Author: TechBrunch

Sonali de Rycker, Accel's general partner and one of Europe's most influential venture capitalists, is bullish on the outlook for the AI ​​continent. But she is wary of regulatory overreach that can hit that momentum. On the night of TechCrunch StrictlyVc in London earlier this week, De Rycker reflected European locations in the world's AI races, balancing optimism and realism. “We have all the pieces,” she told people gathered for the event. “We have entrepreneurs. We have ambitions, we have schools, we have capitals, we have talent.” She argued that the only thing missing is the ability to “unleash” that…

Google I/O, Google I/O, is the biggest developer conference of the year and it almost makes it to us. The I/O, scheduled for May 20-21 at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, will showcase product launches from across Google's portfolio. Expect a lot of news related to Android, Chrome, Google Search, YouTube, and of course, Google's AI-driven chatbot, Gemini. Earlier this week, Google hosted another event dedicated to Android updates: the Android Show. The company has announced new ways to find lost Android phones and other items, additional device-level features for advanced protection programs, security tools to protect against fraud…

Elon Musk is not the only tech billionaire who has power over the federal agencies that regulate his business. Since Donald Trump took office, more than 30 employees, allies and investors, including Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Andreesen and Palmer Lucky, have played roles in federal agencies, directly supporting billions of contracts. According to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal, companies owned, founded or invested by Musk, Thiel, Andreessen and Luckey have collected federal contracts totaling over $6 billion since Trump took office in January. And they are actively pursuing billions. These appointments are in the departments that oversee, regulate…

Eric Council Jr., 26, was sentenced to 14 months in prison on Friday and was sentenced to three years of supervised release for participating in the official Securities and Exchange Commission X account hack. The U.S. Department of Justice announced its ruling in a press release. The Council and other hackers mistakenly announced that they took over the SEC X account in 2024 and that the agency had approved Bitcoin exchange funds, or ETFs. Screenshots of fake SEC posts published by hackers who took over the management of their @Secgov X account on January 9, 2024. According to the DOJ,…

Creator platform Patreon will need to change its app to comply with Apple guidelines after a recent update has made it possible for users to purchase via the web. The company says its own web-based checkout option is the default, but you will need to follow Apple's instructions to update the app so that this checkout option opens in an external browser instead. This creates more steps for fans who want to pay directly using Patreon, but still allows the company to allow Apple to have to pay 30% fees on in-app purchases. Patreon first updated the app shortly after…

Epic Games claims that Apple is blocking Fortnite apps from US and EU app stores. After winning the decisive victory for app developers in the legal battle with Apple and forcing the Tech giants to allow external payments at US app stores without a billing committee, Epic Games attempted to resubmit Fortnite to the US app store on May 9, 2025. However, Apple was unable to accept a week's submission, allowing Epic Games to pull out the request and try again. According to Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, the updates were pulled because Epic Games needs to release Fortnite…

Apple says that the warning message displayed next to the EU App Store list that uses third-party payment systems is not actually new. According to many recent reports, Apple added a warning with a red exclamation point next to an app that proved to not use its own “private and secure payment system.” This message appeared to be intended to discourage users from using external payment mechanisms, as is currently permitted under the new EU law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA). However, the iPhone makers confirmed with TechCrunch that these user discussion screens have been live on the EU App…

According to regulatory filings, San Francisco-based company RedPoint Ventures, a company based in San Francisco, is about a quarter-century-old company, and has garnered its 10th early stage fund of $650 million. Redpoint's new fund matches the size of the previous fund, which was raised three years ago. In a market where many venture companies are reducing capital transport, this consistency indicates that the company's limited partners are relatively satisfied with their performance. The company's early stage strategy is managed by four managing partners. AlexBard (pictured above), Satish Dharmaraj, Annie Kadavy and Erica Brescia joined the company in 2021 after nearly…

Tiktok is launching an in-app guided meditation exercise, social networks announced Thursday. The company began testing meditation exercises with selected teens earlier this year, and is now making the feature available to all users of the app. The idea behind this feature is to encourage users to improve their sleep quality and lower the app during late-night endless scrolling sessions. For teens under the age of 18, meditation is turned on by default. If your teens use the app after 10pm, their For Feed will be interrupted by a guided meditation exercise that encourages them to get caught up in…

On Thursday, Google announced that it is rolling out new AI and accessibility features for Android and Chrome. Most notably, Talkback's Android screen reader allows Gemini to ask what the image is and what it contains on the screen. Last year, Google brought Gemini's capabilities to those who are blind or provide low visual access to AI-generated descriptions of images, even when Alt text is unavailable. Now people can ask questions and get answers about their images. Image credit: Google For example, if a friend texts you a new guitar, you can get a description of it and ask questions…