What Snowflake and OpenAI’s deal says about the enterprise AI race
Cloud data company Snowflake signed a $200 million multi-year AI contract with OpenAI on Monday, the latest sign that enterprise AI competition continues to heat up. The deal gives Snowflake’s 12,600 customers access to OpenAI models from all three major cloud providers. Snowflake employees also have access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise. The companies are also […]
Notepad++ announces Chinese government hackers took over software updates for months
The developer of Notepad++, a popular open-source text editor, confirmed that hackers took over the software in 2025 and distributed malicious updates to users over several months. In a blog post published on Monday, Notepad++ developer Dong Ho said the cyberattack was likely carried out by Chinese government-affiliated hackers between June and December 2025, citing […]
Ring offers “Search Party” feature to help non-Ring camera owners find lost dogs
Ring’s AI-powered “Search Party” feature, which leverages the company’s camera network to find lost dogs, is now available to all Ring customers in the United States. For the first time, this feature will be available to those who don’t own a Ring camera. Launched last fall, Search Party uses AI to find potential matches for […]
Coalition calls on federal government to ban Grok over non-consensual sexual content
A coalition of nonprofit organizations is calling on the U.S. government to immediately halt the deployment of Grok, a chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, in federal agencies, including the Department of Defense. The open letter, shared exclusively with TechCrunch, tracks a number of concerning behaviors by large-scale language models over the past year, including […]
Carbon Robotics built an AI model to detect and identify plants
It is up to the farmer’s eye to determine which weeds need to be removed from the field and which do not. And now it’s up to Carbon Robotics’ new AI model. Carbon Robotics, the Seattle-based company behind the LaserWeeder robots that use lasers to kill weeds, on Monday announced a new AI model called […]
Amazon documentary ‘Melania’ grosses $7 million in opening weekend
First lady Melania Trump’s documentary “Melania” has exceeded box office expectations, with estimates on Sunday predicting it will gross $7.04 million in its opening weekend. The documentary finished in third place overall over the weekend, behind Sam Raimi’s thriller “Send Help” ($20 million) and YouTuber Mark Fischbacher’s (better known as Mark Plier) video game adaptation […]
Indonesia lifts Grok ban ‘conditionally’
Indonesia follows Malaysia and the Philippines in lifting the ban on xAI’s chatbot Grok. Southeast Asian countries banned Grok for being used to mass create non-consensual sexual images on X (now a subsidiary of xAI), including images of real women and minors. From late December to January, Grok was used to create at least 1.8 […]
Introducing Europe’s new unicorns for 2026
January has been such a long month that five new European unicorns have already been born. From Belgium to Ukraine, several technology startups have raised funding at valuations exceeding $1 billion. But before we take a closer look at who has joined the club, there are two caveats. First: This number includes startups that may […]
Waymo reportedly raises $16 billion funding round
Waymo has nearly completed a new $16 billion funding round that values the robotaxi company at $110 billion, according to the Financial Times. More than three-quarters of that funding will reportedly come from a familiar source: Alphabet, of which Waymo is a subsidiary. (The company was founded as part of Alphabet’s “Moonshot Factory” X.) As […]
SpaceX seeks federal approval to launch 1 million solar-powered satellite data center
SpaceX has asked the Federal Communications Commission to launch a constellation of up to 1 million solar-powered satellites to serve as data centers for artificial intelligence. The company’s application lays out a grand vision, not only describing its planned satellites as “the most efficient way to meet the accelerating demand for AI computing power,” but […]
