Here’s something you genuinely can’t make up: Brazil is bulldozing through the Amazon rainforest to build a massive four-lane highway—all to make it easier for people to attend COP30, the global climate summit happening in Belém next year. Yes, you read that right. They’re cutting down the very thing everyone’s supposedly gathering to save. The Road to Contradiction The BR-319...
Teradar raises $150M for a sensor it says beats lidar and radar
Teradar’s sensor uses the terahertz part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and combines the best traits of radar and lidar sensors without some of the drawbacks.
Groww raises nearly $750M in IPO as India’s retail investing boom continues
The company’s shares opened 12% above their issue price, at ₹112, and closed at ₹128.85, lending it a market cap of ₹795 billion (approximately $9 billion).
Australian spy chief warns Chinese hackers are ‘probing’ critical networks for espionage and sabotage
Australia’s intelligence chief warned that Chinese hackers are trying to break into its networks, sometimes successfully, to “pre-position” for sabotage ahead of an anticipated invasion of Taiwan.
Microsoft-backed VEIR is bringing superconductors to data centers
The Massachusetts-based startup is taking tech developed for long distance transmissions lines to solve an emerging problem for data center designers.
Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs speeds up the world model race with Marble, its first commercial product
Startups like Decart and Odyssey have released free demos, and Google’s Genie is still in limited research preview. Marble differs from these — and even World Labs’s own real-time model, RTFM — because it creates persistent, downloadable 3D environments rather than generating worlds on-the-fly as you explore. This, the company says, results in less morphing or inconsistency, and lets users...
Rad Power Bikes faces shutdown in January without new funding
Seattle-based Rad Power has gone through multiple rounds of layoffs over the last few years coming out of the pandemic. However, the company is “still fighting to find ways to continue” according to an email viewed by TechCrunch.
A better way of thinking about the AI bubble
AI isn’t all or nothing, and even good bets can turn sour if you aren’t careful about how you make them.
VC Jennifer Neundorfer explains how founders can stand out in a crowded AI market
January Ventures co-founder Jennifer Neundorfer discussed this AI-driven funding market on the Equity podcast during TechCrunch Disrupt.
The circular money problem at the heart of AI’s biggest deals
SoftBank and OpenAI announced a new 50-50 joint venture this week to sell enterprise AI tools in Japan under the brand “Crystal Intelligence.” On paper, it’s a straightforward international expansion deal. But SoftBank’s role as a major investor in OpenAI is raising questions about whether AI’s biggest deals are creating real economic value or just moving money in circles. […]