Robots run a half marathon, slowly
It looks like humanoid robots have a long way to go before catching up with human runners. Beijing’s E-Town tech hub hosted what it described as the first world’s first humanoid half-marathon on Saturday, with 21
Week in Review: Google loses a major antitrust case
Welcome back to Week in Review! We’ve got tons of stuff for you this week: antitrust lawsuits against Google and Meta; Grok can now remember; Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow wants to make his mark; and much, much more. Have a
Famed AI researcher launches controversial startup to replace all human workers everywhere
Every now and then, a Silicon Valley startup launches with such an “absurdly” described mission that it’s difficult to discern if the startup is for real or just satire. Such is the case with Mechanize, a startup
Read what Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook execs said about Instagram before buying it
The first week of the Meta antitrust trial brought new revelations about how the company formerly known as Facebook approached the competitive threat posed by Instagram in the early 2010s. The U.S. government is
A new kids’ show will come with a crypto wallet when it debuts this fall
A new animated kids’ series expected to premiere this year won’t be headed for a TV network. Or a streaming service. Instead, the founders of production studio We Ghosted Media plan to launch on a decentralized web
Techstars increases startup funding to $220,000, mirroring YC structure
Techstars, a nearly 20-year-old startup accelerator, announced new terms for startups that enter its three-month program. The organization will now invest $220,000, which is $100,000 more than it offered previously,
OpenAI’s new reasoning AI models hallucinate more
OpenAI’s recently launched o3 and o4-mini AI models are state-of-the-art in many respects. However, the new models still hallucinate, or make things up — in fact, they hallucinate more than several of OpenAI’s older
Bluesky may soon add blue check verification
Bluesky may soon get a new blue checkmark verification system, according to changes to the app’s public GitHub repository spotted Friday by reverse engineer alice.mosphere.at. The blue checks may have a similar look
TechCrunch Mobility: Lyft buys its way into Europe, Kodiak SPACs, and how China’s new ADAS rules might affect Tesla
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! Enough with my typical small talk. Let’s jump
White House replaces covid.gov website with ‘lab leak’ theory
The government-run website covid.gov used to host information about COVID-19 vaccines, testing, and treatment. Now, under President Trump’s purview, the page redirects to a White House website espousing the unproven