Author: Editor-in-Chief

South Korea is world-famous for its blazing-fast internet, near-universal broadband coverage, and as a leader in digital innovation, hosting global tech brands like Hyundai, LG, and Samsung. But this very success has made the country a prime target for hackers and exposed how fragile its cybersecurity defenses remain. The country is reeling from a string of high-profile hacks, affecting credit card companies, telecoms, tech startups, and government agencies, impacting vast swathes of the South Korean population. In each case, ministries and regulators appeared to scramble in parallel, sometimes deferring to one another rather than moving in unison. Critics argue…

There’s already trouble in paradise for one of the Love Is Blind season 9 couples. The first six episodes of Netflix’s reality dating experiment once again took the drama to Mexico for a post-pod engagement vacation. But the dream trip turned into a nightmare quickly for Madison Maidenberg, who is now opening up about what actually happened and what wasn’t shown from her first fight with fiancé Joe Ferrucci. After falling in love and getting engaged to Joe in the pods, Madison met a very different version of her fiancé during the pool party with the other four engaged couples on the trip.…

Imgur, one of the web’s most popular image sharing and hosting platforms, has shut off access to its site to users in the United Kingdom, following a notice of a fine by the country’s data protection watchdog. According to reports on social media, users attempting to load Imgur from the U.K. are met with an error message that says: “Content not available in your region.” The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in March had launched an investigation into various social media platforms, including Imgur, looking at how they use children’s data and protect the privacy of minors in the country. The…

David Berg learned a lot about the waste management industry by driving a garbage truck around the country as the first employee at Ohio-based Battle Motors. He discovered that despite the sheer number of sales prospecting platforms, selling to the waste management industry is still an offline endeavor. “All of them had a unanimous way of going to market, which was old school ways of pen and paper, door-to-door knocking, [and] little-to-no technology on both CRM prospecting or any bit of the sales funnel,” Berg told TechCrunch. “We saw an opportunity there to be the first, not only to build within the space,…

Amazon-owned Zoox will start mapping the streets of Washington D.C. as it ramps up to begin testing its self-driving vehicles in the nation’s capital this year. Zoox said in a blog post on Tuesday that it would begin by manually driving Toyota Highlanders equipped with its sensors and self-driving software to map the city. The company plans to start testing its autonomous vehicles (with human safety operators behind the wheel) later this year. “With its growing population and high demand for flexible transport options, the District is an ideal next location and optimal place to begin testing and mapping…

Browser maker and Google Search alternative Brave announced on Monday that it’s adding a new feature to its AI-powered search suite, Ask Brave, to provide detailed answers on a topic based on the query. The search company said that this new feature will co-exist next to its AI Answers feature, which was introduced last year to give summarized responses to search queries. The company said that people are getting more than 15 million answers every day. You don’t need to switch to a special mode to use Ask Brave. The search engine will automatically recognize what kind of query you…

Our ancestors may not have called themselves “citizen scientists” or organized to collect data for scientific inquiry, but they were keen observers of the natural world. Their survival often depended on being able to tease apart nature’s complexity — where to find game and when to sow seeds, collect berries and prepare for winter or bad weather. But our modern, technology-obsessed lives increasingly divorce us from nature, with consequences for our health and well-being. Numerous studies now remind us of what we know intuitively: Spending time in nature makes us feel better — helping with depression, attention deficit disorder, recall…

If you’ve been thinking about applying to volunteer at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, this is it — applications close tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT. Whether you’re a student, aspiring founder, marketer, event pro, or just looking to get your foot in the door of the tech world, this is your chance to: Get a behind-the-scenes look at how one of the biggest startup events in the world comes together. Network with top VCs, founders, operators, and press from around the globe. Sit in on sessions featuring tech’s most influential voices. Learn the inner workings of startup culture, innovation cycles, and event…

OpenAI began testing a new safety routing system in ChatGPT over the weekend, and on Monday introduced parental controls to the chatbot — drawing mixed reactions from users. The safety features come in response to numerous incidents of certain ChatGPT models validating users’ delusional thinking instead of redirecting harmful conversations. OpenAI is facing a wrongful death lawsuit tied to one such incident, after a teenage boy died by suicide after months of interactions with ChatGPT. The routing system is designed to detect emotionally sensitive conversations and automatically switch mid-chat to GPT-5-thinking, which the company sees as the best equipped model for high-stakes safety work. In particular, the GPT-5 models were trained with a new…

The social network Bluesky will begin verifying users’ ages in the state of Ohio to comply with new regulations, starting on Monday, September 29. The company — which offers an open and decentralized competitor to X and Threads — says it will enable the Kids Web Services’ (KWS) age verification solution in the state. This is the same solution that Bluesky is already using in South Dakota and Wyoming to comply with similar laws. Bluesky announced the move in Ohio on Sunday via its Bluesky Safety account, and in an update to last month’s blog post about the matter. The…