and StormBamboo. It is believed to have been active since at least 2012. “The group mainly carried out man-in-the-middle attacks (AitM) against specific victims,” Kaspersky researcher…
Our understanding of how our species evolved has improved dramatically since we began analyzing ancient DNA. This year, researchers made impressive discoveries spanning 3 million years of human evolution, most of which relied on DNA, genome, or proteomic analyses.Here are 10 major discoveries about human ancestors and ancient relatives that scientists will announce in 2025.1. Two new species closely related to humans have been discovered in Ethiopia. Researchers have discovered ancient human teeth at the Lady Gerar site in Ethiopia. (Image credit: Vilmore)A small number of teeth found at the Lady Gerar site in Ethiopia suggest that a variety of…
It’s the end of the year. That means it’s time to celebrate the best cybersecurity stories we’ve never published before. Since 2023, TechCrunch has been collectively looking back at the year’s best articles in cybersecurity. Even for those who are not familiar with it, the concept is simple. There are currently dozens of journalists reporting on cybersecurity in English. We publish tons of articles about cybersecurity, privacy, and surveillance every week. And many of them are great, so please read them. We are here to recommend the ones we like the most. So please keep in mind that this is…
On a clear winter night, the sky looks like a starry blanket, but it’s not a blanket, it’s a map. Constellations are signposts to the stars, simple stick figures that turn randomly scattered points of light into things you can recognize, remember, and navigate. Just learn a few things and the whole winter sky will start to fall into place.December is the perfect time to start stargazing in the Northern Hemisphere. Yes, it’s cold, but the nights are long so you can leave early and spend hours in the dark. On the other hand, the northern winter sky is full…