NASA Artemis II Splashes Down in Pacific Ocean in ‘Perfect’ Landing for Moon Mission
NASA’s Artemis II mission successfully returned the four‑person crew to Earth after a ten‑day lunar flyby. The Orion capsule, named Integrity, splashed down in the Pacific off San Diego at 5:07 p.m. PT, with all astronauts in good health. The flight marked the first crewed trip to the Moon’s orbit in over five decades, reaching roughly 252,760 miles from Earth and delivering new surface imagery. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman hailed the mission as a “perfect” test that restores America’s lunar ambitions.
Anthropic Temporarily Banned OpenClaw’s Creator From Accessing Claude
Anthropic briefly suspended OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger’s account after labeling his activity as suspicious, but reinstated it hours later following a viral X post. The ban came days after Anthropic announced that its Claude subscription would no longer cover third‑party...
Battery Recycler Ascend Elements Files for Bankruptcy
Ascend Elements announced it has entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy, ending a capital raise effort that attracted almost $900 million from investors. The filing follows the Trump administration’s cancellation of a $316 million federal grant, leaving the company with only $204 million of the funding...
Every Fusion Startup that Has Raised over $100M
Fusion power has moved from a perpetual joke to a serious investment theme, driven by advances in AI, high‑temperature superconducting magnets, and powerful computing. Private firms have collectively raised over $10 billion, with Commonwealth Fusion Systems alone nearing $3 billion and Helion...
Snap Gets Closer to Releasing New AI Glasses After Years-Long Hiatus
Snap’s AR‑glasses subsidiary Specs has sealed a multi‑year partnership with Qualcomm, bringing Snapdragon XR chips to power its next Spectacles model. The collaboration focuses on on‑device AI, advanced graphics and multi‑user digital experiences, aiming for a consumer launch later in...
What Founders Can Learn From Anjuna’s Layoffs and Recovery
Anjuna Security, a venture‑backed cybersecurity firm, expanded to about 75 staff in 2021 before market headwinds forced two rounds of layoffs in 2022. CEO Ayal Yogev emphasized a culture built on "care," delivering transparent communication and continued support for departing...
Florida AG Announces Investigation Into OpenAI over Shooting that Allegedly Involved ChatGPT
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced an investigation into OpenAI, alleging that the chatbot ChatGPT was used to plan the April 2025 mass shooting at Florida State University that left two dead and five injured. The victims' families have filed...
Is Anthropic Limiting the Release of Mythos to Protect the Internet — or Anthropic?
Anthropic is holding back its newest large language model, Mythos, limiting access to a handful of major enterprises such as Amazon Web Services and JPMorgan Chase. The company says the model’s advanced ability to locate software vulnerabilities could be weaponized...
AWS Boss Explains Why Investing Billions in Both Anthropic and OpenAI Is an OK Conflict
AWS chief Matt Garman explained that Amazon’s $50 billion investment in OpenAI, alongside an $8 billion stake in Anthropic, is a manageable conflict of interest. He argued that AWS routinely competes with its cloud partners and has built processes to avoid unfair...
Volkswagen Begins Testing Its Self-Driving Microbuses in Los Angeles Ahead of Launch with Uber
Volkswagen’s U.S. mobility unit MOIA America and Uber have started testing autonomous Volkswagen ID. Buzz electric microbuses in Los Angeles. The pilot will use about ten four‑seat vehicles, with a human safety operator, and is a precursor to a commercial robotaxi service...
Anthropic Debuts Preview of Powerful New AI Model Mythos in New Cybersecurity Initiative
Anthropic unveiled a preview of its new frontier AI model, Mythos, under a cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing. The model, described as one of the company’s most powerful, is being tested by more than 40 partner organizations—including Amazon, Microsoft, Apple,...
Chrome Finally Adds a Better Way to Deal with Too Many Open Tabs
Google Chrome announced the rollout of vertical tabs, moving the tab strip to the side of the browser window for easier title visibility and tab‑group management. The feature can be toggled via a right‑click menu and will stay enabled until...
Uber Is the Latest to Be Won over by Amazon’s AI Chips
Uber is expanding its Amazon Web Services contract, adding more Graviton ARM‑based servers and launching a trial of AWS's Trainium3 AI chip. The shift moves additional ride‑sharing workloads from Uber's own data centers and from earlier Oracle and Google agreements...
Anthropic Ups Compute Deal with Google and Broadcom Amid Skyrocketing Demand
Anthropic announced an expanded compute agreement with Google Cloud and Broadcom, adding roughly 3.5 GW of AI processing power that will become operational in 2027. The partnership deepens Anthropic's use of Google’s Tensor Processing Units and aligns with its $50 billion commitment...
Google Maps Can Now Write Captions for Your Photos Using AI
Google announced that its Gemini AI can now draft captions for photos and videos shared on Google Maps, giving contributors a head start when posting visual content. The feature launches today on iOS in the United States, with plans to...
Google Quietly Launched an AI Dictation App that Works Offline
Google quietly launched Google AI Edge Eloquent, an offline‑first dictation app for iOS that leverages Gemma‑based speech‑recognition models. After downloading the models, users can dictate, see live transcription, and have the app automatically strip filler words and polish the text....
Why Safety Regulators Closed Their Investigation Into Tesla’s Remote Parking Feature
U.S. safety regulators closed their probe into Tesla’s remote‑parking feature, Actually Smart Summon, after determining crashes were rare, low‑speed, and caused only minor property damage. The NHTSA emphasized that the closure does not confirm the absence of a safety defect and the...
Iran Threatens ‘Stargate’ AI Data Centers
Iran’s military warned it will strike U.S. energy and technology assets in the Middle East if Washington proceeds with threats to hit Iranian civilian infrastructure. The warning specifically targets the $500 billion Stargate AI data center joint venture of OpenAI, SoftBank...
Apple Is Taking Its App Store Fight to the Supreme Court — Again
Apple is filing a petition for the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Ninth Circuit ruling that found its 27% fee on external developer payments violates a court order. The appellate court said the fee effectively nullifies the purpose of...
North Korea’s Hijack of One of the Web’s Most Used Open Source Projects Was Likely Weeks in the Making
North Korean state‑linked hackers compromised the widely used Axios open‑source library on March 31. They spent weeks building trust through a fake company, Slack workspace, and deceptive video call, eventually delivering malware that granted remote access to the maintainer’s computer. The...
OpenAI’s Vision for the AI Economy: Public Wealth Funds, Robot Taxes, and a Four-Day Work Week
OpenAI released an "Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age" outlining how AI could reshape wealth and work. The paper proposes a public wealth fund, a robot tax, higher taxes on AI‑driven capital gains, and subsidized four‑day workweeks. It frames AI...
Convicted Spyware Maker Bryan Fleming Avoids Jail at Sentencing
Founder Bryan Fleming, operator of the stalkerware service pcTattletale, was sentenced in San Diego to time served and a $5,000 fine after pleading guilty to federal charges for creating and selling illegal spyware. The conviction marks the first successful U.S. Department...
Spain’s Xoople Raises $130 Million Series B to Map the Earth for AI
Spanish startup Xoople secured $130 million in Series B funding, led by Nazca Capital, to build a satellite constellation delivering high‑precision ground‑truth data for AI models. The company partnered with U.S. defense contractor L3Harris to develop advanced optical sensors for its planned...
Embattled Startup Delve Has ‘Parted Ways’ with Y Combinator
Delve, a compliance‑automation startup, has been removed from Y Combinator’s portfolio and its page taken down from the accelerator’s website. The split follows a wave of criticism, including an anonymous Substack post accusing Delve of misleading clients and using open‑source...
The Anonymous Social App that Thinks It Can Work in Saudi Arabia
Anonymous social app Fizz launched in Saudi Arabia in March, quickly reaching the top spot on the App Store and surpassing one million messages within two days. The company, which raised $40 million and previously operated on 700 U.S. campuses, is...
OpenAI Executive Shuffle Includes New Role for COO Brad Lightcap to Lead ‘Special Projects’
OpenAI announced a senior leadership reshuffle: COO Brad Lightcap will now head a new "special projects" unit focused on complex deals and investments, reporting directly to CEO Sam Altman. Denise Dresser, former Slack CEO, will inherit Lightcap's commercial duties as...
AI Companies Are Building Huge Natural Gas Plants to Power Data Centers. What Could Go Wrong?
AI‑driven data‑center operators are racing to build massive natural‑gas power plants, with Microsoft targeting 5 GW in West Texas, Google 933 MW in North Texas, and Meta adding 7.46 GW in Louisiana. The projects aim to secure "behind‑the‑meter" electricity to meet soaring AI...
Flipboard’s New ‘Social Websites’ Help Publishers and Creators Tap Into the Open Social Web
Flipboard unveiled "social websites," a new product that lets publishers and individual creators bundle content from decentralized platforms such as Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, podcasts and newsletters into a single, controllable web destination. The service builds on Flipboard’s Surf reader,...
ElevenLabs Releases a New AI-Powered Music-Generation App
ElevenLabs has launched ElevenMusic, an iOS app that lets users generate AI‑crafted songs using natural‑language prompts. The free tier permits up to seven tracks per day, while a $9.99 monthly Pro plan expands limits to 500 songs and 500 GB of...
Money Transfer App Duc Exposed Thousands of Driver’s Licenses and Passports to the Open Web
The Canadian fintech Duc App left an Amazon‑hosted storage bucket publicly accessible, exposing over 360,000 files that included driver’s licenses, passports, selfies and transaction spreadsheets. The data was stored without encryption, allowing anyone with the URL to view and download the...
Google Now Lets You Direct Avatars Through Prompts in Its Vids App
Google has upgraded its Vids video‑editing app with AI‑driven avatar prompting, the Veo 3.1 video‑generation model, direct YouTube export, and a new Chrome screen‑recording extension. Users can now steer avatars using natural‑language prompts, customize appearance, and generate eight‑second clips, with ten...
ICE Says It Bought Paragon’s Spyware to Use in Drug Trafficking Cases
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed it has purchased and deployed Paragon Solutions’ Graphite spyware in drug‑trafficking investigations. The agency’s acting director said the tool complies with constitutional requirements and poses no significant security or counter‑intelligence risks. After a...
WhatsApp Notifies Hundreds of Users Who Installed a Fake App Made by Government Spyware Maker
WhatsApp disclosed that it alerted roughly 200 users—mostly in Italy—who installed a counterfeit iOS version of its app containing spyware. The fake client was traced to Italian surveillance firm SIO, which has a history of producing government‑grade spyware. WhatsApp logged...
Hasbro Says It Was Hacked, and May Take ‘Several Weeks’ to Recover
Hasbro confirmed a cyberattack discovered on March 28, prompting the company to shut down parts of its IT infrastructure. The toy maker activated business continuity plans to keep order processing and shipping functional while external cybersecurity experts work on remediation....
Lucid Motors Recalls over 4,000 Gravity SUVs Citing Improperly Welded Seat Belts
Lucid Motors announced a recall of more than 4,000 Gravity SUVs built before Feb. 14, 2026 due to improperly welded second‑row seat‑belt anchors. The defect was discovered during unrelated safety testing in January and could prevent the belts from restraining passengers in...
Mercor Says It Was Hit by Cyberattack Tied to Compromise of Open Source LiteLLM Project
Mercor, an AI recruiting startup, confirmed a security incident tied to a supply‑chain attack on the open‑source LiteLLM library, which was linked to the hacking group TeamPCP and later claimed by extortion group Lapsus$. The breach may have exposed data,...
Popular AI Gateway Startup LiteLLM Ditches Controversial Startup Delve
LiteLLM, a widely used AI gateway for developers, announced it is ending its partnership with compliance startup Delve and will pursue new certifications through Vanta and an independent auditor. The move follows a credential‑stealing malware breach that exposed weaknesses in...
As More Americans Adopt AI Tools, Fewer Say They Can Trust the Results
Americans are rapidly adopting AI tools, with only 27% reporting never having used them, down from 33% a year earlier. Yet a Quinnipiac poll shows 76% trust AI rarely or never, and just 21% trust it most of the time....
What We’re Looking for in Startup Battlefield 2026 and How to Put Your Best Application Forward
TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield 200, part of Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco (Oct 13‑15), invites early‑stage founders to apply by May 27. The program prioritizes truly disruptive, category‑defining ideas over polished traction, requiring only a working MVP and a compelling founder narrative. Diversity across...
Anthropic’s Claude Popularity with Paying Consumers Is Skyrocketing
Anthropic’s Claude AI saw consumer paid subscriptions more than double in 2026, according to anonymized credit‑card data covering roughly 28 million U.S. shoppers. The surge was most pronounced between January and February, with the low‑cost Pro tier at $20 per month...
What Will Power the Grid in 2035? The Race Is Wide Open
AI’s soaring compute needs are forcing tech firms to hunt for dependable baseload power, exposing the fragility of natural‑gas supply chains after recent Middle‑East disruptions and turbine backlogs that won’t clear until the early 2030s. Small modular reactor (SMR) startups...
Rivian Gets Another $1B From Volkswagen
Volkswagen has released a second $1 billion tranche to Rivian, bringing its total commitment to roughly $5.8 billion. The payment includes $750 million in equity and $250 million in either equity or convertible debt, tied to the winter‑testing of the VW ID.EVERY1, the first joint‑venture...
Apple Says No One Using Lockdown Mode Has Been Hacked with Spyware
Apple announced that, since introducing Lockdown Mode four years ago, it has not detected any successful mercenary spyware attacks on devices with the feature enabled. The company’s spokesperson confirmed there are no known breaches, echoing earlier claims and citing observations...
Mastodon Is Making Its Decentralized Social Network Easier to Use with Its Latest Revamp
Mastodon announced a major redesign of user profiles aimed at simplifying the experience for mainstream users and organizations. The overhaul consolidates posts into a single Activity tab, adds hashtag filtering, and streamlines custom fields and editing controls. The changes debut...
Data Centers Get Ready — the Senate Wants to See Your Power Bills
U.S. Senators Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren have urged the Energy Information Administration to create a mandatory annual reporting framework for data centers, demanding granular data on hourly, peak and annual electricity use, rates, and grid upgrade costs. The request...
Melania Trump Wants a Robot to Homeschool Your Child
First Lady Melania Trump introduced a Figure AI humanoid robot, dubbed “Plato,” at a White House press conference to launch the "Fostering the Future Together" initiative. The robot delivered a brief speech promoting AI‑driven, personalized education and symbolized the administration’s push...
DeleteMe Acquires Social Media Security Tool Block Party
DeleteMe, a personal data removal service, announced the acquisition of Block Party, the social‑media harassment‑prevention tool founded by Tracy Chou. Block Party, which began as a Twitter‑focused plug‑in and later expanded to over a dozen platforms, will be integrated into DeleteMe’s...
Google Launches Lyria 3 Pro Music Generation Model
Google unveiled Lyria 3 Pro, an upgraded music‑generation model that produces tracks up to three minutes, far longer than the 30‑second limit of its predecessor. The Pro version adds granular control, letting users specify intros, verses, choruses and bridges, and it understands...
Russia Arrests Alleged Owner of Cybercrime Forum LeakBase, Report Says
Russian police detained the alleged administrator of LeakBase, a cybercrime forum once described by the U.S. Department of Justice as one of the world’s largest platforms for sharing hacking tools and stolen credentials. The site, which was shut down earlier...
Snapchat’s New ‘AI Clips’ Lens Format Turns Photos Into Five-Second Videos
Snapchat has introduced AI Clips, a new Lens format that converts a single user photo into a five‑second video. The feature, built into Lens Studio, is a closed‑prompt AI video tool available only to Lens+ subscribers, who pay $8.99 per...
