TechCrunch

TechCrunch stands as a vanguard in the digital landscape, offering incisive coverage on the intersection of technology, startups, and venture capital. Renowned for its timely reporting and in-depth analyses, the site provides a comprehensive overview of the latest innovations, industry shifts, and entrepreneurial endeavors that are shaping the future of tech. From breakthrough startups to major corporate maneuvers, TechCrunch delivers content that is both insightful and essential for anyone navigating the rapidly evolving tech ecosystem. Its authoritative voice makes it an indispensable resource for tech professionals and enthusiasts alike.

• Threads officially moves to Threads.com and updates its web app

  Instagram Threads, Meta’s newest social network and X competitor, is officially relocating from the website Threads.net to Threads.com. The transition will coincide with a handful of quality-of-life improvements for the Threads web app, including features to more easily access custom feeds, saved posts, and likes, as well as other tools for creating new columns, copying […]

• Pope Francis’ funeral to stream on YouTube

  The funeral of Pope Francis will be livestreamed on YouTube on Saturday. Pope Francis passed away earlier this week at age 88 due to a stroke and cardiac arrest. Vatican News’ YouTube channel will begin coverage of the funeral at 10 a.m. CET/4 a.m. ET, with availability in English, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German. […]

• Flex acquires a16z-backed Maza for $40M as fintech M&A heats up

  Flex, a startup that offers personal finance software for business owners, has acquired Maza, a finance app aimed at Spanish speakers in the U.S., for $40 million, the companies told TechCrunch exclusively. At first glance, the pairing may seem a bit curious. Flex’s software and payments infrastructure is to help business owners have a single […]

• Within six years, building the leading AI data center may cost $200B

  Data centers to train and run AI may soon contain millions of chips, cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and require power equivalent to a large city’s electricity grid, if the current trends hold. That’s according to a new study from researchers at Georgetown, Epoch AI, and Rand, which looked at the growth trajectory of […]

• Mark Zuckerberg really wants to make Facebook cool again

  In an ongoing antitrust case, the Federal Trade Commission says that Meta has a monopoly on “personal social networking services” and should have to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp. Throughout the proceedings, there have been several internal messages and plans that have come to light. In one, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg considered wiping all Facebook […]

• Netflix now offers dialogue-only subtitles

  Netflix just introduced a new way to experience subtitles that eliminates the need to read audio cues like “door slams” or “phone rings.”  Announced on Thursday, Netflix’s new dialogue-only subtitles can be enabled by going to “Navigate to Audio” and then “Subtitles.” Users will see an option labeled “English” instead of “English (CC),” indicating that […]

• Chess.com reaches 200 million members

  Chess.com reaches a new membership milestone as it nears its 20th birthday. Chess.com, the online chess platform that was founded in 2005 and launched in 2007, has surpassed 200 million members. Of those 200 million members, 1.5 million are paying users. More than 6 million games of chess are played every day on the platform. […]

• Facebook cracks down on spammy content by cutting reach and monetization

  Facebook will begin lowering the reach of accounts sharing spammy content and making them ineligible for monetization, Meta announced on Thursday. The company is also increasing efforts to remove Facebook accounts that coordinate fake engagement and impersonate others, it says. The move comes as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has promised a return to “OG Facebook.” […]

• TikTok adds support for ALT text for photos

  TikTok is rolling out support for ALT text for photo posts to make content more accessible for users with visual and cognitive impairments. The company says creators can now provide descriptive text for photos to help users with screen readers understand the visual content through spoken descriptions. TikTok told TechCrunch in an email that creators […]

• Anthropic is launching a new program to study AI ‘model welfare’

  Could future AIs be “conscious,” and experience the world similarly to the way humans do? There’s no strong evidence that they will, but Anthropic isn’t ruling out the possibility. On Thursday, the AI lab announced that it has started a research program to investigate — and prepare to navigate — what it’s calling “model welfare.” […]