TechCrunch Mobility: The AI skills arms race has arrived in the auto industry
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. There’s a bit of a theme emerging in the transportation industry, and really in every industry. That is, AI will create jobs for […]
For Eclipse, the $2.5 billion win in Cerebras is just the beginning of making the theory a reality in the physical world
When Lior Susan founded Eclipse Ventures in 2015, the company’s theme of digitizing the physical world wasn’t particularly popular in Silicon Valley. “It was the era of enterprise software and SaaS, and I felt pretty isolated for the first few years,” Susan said on stage at a recent StrictlyVC event in San Francisco. More than […]
The haves and have-nots of the AI gold rush
According to a lengthy social media post by Deedy Das, a partner at Menlo Ventures, the current mood around the AI boom is not great, even in the tech industry. Das called San Francisco “pretty hot right now” and said “the split in results is the worst I’ve ever seen.” Using “background AI calculations,” he […]
Research repository ArXiv bans authors for a year if they let AI do all the work
ArXiv, a widely used open repository for preprint research, is going further to crack down on the careless use of large language models in scientific papers. Although papers are posted to the site before being peer-reviewed, arXiv (pronounced “archive”) has become one of the main ways research is distributed in fields such as computer science […]
Offline desk gadget that actually made me sit up straighter
Working from home has its own risks. Your pet may be demanding, your back may hurt from sitting at your desk for hours on end, or you may simply forget to move. There are some apps that will remind you to move around or indicate that you’re not sitting in the ideal position, but they’re […]
$60 billion AI chip darling Cerebras consumes $8 million a month and nearly dies an early death
Today, Cerebras Systems is a public company that sells AI chips for inference to major companies such as OpenAI and AWS. The company held a massive IPO on Thursday, and both co-founders are billionaires, ending the week with a valuation of about $60 billion. But in 2019, three years after its founding, it came dangerously […]
Users turn to jailbreaking older Kindles as Amazon ends support
Many people are jailbreaking their Kindle following the news that Amazon will end technical support for older models. On May 20th, Amazon will end support for the following Kindle devices: Kindle 1st Generation Kindle 2nd Generation Kindle DX Kindle DX Graphite Kindle Keyboard Kindle 4 Kindle 5 Kindle Touch Kindle Paperwhite 1st Generation Kindle Fire […]
RJ Scaringe has raised more than $12 billion across three startups, but investors are still looking for more money
Investors don’t seem to fully understand RJ Scaringe or his ideas. In less than a decade, the serial entrepreneur, best known for his EV company Rivian, has raised more than $12.3 billion for three (and more) startups from venture capital firms as well as strategic and institutional investors. If the recent $400 million raise for […]
General Catalyst Posts VC Anger Bait That Worked Especially on A16z
One of the funniest things in VC this week was General Catalyst’s infuriating marketing. After a post on X that parodied old Mac vs. PC commercials went viral, the venture firm known as GC posted a “VC vs. GC” video on Wednesday. VC was played by a tall actor with a distinctly large bald head, […]
Hotel check-in system leaves 1 million passports and driver’s licenses available for anyone to view.
A hotel’s check-in system left verification photos of more than 1 million customers’ passports, driver’s licenses and selfies on the open web after a security breach. The data is now offline after TechCrunch alerted the company responsible. The hotel’s check-in system, called Tabiq, is maintained by Japan-based technology startup Reqrea. According to its website, Tabiq […]