Tech Boys

Jeff Cardenas pulls out his MacBook. Apptronik’s co-founder and CEO has a slideshow he wants to show, running down the Austin startup’s seven-year history. It does, indeed, take a bit of contextualizing. Like many fellow robotics firms, the company was fueled by government contracts in its earliest days. First up was Valkyrie 2, the second iteration of NASA’s humanoid space robot. The young company was one of a handful tasked with helping to bring that system to life. Its contribution to the puzzle was liquid-cooled robotic actuators developed at the Human Centered Robots lab at the University of Texas, led by Apptronik co-founder and chief scientist Luis Sentis. Next was exoskeletons. United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), which was in the market for “iron man suits.” Image Credits: Brian Heater “[The]exoskeleton was liquid cooled,” says Cardenas. “We learned a lot doing that. The complexity of the system was too high. It was heavy. We remotized all of the actuato...

Ford has reversed its decision to build new vehicles without AM radio after pressure from lawmakers. CEO Jim Farley wrote in posts on Twitter and LinkedIn Tuesday that AM radio will be included on all 2024 Ford and Lincoln Motor vehicles, a decision the executive came to “after speaking with policy leaders about the importance of AM broadcast radio as part of the emergency alert system.” Last week, a bipartisan group of federal lawmakers introduced a bill calling on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require AM in new vehicles at no additional cost. Sponsors of the “AM for Every Vehicle Act” have argued that AM radio has historically helped transmit crucial information during emergencies, particularly to rural areas. The act was prompted by many automakers’ decisions — including Ford, Tesla, BMW, Volkswagen and Mazda — to remove AM radio from their new electric cars. The companies said electric engines can interfere with the sound of AM radio stations. “I would...

Hello and welcome back to Max Q! In this issue: Blue Origin lands major NASA contract News from SpaceX, and more NASA picks Blue Origin-led team to build second human landing system on the moon, joining SpaceX NASA has chosen a Blue Origin-led team to develop a second lunar landing system for the Artemis program, as the agency looks to provide competition with SpaceX and support long-term exploration of the moon. The winning team includes Lockheed Martin, Draper, Boeing, Astrobotic and Honeybee Robotics. The contract is valued at $3.4 billion, but Blue Origin Vice President John Couluris said the company plans to contribute “well north” of that number — meaning the entire endeavor will likely cost at least $7 billion. Blue Origin said it would develop a 52-foot tall lander it’s calling Blue Moon and land it on the lunar south pole. Blue Moon is sized to fit inside the payload fairing of Blue’s under-development New Glenn rocket. The Blue-led team is planning to attempt an uncr...

Surprising literally no one, the combination of paid blue checks and generative AI makes it all too easy to spread misinformation. On Monday morning, a seemingly AI-generated image of an explosion at the Pentagon circulated around the internet, even though the event didn’t actually happen. Within about half an hour, the image appeared on a verified Twitter account called “Bloomberg Feed,” which could very easily be mistaken for a real Bloomberg-affiliated account, especially since it had a blue check. That account has since been suspended. The Russian state-controlled news network RT also shared the image, according to screenshots that users captured before the tweet was deleted. Several Twitter accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers, like DeItaone , OSINTdefender and Whale Chart shared it. Even an Indian television network reported the fake Pentagon explosion. It is not immediately clear where this fake image and news story originated. Prime example of the dangers ...

Last week, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed a law that banned TikTok in the state . Now the company is hitting back with a lawsuit that aims to keep the app available to Montanans. In the complaint, TikTok argues that Montana’s ban violates the Constitution by limiting the company’s right to host and distribute user-created content. TikTok also argues that Montana is overstepping its role by attempting to legislate matters of national security rather than deferring to federal regulators, placing an undue burden on its ability to conduct interstate business in the process. TikTok is asking the court for an injunction to block Montana’s ban, which, if granted, would allow the app to conduct business as usual in the state while the courts sort out the relevant issues. “We are challenging Montana’s unconstitutional TikTok ban to protect our business and the hundreds of thousands of TikTok users in Montana,” TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter told TechCrunch. “We believe our leg...

We don’t spend a lot of time taking a deep-dive into the consumer experience of gaming. But one of the biggest stories in tech this week is the much-anticipated release of  Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the Nintendo Switch. So I’m joined by Taylor Hatmaker to have a mostly spoiler-free conversation about what Link is getting up to. Articles from the episode: Hardware startup Telly launches a free smart TV entirely supported by ads Telly, the ‘free’ smart TV with ads, has privacy policy red flags After a 29-year run, Vice files for bankruptc y Elon Musk appoints new Twitter CEO, NBCU’s Linda Yaccarino This episode is just an excuse to talk about Zelda and other TC news by Darrell Etherington originally published on TechCrunch from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/axRMJSd via Technology

Self-driving vehicle companies Waymo and Cruise are on the cusp of securing final approval to charge fares for fully autonomous robotaxi rides throughout the city of San Francisco at all hours of the day or night.  Amid mounting resistance to the presence of AVs in the city, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) published two draft resolutions late last week that would grant Cruise and Waymo the ability to extend the hours of operation and service areas of their now-limited robotaxi services.  The drafts are dated for a hearing June 29, and there’s still room for public comments, which are due May 31. Based on the CPUC’s drafted language, many of the protests raised by the city of San Francisco have already been rejected.  City agencies have called out the string of (mainly) Cruise vehicles that have malfunctioned and stopped in the middle of intersections or even on light rail lines, impacting the flow of traffic and obstructing both public transit and e...

On Thursday, the Supreme Court resolved two adjacent cases aiming to hold social platforms liable for dangerous content . The pair of cases, Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google, both sought to hold tech platforms accountable for hosting content from the Islamic State that promoted the terrorist organization in connection to violent attacks. The Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in the former case , determining that Twitter did not aid and abet the Islamic State when the group attacked a Turkish nightclub in 2017. The case hinged on whether an anti-terrorism law could be applied to open up online platforms to liability. Justice Thomas delivered the court’s opinion: The nexus between defendants and the Reina [nightclub] attack is far removed. As alleged by plaintiffs, defendants designed virtual platforms and knowingly failed to do “enough” to remove ISIS-affiliated users and ISIS-related content—out of hundreds of millions of users worldwide and an immense ocean of con...

During Netflix’s first Upfront presentation on Wednesday, Netflix revealed that its ad plan has nearly five million global monthly active users. This is the first time the company has disclosed figures for the new tier — which only launched six months ago — and the number is certainly notable. In March, Bloomberg reported that one million accounts signed up for Netflix’s ad-supported plan. However, it’s important to note that monthly users aren’t necessarily subscribers as it’s likely that some users are sharing plans. Netflix plans to crack down on password sharing next month. The company added during Wednesday’s presentation that the ads subscriber base has “more than doubled” since early this year. Netflix has a total of 232.5 million global subscribers. Netflix’s pitch to advertisers included other interesting figures regarding the ad-supported offering. For instance, the company revealed that 80% of viewing is happening on TV screens. Also, 25% of Netflix signups o...

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has only been out in the wild for a few days at this point, marking a mere sliver of the time players will spend unfolding Hyrule’s fresh secrets in the coming months — and years, if Breath of the Wild is any indication. For anyone avoiding full-game reviews and spoilers, here are some early thoughts on the expansive elf survival simulator’s first 20 hours or so. This serves as a warning for spoilers about Tears of the Kingdom ‘s world from here on out. I won’t get into much that’s plot related here, mostly gameplay, map and mechanics stuff. But if you’ve yet to play, some of the world’s surprises are really, really worth saving. Do yourself a favor! Out of the gate, Tears of the Kingdom’s starter area this time around is big . Everything still looks very Breath of the Wild , which is to say the game’s cel-shaded vibes and lush natural setting remain, but Tears of the Kingdom kicks off on an interconnected series of mysterious floating s...

Christian Owens Contributor Share on Twitter Christian Owens is executive chairman and co-founder of Paddle , a payments infrastructure provider for SaaS businesses. Following the valuation collapse of the last 12 months, the phrase “efficient growth” is reverberating around SaaS boardrooms worldwide. Every software leader is seeking to boost revenues, cut costs, and demonstrate a clear path to profitability. Sitting at the heart of this conversation is product-led growth (PLG), a strategy that sees acquisition, monetization and retention of customers through a product lens, rather than through the hiring of expensive marketing, sales and success organizations. With standout examples like Figma’s $28B acquisition by Adobe, ChatGPT’s two-month race to 100 million users, and Hubspot’s pivot to PLG that has helped drive almost $2B in revenue, most SaaS boards are seeking to understand how they can benefit from this proven sales motion. PLG is fast becoming a necessity, not...

The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, said last week that it would stop servicing Canadian customers due to “new guidance related to stablecoins and investor limits provided to crypto exchanges.” But while the exchange said it will return to the country “someday,” its exit leaves behind a huge gap that its competitors are aiming to fill. Coinbase is one of the big players in the space planning to do just that. Coinbase, close behind Binance as the world’s No. 2 crypto exchange, is “open for business,” Nana Murugesan, VP international and business development at the exchange, told TechCrunch+. “We’ve always focused on playing the long game.” Overall, the Canadian market for crypto is large, but it’s far from the largest. Crypto revenue in the country is expected to reach $1.42 billion in 2023, per Statista . And currently, about 13% of Canadians own or use crypto, down slightly from the year prior and up 116% from 2021, also per Statista . In late February, the Canadian Se...

Microsoft announced today that Phone Link for iOS is now available to all Windows 11 customers, allowing iPhone users to make and receive phone calls, send and receive messages via iMessage, access their contacts and see their phone’s notifications directly on their Windows PC. Phone Link previously only worked with Android phones. The company started rolling out Phone Link for iOS on Windows 11 last month in 39 languages across 85 markets, and noted that it would take a few weeks for it to reach all customers. Phone Link offers basic support for calls, messages and contacts, but it has some limitations, as it doesn’t support the option to reply to group messages or send images and videos. Microsoft notes that messages are session based and will only come through when your phone is connected to your PC. Notifications are delivered to the PC through Windows notifications, which means users can check, pin and dismiss them from the Windows interface. To get started with Phone Link, u...

In case you haven’t heard, you — yes you, TechCrunch readers — have a voice and a vote in the programming at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 , taking place September 19–21 in San Francisco. Audience Choice voting is open now through May 17 at 11:59 p.m. PDT . Final chance: Today’s the last day you can score early-bird passes and save up to $800. Buy your pass by 11:59 p.m. PDT tonight! You pick the programming at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023 Specifically, you help decide which of the 17 roundtable discussions and 15 breakout sessions will earn a spot on the Disrupt agenda. The 10 speakers — in each category — who receive the most votes will present their topics at the show. Both roundtables and breakouts draw big crowds at Disrupt and for good reason. They focus on vital topics and issues that help increase your knowledge and grow your business. Here’s how the two formats differ: Roundtables: 30-minute, expert-led conversations focused on engaging collaboration and creating those magic mo...

Six years ago, Yiğit Ihlamur, a former senior program manager at Google, observed that AI was surpassing human capabilities in certain areas — at least by his estimation. Equipped with this perspective, he looked into various sectors with the goal of tackling a problem that he could work on for the rest of his life. “At an abstract level, I was intrigued by the idea of accelerating innovation, because innovation creates new products, services and experiences that were previously unimaginable,” Ihlamur told TechCrunch in an email interview. “I perceived delivering capital to innovation as a math problem and started coding and hacking my way in.” Ihlamur decided to focus on the VC space, which he saw as behind in terms of leveraging automation and AI. With the help of several co-founders, he launched Vela Partners , a VC firm that he describes as “AI-powered” and “product-led.” Vela is an early-stage VC with $25 million under management and 32 portfolio companies, including self-c...

Better Tomorrow Ventures’ Sheel Mohnot landed some of his biggest wins before he ever started a venture firm. The investor previously worked as a partner at 500 , previously known as 500 Startups, where he raised and ran a dedicated fintech fund as well as helped build an accelerator. There he met his eventual founding partner at BTV – Jake Gibson – and backed a cadre of fintech startups, including Chipper and Albert, each at $2.5 million valuations. Today, Chipper is valued at over $1 billion , and Albert has raised over $175 million. And while the firm has certainly cashed in on that early track record – raising a $225 million second fund last year – the duo behind it thinks it’s time to launch a nod toward their roots. Better Tomorrow Ventures tells TechCrunch that it is launching a fintech accelerator, this time under its own roof, called The Mint. The Mint will be a three-month accelerator, based out of San Francisco, that cuts $500,000 checks in exchange for 10% equity in ...

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here . Happy Tuesday! Couple of quick things: Apply now to pitch at TechCrunch Live’s Atlanta pitch-off . Also, today’s head scratcher of an article is from Devin , who reports that Acapela lets anyone back up their own voice . Until literally 10 seconds ago, we had no idea that that was even possible, and now we really want to do it. — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 Big bet on AI : Like other Big Tech companies we’ve talked about before, IBM took its turn this week unveiling what Kyle writes is “a slew of new AI services,” including IBM watsonx, which will “deliver tools to build AI models and provide access to pretrained models for generating computer code, text and more.” More layoffs : LinkedIn is phasing out its China jobs app and with it goes 716 jobs, Catherine reports. The company attributed the app’s demise to “fierce competition an...