Author: Editor-in-Chief

Spacecoin says it reached a new milestone in its quest to build a decentralized communications backbone that could one day rival SpaceX’s Starlink. The company said this week that it successfully transmitted secured data via its first demonstration satellite, validating the spacecraft’s ability to execute encrypted transactions in orbit. The blockchain transaction, beamed from Chile to Portugal, served as a proof-of-concept for moving cryptographic signatures and encrypted data through space. “Can we send cryptographic signatures to space intact? Without it, we cannot build a decentralized network of communications satellites and fulfill the vision of building permissionless connectivity,” Spacecoin founder Tae…

Apple is sidelining plans to overhaul its Vision Pro VR glasses to focus on developing AI smart glasses that can compete with products from Meta, according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Although the company had been developing a cheaper and lighter version of its Vision Pro, Apple is moving staff from that project to work on smart glasses. Bloomberg reports that the tech giant is developing at least two types of smart glasses. The first model, nicknamed N50, will pair with an iPhone and not have its own display. Apple reportedly plans to unveil these smart glasses…

Tesla’s sales growth has vanished over the last year-and-a-half, but the company just registered its best quarter of deliveries ever, in large part because buyers rushed to take advantage of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit before it went away. Tesla delivered 497,099 vehicles over the last three months, the company announced Thursday. That’s a massive 29% jump from the second quarter, about a 7% increase over the same period last year, and more than it has ever delivered in a single quarter. Other automakers in the U.S. have seen similar jumps ahead of the credit expiring. The temptation to…

Bryan Onel’s father was a locksmith. As for Onel, he described himself as the digital equivalent. Ethical hacking was Onel’s hobby growing up. He studied AI at university and then turned that hacking hobby into a profession. “I spent a decade performing penetration tests for over 150 companies across all sectors,” Onel tells TechCrunch, adding that he kept easily breaking into companies that had passed their security checks. Onel realized that security often fell within two brackets: Painful but effective, or painless but ineffective, he said. Most companies were doing the bare minimum in cybersecurity and compliance, as it often…

Chatbot platforms like ChatGPT and Poe have allowed users to create repeated prompts in the form of GPTs and apps. Lately, browsers like Dia and Opera Neon have added a way for people to get repeated tasks done in the form of skills and cards. Now, meeting notetaker Granola is bringing its own spin with a feature called Recipes, which lets you create a prompt shortcut you can use again and again. You can invoke a recipe by using “/” in Granola chat and typing its name. You can create your own recipes by typing in a prompt and giving…

On Tuesday, a new SPAC from VC and All-In podcast host Chamath Palihapitiya became a public company. Dubbed with the lofty name “American Exceptionalism,” it raised $345 million with a mission to acquire one or more startups in the fields of energy, AI, crypto/DeFi, or defense, then convert those companies into publicly traded entities. But Palihapitiya wants retail investors to know: He strongly advises you not to buy the stock, even though he has reserved a tiny fraction — just over 1% — to be traded on the public markets for retailer investors, while 98.7% has already been sold to…

Einride, the Swedish startup known for its unusual-looking electric and autonomous pods that are designed to carry freight, said Wednesday it has raised $100 million from several new and existing investors, including its largest shareholder, EQT Ventures. The raise included an undisclosed strategic investment from quantum computing company IonQ. Neither Einride, nor its investors, disclosed the company’s post-money valuation. The funding comes as Einride adjusts to a new CEO and tries to scale its three business products: electric big rigs, autonomous pod-like trucks that navigate fixed routes, and planning software designed for shippers. Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli said the funding…

A rapper who campaigned for Donald Trump at a 2024 rally in New York City has been sentenced to five years in prison on attempted murder and conspiracy charges. Michael Williams, the 27-year-old rapper known as Sheff G, received the sentence in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree attempted murder and one count of second-degree conspiracy in March. The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office argued that Williams used earnings from his music career to fund gang violence in the New York City borough. In addition to serving five years in state prison, Williams has been ordered to five years of…

Sheel Mohnot, co-founder and general partner of Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV), has one simple answer for anyone claiming that investing in fintech has lost some of its attractiveness. “The world of finance is huge. About 20% of global GDP is financial services, and it’s still not digital enough,” he told TechCrunch. Many financial transactions are still handled manually, and Better Tomorrow Ventures — led by Mohnot (a former general partner at 500 Startups) and NerdWallet co-founder Jake Gibson — aims to help change that. “The massive digitization opportunity is still ahead of us,” Mohnot told TechCrunch. The firm’s limited partners…

The footage was striking: A food delivery worker scrambles with his e-bike across a bridge in Chicago, chased by a cadre of armed, masked federal agents. “Get him!” one yells, before the worker ultimately slips away. The viral clip became a rallying point this week for critics of President Donald Trump’s deportation machine, which has spread to multiple U.S. cities and swept up citizens in the process. For Mike Peregudov, the co-founder of e-bike subscription service Whizz, it was a visceral representation of the abject fear delivery workers have described to his team for weeks in Chicago. That’s because threat…