Author: TechBrunch
California's most controversial AI safety bill of 2024 may be dead, but its author has not retreated. State Sen. Scott Winner is back with SB 53, the new AI bill that takes away the most controversial portion of last year's failed legislation, while maintaining a major whistleblower protection and a public cloud computing initiative called CalCompute. Will the bill gain some traction as the AI industry and even the federal government support innovation away from AI safety regulations? Today, TechCrunch's equity podcast is hosted by Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff and Anthony HA, unpacking the latest AI regulation moves alongside Tech…
Google is testing a new AI-powered Gemini side panel in Google Calendar, allowing users to quickly and conversationally check their schedules, create events, and search for event details. This feature is available as part of Google Workspace Labs, Tech Giant's Early Access Testing program. You can access Gemini by clicking the “Gemini Ask Gemini” icon in the top right corner of the Google Calendar window. You can then select the suggested prompt or create your own. For example, Gemini might suggest “add a lunch event” or “find the next meeting” with someone. If you need more suggestions, you can select…
Japanese telecom giant NTT Communications (NTT COM) confirmed that hackers accessed data from around 18,000 corporate customers during the February cyberattack, affecting the number of unknown individuals. Tokyo-based NTT COM, which provides telephone and networking technology to businesses, said it discovered a data breach on February 5 after determining that hackers had gained “unauthorized access” to the internal systems used to manage service orders. Stolen data includes customer names, contract numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses and information regarding the use of services belonging to 17,891 organizations. NTT COM has not yet said that the number of individual employees…
Collx, a company that offers the online trading card market, has raised $10 million in Series A funding. The round was co-led by the Austin-based brand foundry venture and the Philadelphia-based 114 venture, both former investors. Other investors including Next Coast Ventures, FJ Labs and Ben Franklin Technology Partners also participated in the round. The startup has also added its key partner, Kansas City Royals baseball player Bobby Whitt Jr. (card collector himself). To date, Collx has raised over $15 million in multiple rounds. The US collectable card market shows promising signs of expansion, with billions increasing over the next…
TechCrunch Session: AI will begin on June 5th at ZellerBach Hall in Berkeley, California. We want AI leaders to participate in conversations that change the industry. Mark with key breakout sessions and discussions with more than 1,200 startup founders, VC leaders and other industry pioneers in the TC session: AI. But don't wait, you need to apply until 11:59pm tonight. Are you an innovator driving discourse and hoping for the unusual opportunity to appear on centre stage? TC Session: AI wants to highlight your expertise. To lead a 50-minute breakout session, we'll complete presentations, panel discussions, and audience Q&As, discuss…
The FBI warns that scammers are using fake ransom notes sent to US business executives to impersonate Bian ransomware gangs. The fake ransom memo, originally reported by the US cybersecurity company GuidePoint Security, claims that hackers are accessing the organization's network to steal sensitive data and threatening to release stolen data unless ransom demand is paid. According to the FBI, fraudsters are being asked between $250,000 and $500,000. This includes the letter with a QR code linked to a Bitcoin wallet. The memo claims it comes with a return address to an office building in Boston, Massachusetts, and is from…
Google co-founder Larry Page is building a new company called Dynatomics, which focuses on applying AI to product manufacturing, according to information. Page reportedly works with a small group of AI engineers to create “highly optimized” designs of objects, allowing them to be built in the factory according to information. Chris Anderson, previously CTO at page-coln electric plane startup Kittyhawk, is making stealth efforts, information reports. Page is not the only entrepreneur exploring ways that AI can be used to improve the manufacturing process (although he may be one of the wealthiest people). Orbital Materials creates an AI platform that…
The launch of Anthropic's coding tool, Claude Code, has got off to a rocky start. According to a report on Github, Claude Code's auto-update function contained bug-like commands that made several workstations unstable and corrupted. When Claude code is installed at the “root” or “superuser” level (permission to grant programs the ability to make operating system-level changes), the buggy command allows the application to change the normal, restricted file directories, and in the worst case scenario, the “brick” system can be changed. The problematic Claude Code Auto-Update command changed the access permissions for certain critical system files. Permissions define which…
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is investigating startup scale AI that labels data to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act, TechCrunch has learned. This is a federal law that regulates unpaid wages, misclassification of employees as contractors, and illegal retaliation against workers. The survey has been active since at least August 2024, documents seen by TechCrunch show. According to people who are directly familiar with the issue, it is ongoing. The mere presence of the investigation does not, of course, mean that the AI did something wrong, and the investigation could be found in the company's favor or…
The US-based independent cybersecurity journalist refused to comply with the UK court order injunction sought after reports of a recent cyberattack at UK private health giant HCRG. Pincent Mason, a law firm that served as a February 28th court order on HCRG, requested that two articles be “delete” referencing ransomware attacks against HCRG. The law firm's notice to Databreaches.net seen by TechCrunch said that the attached injunction was “acquired by the HCRG” at the High Court in London to “prevent the disclosure or disclosure of sensitive data stolen during a recent ransomware cyberattack.” The company's letter states that if Databreaches.net…