Tag Archives: TechCrunch

OpenAI’s AI reasoning model ‘thinks’ in Chinese sometimes and no one really knows why

Shortly after OpenAI released o1, its first “reasoning” AI model, people began noting a curious phenomenon. The model would sometimes begin “thinking” in Chinese, Persian, or some other language — even when asked a question in English. Given a problem … Continue reading

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Steppin is a new app that locks your social media apps unless you get out and walk

App stores are filled with different services that are designed to help you cut down on your screen time and count your steps. A new iOS app called Steppin combines these two ideas to help users do both at the … Continue reading

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Thoras helps companies reach reliability without overspending on cloud costs

For years, twin sisters Nilo Rahmani and Jen Rahmani swapped stories — and commiserated — over the pain points they were facing in their respective engineering jobs. Nilo told TechCrunch that a frequent topic of conversation was about frustrations over … Continue reading

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North Korea stole over $659M in crypto heists during 2024, deploys fake job seekers

A joint international statement provides the first official confirmation that North Korea was behind the $235M hack of WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

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UK plans to ban public sector organizations from paying ransomware hackers

The Home Office has proposed a ‘targeted ban’ on ransom payments following a wave a cyberattacks targeting the UK © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

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Venture funding remains stable in France thanks to AI startups

Alex Dewez, a partner at 20VC, just released its highly anticipated State of the French tech ecosystem report. This is a nice followup to Atomico’s State of European Tech report, with a more granular view on French startups in particular. … Continue reading

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UK’s CMA slaps Google Search and its 90%+ market share with an antitrust investigation

The Competition and Markets Authority — the U.K.’s antitrust watchdog — is wasting no time in lodging its first official investigation of 2025 under its new rules that came into effect this month. It’s looking into the market dominance of … Continue reading

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Bioptimus raises $41M to develop a ‘GPT for biology’

A fledgling French AI startup has raised $41 million to develop a foundational AI model for biology. Just as OpenAI’s ChatGPT has taken the world by storm for a super-smart generative AI tool capable of natural language conversation in text … Continue reading

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LemFi moves remittances further into Asia and Europe with $53M in new funding

For many emerging market economies, remittances have become a lifeline. Inflows surpassed $669 billion in 2023, according to World Bank research, and they now represent significant portions of GDP in these countries, often outpacing foreign direct investment as the primary … Continue reading

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How Barcelona became an unlikely hub for spyware startups

Barcelona’s mix of affordable cost of living and quality of life has helped create a vibrant startup community — and become a hotbed for the creation of surveillance technologies. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

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