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Event startup Partiful wasn’t stripping GPS locations from user-uploaded photos

Social /

Social event planning app Partiful, which calls itself “Facebook events for hot people,” has firmly replaced Facebook as the go-to platform for sending party invitations. But what Partiful also has in common with Facebook is that it’s collecting a tsunami of user data, and Partiful could have done better at keeping that data secure. On […]

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Sources: Naveen Rao’s new AI hardware startup targets $5B valuation with backing from a16z 

AI /

Naveen Rao, who was formerly the head of artificial intelligence at Databricks, is in talks to raise a $1 billion at a $5 billion valuation for a new startup, called Unconventional, Inc., that’s building a new type of computer, according to four people familiar with discussions.  Andreessen Horowitz has agreed to lead the investment, and

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Flai is the latest startup bringing AI to car dealerships

Transportation /

Silicon Valley is full of comfortable offices with gleaming meeting rooms and on-site baristas. So when early HappyRobot engineer Ari Polakof decided to strike out and start his own company, he didn’t exactly expect to wind up tapping on his laptop in a service bay alongside mechanics. “Very noisy, impossible to concentrate,” he laughed. But

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New deep tech fund Wave Function Ventures raises $15 million

Transportation /

When Jamie Gull graduated from Stanford University in 2007 with a master’s degree in aeronautics, there was one place he wanted to go next: the desert. The Mojave desert, to be specific. A company called Scaled Composites had spent years developing experimental aircraft out on that arid land, and Gull wanted in. He could have

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Anker offered to pay Eufy camera owners to share videos for training its AI

Security /

Earlier this year, Anker, the Chinese company that makes Eufy security cameras, offered its users money in exchange for videos of packages and car thefts.  The popular internet-connected security camera maker said it would pay its customers $2 per video to train its AI systems to help better detect thieves who steal cars and packages.  

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Electroflow promises to make LFP material for 40% less than Chinese producers

Fundraising /

The battery world has fallen head over heals for lithium-iron-phosphate cells, a cheap, durable chemistry that can lower the price of a vehicle by thousands of dollars. Tariffs and anti-China regulations have complicated the picture for American automakers. “We think LFP is the missing ingredient for energy prosperity. The problem is it’s literally 99% made

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Salesforce launches enterprise vibe coding product, Agentforce Vibes

Enterprise /

Enterprise giant Salesforce is looking to ride the vibe coding wave — where developers describe what they want in natural language and AI agents write the code — with its new AI-powered developer tool.   Salesforce announced its new vibe coding offering, Agentforce Vibes, on Wednesday. This new coding tool helps developers work autonomously on Salesforce apps and agents by handling much of the technical implementation

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Whoop opens blood-testing service to what it says is a 350,000-person waitlist

Biotech & Health /

Fitness band maker Whoop formally opened Whoop Advanced Labs for business on Tuesday. Some 350,000 people were on the waiting list after the service was previewed in May, the company told TechCrunch. Whoop Advanced Labs offers health-screening blood tests from Quest Diagnostics that cover a variety of markers from calcium to white blood cells. The

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Explosion, vehicle fire rock Faraday Future’s LA headquarters

Transportation /

A Faraday Future electric SUV caught fire at the startup’s Los Angeles headquarters early Sunday morning, leading to an explosion that blew out part of a wall, the fire department told TechCrunch. The fire was extinguished in 40 minutes, and no injuries were reported. Damage to the building — a smaller two-story structure next to

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