Surf, the new app from Flipboard for browsing the open social web, is expanding its support for Bluesky’s social network. On Monday, the company announced a new version of its beta software (dubbed “Blue Wave”) which allows users to log into the app using their Bluesky credentials and then see all their Bluesky feeds in…

Faced with an aging population and labor shortages, Japanese businesses are increasingly relying on service robots to supplement their workforce, according to Bloomberg. Research firm Fuji Keizai projects the country’s service robot market to nearly triple by 2030, to ¥400 billion ($2.7 billion). Potentially driving that growth: the Recruit Works Institute projects that the country…

A new WSJ report suggests that Saudi Arabia’s now eight-year-old Neom project — a futuristic, carbon-neutral, 105-mile-long linear city envisioned by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — has become a financial sinkhole. Plagued by delays and cost overruns, the country, which has already shelled out $50 billion, could reportedly face another 55 years of construction,…

Manus, an “agentic” AI platform that launched in preview last week, is generating more hype than a Taylor Swift concert. The head of product at Hugging Face called Manus “the most impressive AI tool I’ve ever tried.” AI policy researcher Dean Ball described Manus as the “most sophisticated computer using AI.” The official Discord server…

Creatopy, a startup that uses AI to automate the creation of digital ads, has brought on a new CEO: Tammy Nam. Nam was previously COO and CMO at photo-editing startup PicsArt, and before that the CEO of video streamer Viki. She told TechCrunch via email that Creatopy was looking for a US-based executive who knows…

A federal judge is allowing an AI-related copyright lawsuit against Meta to move forward, although he dismissed part of the suit. In Kadrey vs. Meta, authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Ta-Nehisi Coates have alleged that Meta has violated their intellectual property rights by using their books to train its Llama AI models, and…

Google has quietly updated the webpage for its Responsible AI and Human Centered Technology (RAI-HCT) team, the team charged with conducting research into AI safety, fairness, and explainability, to scrub mentions of “diversity” and “equity.” A previous version of the page used language such as “marginalized communities,” “diverse,” “underrepresented groups,” and “equity” to describe the…

The US Department of Justice is still calling for Google to sell its web browser Chrome, according to a Friday court filing.  The DOJ first proposed that Google should sell Chrome last year, under then-President Joe Biden, but it seems to be sticking with that plan under the second Trump administration. The department is, however,…

Last year was a monumental year for the AI industry in the U.S. and beyond. There were 49 startups that raised funding rounds worth $100 million or more in 2024, per our count at TechCrunch. Three companies raised more than one “mega-round” last year, and seven companies raised rounds at $1 billion or larger. How…

TechCrunch will be on the ground at SXSW 2025 — the annual tech, music, comedy, and film conference that kicked off Friday in Austin — in search of the zeitgeist of this AI-centric era. Yup, we’re one sentence in and AI has already made its entrance. And why not? A quick scan of the massive…