Week in Review: SXSW week comes to a close

Welcome back to Week in Review! I’m Karyne Levy, TechCrunch’s deputy managing editor, and I’ll be writing this newsletter from here on out. Thrilled to be here! This week we’re checking out everything at SXSW; Waymo’s expansion into Silicon Valley; Intel’s new CEO; TikTok’s new suitor; and why DeepSeek isn’t …...Read More

SpaceX launches astronauts for long-awaited International Space Station crew swap

SpaceX successfully launched four people into space on Friday, beginning a mission that will give the International Space Station enough crew members to allow astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to return to Earth after their nine-month stay. The mission, known as Crew-10, will see SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft dock with …...Read More

Skype is shutting down in May - these are the best alternatives

After 23 years of connecting people around the world, Skype, the popular video-calling service, is shutting down. Microsoft, the parent company, confirmed that the official sunset date for the service is May 5, 2025. Skype users can either migrate all their contacts and chat data to Microsoft Teams, or they …...Read More

Republican Congressman Jim Jordan asks Big Tech if Biden tried to censor AI

On Thursday, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent letters to 16 American technology firms, including Google and OpenAI, asking for past communications with the Biden administration that might suggest the former president “coerced or colluded” with companies to “censor lawful speech” in AI products. The Trump administration’s top technology …...Read More

Bench is charging people for services they already paid for, some customers say

After Employer.com acquired bankrupt accounting startup Bench in a fire-sale late last year, CEO Jesse Tinsley pledged on LinkedIn and elsewhere to honor past customer payments. “We’re honoring all prepaid Bench services even though we will not have the revenue from that directly ourselves,” Tinsley said in an interview with …...Read More

AI coding assistant Cursor reportedly tells a 'vibe coder' to write his own damn code

As businesses race to replace humans with AI “agents,” coding assistant Cursor may have given us a peek at the attitude bots could bring to work, too. Cursor reportedly told a user going by the name “janswist” that he should write the code himself instead of relying on Cursor to …...Read More

Profitable Klarna files for a potentially blockbuster IPO

Swedish fintech Klarna took the next step in its highly anticipated U.S. IPO on Friday when it made its F-1 prospectus public. We are sifting through the document now. Klarna hopes to raise at least $1 billion at a $15 billion valuation with this IPO, Bloomberg reported last week. The …...Read More

Google is replacing Google Assistant with Gemini

Google will replace Google Assistant on Android phones with Gemini later this year, the company announced on Friday. Google said in a blog post that it’ll upgrade more users from Google Assistant to Gemini “over the coming months.” Later this year, Assistant will no longer be accessible on most mobile …...Read More

'Open' AI model licenses often carry concerning restrictions

This week, Google released a family of open AI models, Gemma 3, that quickly garnered praise for their impressive efficiency. But as a number of developers lamented on X, Gemma 3’s license makes commercial use of the models a risky proposition. It’s not a problem unique to Gemma 3. Companies …...Read More

TechCrunch Mobility: Testing the Uber-Waymo robotaxi, Rivian goes hands-free, and Travis Kalanick has AV FOMO

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! For regular readers of TechCrunch Mobility, you may be wondering, “Why did this newsletter land in my inbox on Friday?” Folks, we’re …...Read More