A health insurance startup founded in 2019, not an AI agent play, just landed a $200 million Series C plus a $400 million tender offer at a $2.7 billion valuation. Angle Health says it's already profitable, serving over 5,000 small businesses with level-funded plans.
— via TechCrunch, Julie Bort
Automattic names Jeremy Klaperman interim CFO days after a failed board coup ousted CEO Matt Mullenweg, who then pushed out the directors who voted him out along with CFO Mark Davies and legal chief Andy Missan. Mullenweg says he has "100% confidence" in the company's finances, with a new legal chief and board picks still to come.
— via TechCrunch, Sarah Perez
Apple, Google and WhatsApp all promise "trusted execution environments" keep your AI-processed messages private on their servers, but these systems have been cracked repeatedly and rely on engineering guarantees, not math. That distinction matters: unlike true end-to-end encryption, a TEE should never receive your data automatically.
— via EFF, Erica Portnoy
Disney's first-ever CTO is the former CEO of Character.AI, the startup Disney accused of ripping off its characters just last year. The pick, made by new CEO Josh D'Amaro, signals a bet on AI despite Character.AI's cease-and-desist fight and separate lawsuits over chatbots and self-harm.
— via TechCrunch, Lucas Ropek
India's grocery-delivery apps sold brand-new iPhone 18 Pro models within 10 minutes of ordering, with BigBasket moving over 300 units in the first hour. Stock ran out fast in some cities, but analysts say it's still mostly launch-day buzz, not a real dent in Apple's sales channels.
— via TechCrunch, Jagmeet Singh
Google's AI assistant CC now signs permission slips, plans meals and syncs school emails straight to the family calendar. It shares data across up to six family members, but the catch: only adults with personal Gmail accounts can use it, locking out the teens whose schedules it's meant to track.
— via TechCrunch, Sarah Perez
A converted Cessna Caravan just flew over 3,100 miles across the US with no one at the controls, Joby Aviation says, and it's not done yet. The trip signals Joby's air-taxi ambitions are morphing into a defense and logistics play, backed by an Air Force contract and a $500 million acquisition.
— via TechCrunch, Kirsten Korosec
Dario Amodei wants AI labs to "pace the frontier," leaning on independent evaluators and cross-lab coordination. Jensen Huang isn't buying it, and Equity's hosts ask who'd actually enforce a slowdown, plus Automattic's boardroom coup.
— via TechCrunch, Theresa Loconsolo
Nvidia says 145 ICML papers now cite its open Nemotron models, proof the open-vs-closed AI gap is shrinking fast, not settling. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, Nvidia's Nader Khalil and Sydney Sykes dig into the messy calculus founders now face: cost, control, and how to avoid betting the company on the wrong model.
— via TechCrunch, TechCrunch Events
Meta's Muse can now touch your files, messages, calendar and mail directly on Mac, following a chart-topping mobile launch this month. It always asks before doing anything sensitive, as rivals like Instinct race to match it with features like voice calling.
— via TechCrunch, Sarah Perez
A $2,195 mattress pad that cools your bed on a schedule turned a skeptical reviewer into a convert after months of testing. Its founder, who sold his last startup for $65 million at 22, built it after a health crisis convinced him sleep is the real longevity hack.
— via TechCrunch, Amanda Silberling
Success in STEM leadership stops being about your own achievements and starts being measured by how many people you mentor, program organizers argue. IEEE's new International Leadership Conference, set for Budapest in October, aims to teach senior experts how to let go of the "expert" identity and coach rather than advise.
— via IEEE Spectrum, Prachi Jain
Private surveillance firms are already feeding AI-filtered data straight to the government, and the same tech is quietly reshaping how wars get fought. Recorded live in LA, this crossover conversation with The Intercept digs into the mechanics behind the headlines, and asks how close an AI apocalypse actually is.
— via 404 Media, Jason Koebler
Apple shrank the Dynamic Island's physical cutout on the iPhone 18 Pro by moving Face ID's infrared camera under the display, yet the usable space actually grew: three Live Activities now fit instead of two. The tradeoff is a faint softness in the status bar clock, right where the hidden sensor sits.
— via Daring Fireball, John Gruber
Yet another YouTube Help page with a sign-in prompt, feedback form and links to the terms of service. There's no actual story here, just navigation boilerplate.
— via Daring Fireball, John Gruber
The new Siri now merges with Spotlight and can read across your apps, but there's no way to tell if a given question is processed on your phone or shipped to Apple's cloud. Here's what to lock down before you ask it anything sensitive.
— via EFF, Thorin Klosowski
Anthropic's answer to embedding outside safety watchdogs inside its walls isn't a research nonprofit: it's Accenture, whose stock jumped 8% on the news. The consulting giant's Faculty unit will red-team models and test safeguards, with both companies pledging at least $1 billion over five years.
— via TechCrunch, Tim Fernholz
Manus is reportedly raising $500 million at a $4 billion valuation, double what investors paid to help it buy back shares after Beijing killed its $2 billion Meta acquisition. The Chinese AI startup is also weighing a Hong Kong IPO as it resumes independent operations.
— via TechCrunch, Ram Iyer
Retraining alone won't save jobs from AI, medieval history suggests: even guild-trained millwrights never saw living standards rise. The fix floated instead is a "robot tax" on automation itself, though critics say taxing an algorithm is harder than it sounds.
— via Rest of World, Alessandro Crimi
Ring's new "Throw Away the Key" encryption still hands the company your unencrypted footage for 24 hours at a stretch, and account recovery keys sit on the camera itself by default. That's enough for police to potentially search across devices and decrypt targeted footage later, despite Ring's privacy claims.
— via EFF, Erica Portnoy