Author: TechCrunch News

Apple CEO Tim Cook is promising that Apple will “break new ground” on GenAI this year. Cook made the pronouncement during the company’s annual shareholders meeting today, which came in the same week the company reportedly scuttled its multibillion-dollar, decade-long plan to build an EV. Some of the staff on the EV project were reassigned…

Cuts to Techstars’ staff and its decision to shutter certain accelerators came after it missed its 2023 revenue goals, according to documents outlining its preliminary 2023 results viewed by TechCrunch. Techstars also lost millions of dollars more by year’s end (in adjusted EBITA) than it had anticipated it would, additional documents that discussed mid-year performance…

Apple’s secretive car project died without ever seeing the light of day. It’s a fitting end, considering we’ve collectively spent the last decade aware of it without really knowing too much about what the tech colossus was planning.  Neither has Apple, apparently. Dozens of contemporaneous reports over that span clued the public into the vague…

Apparently Frank Slootman, the veteran tech executive, was popular with investors, at least judging from their reaction that he will be stepping down as CEO of Snowflake. The company stock price has plunged more than 24% in after-hours trading on the news. Slootman will retreat into the role of chairman of the board, while Sridhar…

Ethiopian startup eQub is the winner of the fintech pitch-off at 4YFN 2024, Mobile World Congress’ startup event. TechCrunch was on the ground in Barcelona to meet its business development lead Nahom Michael this week. The startup’s name is an Amharic word referring to a local form of peer-to-peer credit, Michael said. An Equb is…

Out of the box, Apple’s Vision Pro doubles as a 4K Mac virtual display, allowing you to extend an existing Mac desktop to the device’s spatial computing environment. A new app called Splitscreen takes things a step further, by allowing you to add a second macOS display to your Vision Pro — even if it…

Biotech startup SynFlora brought an enticing pitch for a new type of skin treatment technology to 4YFN at the MWC tradeshow in Barcelona this week. The Spanish startup, whose three co-founders all have PhDs, is working to improve understanding of the skin’s microbiome and engineer skin microbes with the goal of enabling more targeted and…

Apple is scuttling its secretive, long-running effort to build an autonomous electric car, executives announced in a short meeting with the team Tuesday morning. The company is likely cutting hundreds of employees from the team and all work on the project has stopped, TechCrunch has learned. Some remaining employees will be shifted to Apple’s generative…

TikTok is losing even more songs over its quarrel with Universal Music Group (UMG), as the social media network is starting to remove songs published by UMG, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Tuesday. The row between the two companies began last month when UMG announced that it failed to reach a deal with TikTok’s…

As humans spend increasing amounts of time indoors, we lose access to the sun’s natural benefits. Recognition of season affective disorder has grown accordingly. While the actual occurrence of the condition is low (around 5% — or 10 million or so Americans),  it’s led to increasing awareness of the sun’s impact on the production of…