Renowned roboticist Rodney Brooks has a wake-up call for investors pouring billions into humanoid robot startups: you’re wasting your money. Brooks, who co-founded iRobot and spent decades at MIT, is particularly skeptical of companies like Tesla and Figure trying to teach robots dexterity by showing them videos of humans doing tasks. In a new essay, … Read more
Silicon Valley flooded the news this week with headlines about wild AI infrastructure investments. Nvidia said it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI. Then OpenAI said it would build out five more Stargate AI data centers with Oracle and SoftBank, adding gigawatts of new capacity online in the coming years. And it was … Read more
The idea of hiring your “first critical engineer” is getting a serious reality check at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, October 27–29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West. Join Lauri Moore, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and David Cramer, co-founder and chief product officer at Sentry, and Zach Lloyd, founder and CEO of Warp, on the Builders Stage … Read more
For years, “know your customer” checks have become commonplace on the internet, often by way of sharing a copy of your government-issued ID and a selfie to confirm that it’s really you, to access a website or app, or to purchase certain goods. Nowadays, age verification laws taking effect across the U.S., the United … Read more
At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, happening October 27–29 at Moscone West in San Francisco, Box CEO and co-founder Aaron Levie takes the Disrupt Stage for a candid conversation on what invention really looks like inside a public company, what AI is changing (and not changing) in enterprise software, and why staying sharp means questioning everything — … Read more
A data spill from an unsecured cloud server has exposed hundreds of thousands of sensitive bank transfer documents in India, revealing account numbers, transaction figures, and individuals’ contact details. Researchers at cybersecurity firm UpGuard discovered in late August a publicly accessible Amazon-hosted storage server containing 273,000 PDF documents relating to bank transfers of Indian customers. … Read more
In a move no one asked for, Meta is introducing “Vibes,” a new feed in the Meta AI app and on meta.ai for sharing and creating short-form, AI-generated videos. Think TikTok or Instagram Reels, but every single video you come across is essentially AI slop. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the rollout of Vibes in … Read more
OpenAI released a new benchmark on Thursday that tests how its AI models perform compared to human professionals across a wide range of industries and jobs. The test, GDPval, is an early attempt at understanding how close OpenAI’s systems are to outperforming humans at economically valuable work — a key part of the company’s founding … Read more
Hardware startup Nothing said Thursday that it plans to make its affordable device brand, CMF, into an independent subsidiary with India serving as its headquarters for manufacturing and R&D. The company first launched CMF in 2023 with a pair of earbuds and a smartwatch. Since then, it has introduced smartphones under the brand as well. … Read more
For decades, Silicon Valley has valorized the college dropout. Founders like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg left school early to build companies and they became billionaires. That ethos was later institutionalized through initiatives like the Thiel Fellowship, which famously pays promising students $100,000 to leave college and start companies. For many years, the … Read more
