Author: Editor-in-Chief

Gemini’s mobile adoption has been soaring since the August launch of its Nano Banana image editor model, which has received positive reviews, particularly from users who say they can now more easily perform complex edits and create realistic images. The app has climbed to the top of global app stores’ charts and has seen a 45% month-over-month increase in downloads in the month of September so far, according to new data provided by app intelligence firm Appfigures. Though the month is only half over, Gemini’s app has already gained 12.6 million downloads in September, up from 8.7 million in…

Rivian has officially broken ground on its long-planned factory near Atlanta, Georgia, which will one day allow the company to make as many as 400,000 of its next-generation electric vehicles per year. The company held a shovel ceremony on Tuesday where CEO RJ Scaringe was joined by Georgia officials, including Governor Brian Kemp. But, as TechCrunch first reported in July, the company is still eyeing the first quarter of 2026 for an official construction start date, with vehicle production starting in 2028. Most of what’s taking place now is prep work, like hooking up electrical systems and water supply, and…

Fourth Power’s take on long-duration energy storage sounds like something out of a James Bond film. The thermal batteries come complete with superheated liquid tin and argon-filled hermetically sealed chambers. The company’s goal, though, is far more prosaic — to store electricity cheap enough to make solar and wind an obvious choice for 24/7 power. Here’s how the technology works: To store energy, electricity from the grid heats blocks of carbon inside insulated chambers filled with argon gas. When power is needed, the system pumps molten tin heated to a scorching 2,400°C (4,352°F) through graphite pipes — the only…

Salesforce is increasing its focus on national security. The customer relationship management giant announced the creation of a new business unit called Missionforce on Tuesday. It will be focused on incorporating AI into defense workflows in three main areas: personnel, logistics, and decision-making, according to a company press release. Missionforce will be helmed by Kendall Collins, the CEO of Government Cloud. Collins joined Salesforce in 2023 and was previously the chief business officer and chief of staff to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. “With Missionforce, we’ll now bring the best of AI, cloud, and platform technology from the private sector to…

Calm is launching a new stand-alone app for more personalized sleep support, the company announced on Tuesday. The new Calm Sleep app is available on iOS and is designed to help people wind down, sleep better, and wake up refreshed, Calm says. The app features Calm’s content with new features designed to help users reach their sleep goals. Calm Sleep starts by getting people to complete a short onboarding questionnaire. The app then creates a personalized sleep plan, including recommended content and daily tasks designed to improve sleep, focusing on areas such as digital hygiene, exercise, stress reduction, and sleep…

Nearly 500,000 new immigrants are expected to land in Canada in 2024.They come from around the world in search of better career opportunities, health facilities and living conditions. We all know there are various immigration categories and classes, but the Canadian government’s support for those who come under refugee, humanitarian, and compassionate classes is unparalleled, and must be acknowledged and appreciated. Humanitarian and Compassionate class application is a way that foreign nationals can use to get permanent resident status in Canada. What are Humanitarian and Compassionate (H&C) grounds? Section 25 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act gives Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)…

While many robotics companies are building human-sized robots, or working to automate entire factories, MicroFactory is instead trying to think big by building small. San Francisco-based MicroFactory built a general-purpose, tabletop manufacturing kit that’s about the size of my Siberian Husky’s dog crate. This compact factory includes two robotic arms and can be trained by human demonstration, as well as through AI. “General purpose robots are good, but it’s not necessary [to] be humanoid,” said Igor Kulakov, the co-founder and CEO of MicroFactory, in an interview with TechCrunch. “We decided to design robots from scratch that will still be…

Y Combinator-alum Rulebase is betting that the next wave of automation in financial services won’t be about flashy AI interfaces, but the unglamorous back-office tasks like compliance. The startup, founded in 2024 by Gideon Ebose and Chidi Williams, two Nigerian engineers who met in London, just raised a $2.1 million pre-seed round led by Bowery Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Commerce Ventures, Transpose Platform VC, alongside several angels. Financial services firms spend enormous amounts of effort on support tickets, resolving disputes, ensuring quality assurance, and regulatory compliance. Rulebase’s software, which it calls an agent coworker, replaces much of the…

Kayak co-founder Paul English is back with a new venture—this time, he’s taking on Calendly. The entrepreneur has launched Supercal, a free scheduling platform that’s designed to make booking meetings more efficient and simple. Supercal was born out of English’s personal experience with the challenges of booking meetings. As a member of eight boards of directors, English says he and others often struggled to coordinate schedules. He then set out to create an email system for booking group meetings and to challenge Calendly by building a similar tool that offered similar functionality, but for free. “Instead of having the…

Amazon is continuing its annual tradition of hosting a second Prime event of the year, called Prime Big Deals Day, in October. Following the pattern established in recent years, the company announced the event will take place on October 7-8, with sales starting at 12:01 AM PT on October 7. Amazon is betting that shoppers will embrace various AI tools during the event, such as its shopping assistant Rufus, along with visual search tools like Amazon Lens and Lens Live, which allows customers to point their cameras at any object around them and find it on the Amazon’s website. Additionally,…