The founder of once-hyped crypto startup BitClout is facing trouble. On Tuesday, the SEC charged BitClout founder Nader Al-Naji with fraud and unregistered offering of securities, claiming he used a pseudonymous identity to avoid regulatory scrutiny while he raised over $257 million in cryptocurrency. BitClout, a decentralized social media platform, …...Read More
The SEC has charged an a16z and Sequoia-backed crypto startup founder with fraud
It took some serious nerve for Wiz to walk away from Google's $23B offer
Google had good news and bad news last week. The good news was that the cloud division — including Google Workplace software as a service and Google Cloud infrastructure services — made $10 billion for the quarter for the first time. That had to take the sting out of losing …...Read More
OpenAI releases ChatGPT's hyper-realistic voice to some paying users
OpenAI began rolling out ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode on Tuesday, giving users their first access to GPT-4o’s hyper-realistic audio responses. The alpha version will be available to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users today, and OpenAI says the feature will gradually roll out to all Plus users in the …...Read More
Spain's antitrust watchdog fines Booking.com nearly $450M for unfair terms and restricting rivals
Spain’s competition authority, the CNMC, has found that online travel agency Booking.com abused a dominant market position over the past five years. It fined the company €413.24 million (or around $447 million at current exchange rates) on Tuesday. The CNMC opened an investigation of Booking.com back in October 2022, following …...Read More
Controversial internet bill KOSA passed by Senate
The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has passed in the Senate after Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pushed the internet bill to a vote. Proposed in 2022, KOSA requires that online platforms take reasonable steps to protect users from harm, and could become the most significant children’s online safety legislation …...Read More
Spotify expands lyrics access for free users
Back in May, Spotify quietly started putting lyrics behind a paywall, limiting free users to lyrics for three songs per month. The move was a bid to push more users to pay for the service. After receiving numerous complaints, the company is now expanding the monthly limit. Starting today, Spotify …...Read More
Fintech giant Stripe keeps on buying
Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at Stripe’s easy-peasy acquisition, the role fintech played in Clio’s latest raise, the latest with digital banking startup Mercury, and more. To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. …...Read More
Meta will pay Texas $1.4B in settlement over facial recognition software
Meta reached a $1.4 billion settlement with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday to settle a 2-year-old lawsuit related to the company’s use of facial recognition software. “After vigorously pursuing justice for our citizens whose privacy rights were violated by Meta’s use of facial recognition software, I’m proud to …...Read More
Airtable acquihires onboarding startup Dopt for AI talent
Airtable today announced that it has acquired Dopt, a startup focused on helping other startups build product onboarding experiences for new users. Earlier this year, Dopt introduced a number of features that helped users add AI-based assistance tools to their respective services — those are the main reason Airtable is …...Read More
Friend's $99 necklace uses AI to help combat loneliness
AI hardware is all the rage in startup land — though receptions have thus far been mixed. Two notable examples, Rabbit and Humane, released devices to disappointing results. a16z-backed Limitless and Exor-backed Bee AI, meanwhile, are working on their own screenless AI wearables. Avi Schiffmann, a Harvard dropout who built …...Read More
