Tensions were high inside Meta ahead of Mark Zuckerberg’s first all-hands meeting of the year. Employee-submitted questions for the CEO touched on a couple of big themes: concerns about his announcement that “low-performers” would be let go on February 10th, his MAGA-fueled changes to Meta’s content moderation policies and DEI programs, and his comment to…

Apple’s AI suite, Apple Intelligence, will soon be available in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and simplified Chinese, along with localized English versions for India and Singapore. During the company’s Q4 2024 quarterly results call on Thursday, CEO Tim Cook said that the company will roll out support for these additional languages in…

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. The aftermath of DeepSeek’s launch was arguably the biggest tech story of the week, especially for anyone keeping a close eye on public markets. But private companies,…

Moments after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s all-hands comments to employees were widely leaked, a company executive warned in an internal memo that leakers will be fired. “We take leaks seriously and will take action,” Meta’s chief information security officer, Guy Rosen, said in an internal memo I’ve seen. “When information is stolen or leaked, there…

Meta is eliminating its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs because of the “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts” in the US, according to a memo to employees seen by Axios. Meta will also roll back representation goals and end its “diverse slate approach” to hiring. The memo, which was written…

Google announced Thursday that the Gemini app is getting its Gemini 2.0 Flash AI model. The upgraded model “delivers fast responses and stronger performance across a number of key benchmarks, providing everyday help with tasks like brainstorming, learning or writing,” the company said in a post. The change is rolling out to Gemini’s web and…

Were there twitch whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes. Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not. These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more. Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no…

Google is testing a new “Ask for Me” feature that uses AI to call local businesses on your behalf, for information about availability and pricing. The feature is available on desktop and mobile for users who have opted into the company’s Search Labs experiments. The idea is to help users access information without having to…

AngelSense, an assistive technology company that provides location monitoring devices for people with disabilities, was spilling the personally identifiable information and precise location data of its users to the open internet, TechCrunch has learned. The company secured the exposed server on Monday, more than a week after it was alerted to the data leak by…

Serial entrepreneur and former recording artist Victor D. Lombard, also known as DIVINE, announced this week the launch of a new company, in partnership with RAKIM, one of hip-hop’s most influential emcees.  The company is called Notes, a fintech specifically for independent urban musicians and creators. It provides the knowledge and tools to help artists…