On a farm near Manchester, New Hampshire, I was recently treated to a gusher of dirty water, not exactly the sort of thing that most startups will show a reporter. But for Dig Energy, the mud is a feature, not a bug, of its compact drilling rig. The startup, which has been operating in stealth […]
Geothermal is too expensive, but Dig Energy’s impossibly small drill rig might fix that Read More »
Companies that have dug deep into AI have fallen in love with nuclear power for its promise of 24/7 electricity. Meta, Google, and Microsoft have all made deals with startups or reactor operators. But does the nuclear industry love AI back? Yes, with caveats. No one is proposing to let an AI run a reactor,
Nuclearn gets $10.5M to help the nuclear industry embrace AI Read More »
OpenAI is reorganizing its Model Behavior team, a small but influential group of researchers that shape how the company’s AI models interact with people, TechCrunch has learned. In an August memo to staff seen by TechCrunch, OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer Mark Chen said the Model Behavior team — which consists of roughly 14 researchers —
OpenAI reorganizes research team behind ChatGPT’s personality Read More »
Snapchat is launching a new Lens that lets users create and edit images using a text-to-image AI generator, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The new “Imagine Lens” is available to Snapchat+ Platinum and Lens+ subscribers. Imagine Lens allows users to create, edit, and recreate Snaps by entering their own prompts. They can then share the
Snapchat’s new Lens lets you create AI images using text prompts Read More »
CoreWeave, which provides cloud servers to large companies training AI models, has struck an agreement to acquire OpenPipe, a 2-year-old Y Combinator-backed startup that helps enterprises develop customized AI agents with reinforcement learning, the companies announced on Wednesday. “Reinforcement learning is emerging as a pivotal force to strengthen model performance on agentic and reasoning tasks,”
CoreWeave acquires agent-training startup OpenPipe Read More »
Every seat in Copenhagen’s Bella Center was full as Anton Osika, the co-founder of the vibe coding app Lovable, took the stage at this year’s TechBBQ conference. Lovable specializes in helping people build apps and websites, especially people with no coding experience. It’s one of the standouts in the popular AI category known as vibe-coding,
Lovable’s CEO isn’t too worried about the vibe-coding competition Read More »
TikTok is giving users new ways to interact with others via direct messages (DMs), the company told TechCrunch on Friday. Users will now be able to send voice notes and share up to nine images or videos in one-to-one and group chats on the platform. With these new features, TikTok is positioning itself as more
TikTok now lets users send voice notes and images in DMs Read More »
Decentralized social network Mastodon says it can’t comply with Mississippi’s age verification law — the same law that saw rival Bluesky pull out of the state — because it doesn’t have the means to do so. The social non-profit explains that Mastodon doesn’t track its users, which makes it difficult to enforce such legislation. Nor
Mastodon says it doesn’t ‘have the means’ to comply with age verification laws Read More »
Amid all the “is this a bubble?” talk about artificial intelligence, the supply chain and logistics industries have become breeding grounds for seemingly genuine uses of the technology. Flexport, Uber Freight, and dozens of startups are developing different applications and winning blue-chip customers. But while AI helps Fortune 500s pad their bottom line (and justify
How a 16-year-old company is easing small businesses into AI Read More »
If there’s one thing McDonald’s has done for the world, it’s made starting a burger restaurant relatively straightforward. Franchisees buy into the system, and in return they get equipment, marketing, and even an operating manual. Terraton wants to bring that same model to biochar, a technology that turns agricultural waste into a carbon dioxide-sequestering fertilizer.
Terraton wants to be the McDonald’s of biochar Read More »
