Author: TechBrunch

Social Security officials say they have become whistleblowers. Members of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have uploaded hundreds of millions of social security records to vulnerable cloud servers, putting most Americans' personal information at risk of compromise. Social Security Agency chief data officer Charles Borge said in a newly released whistleblower complaint released Tuesday that other top agency officials signed a decision in June to upload “a live copy of the country's social security information that avoids surveillance” despite raising concerns. The database, known as the Numerical Identification System, contains over 450 million records containing all data…

Google is rolling out new AI-powered experimental features with Google Translation, designed to help people practice and learn new languages, the company announced Tuesday. Translate also gains new live features, making it easier to communicate in real time with people who speak another language. The new language practice features are designed for advanced speakers that aim to both beginners to begin learning conversational skills and speak advanced speakers, the company says. To do this, create tailored listening and speaking practice sessions that adapt to the user's skill level and unique learning goals. With this new language practice feature, Google is…

YouTube's “hype” feature, which allows fans to help their favorite creators to be discovered, is rolling out globally, the company announced Tuesday. This feature, first introduced in 2024 at the Google's Made On YouTube event (a dedicated button that appears under the existing “Like” button) will be available for videos from creators with fewer than 500,000 subscribers. This feature is currently available in 39 countries, including the US, UK, Japan, Korea, Indonesia and India. Viewers have the opportunity to hype up to three videos a week for their favorite creators. This will give you video points. This will help YouTube…

Security researchers have discovered over 1,000 public hobby servers run by Tesla vehicle owners, spilling sensitive data about vehicles, including granular location history. Seyfullah Kiliç, founder of cybersecurity firm SwerdSec, discovered more than 1,300 internet exposed Teslamate dashboards on the internet and said it is likely that they can access Tesla data from people who have been mistakenly published and stored inside without the need for a password. Teslamate is an open source data logger that allows Tesla owners to self-host and visualize vehicle data from the vehicle's computer, including vehicle speed and location data from the vehicle's computer, including…

A startup called Skylight takes a different approach to short form videos. Instead of limiting users to the main feed of algorithms, as is common in social apps, Skylight builds a community around human curators who post and repost videos to build their own custom feeds that others can subscribe to. The option launched on Monday with the app's version 2.0 release will appeal to users who feel increasingly uneasy about traditional social media platforms and their algorithmic manipulation, as well as those suffering from an increase in the low-quality AI-generated content that is filling these feeds. Based on Bluesky's…

Instagram is introducing new features aimed at helping college students connect with people on campus, the company announced Tuesday. The launch will take place a week after Tiktok unveiled almost the same features. The new option allows US students to add universities and universities to their profile banners and view a list of students at the school. Students will display the “Add School” option in their profile. Click this to complete the verification process via the Student Verification Platform Uniday and display the school in your profile. Once the school banner is added, you can choose who can see it.…

Google upgrades the Gemini Chatbot with a new AI image model, giving users more control over photo editing. It aims to catch up with OpenAI's popular image tool and pull users out of ChatGPT. Called Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, this update will be deployed to all users of the Gemini app from Tuesday, as well as developers via the Gemini API, Google AI Studio and the Vertex AI platform. Gemini's new AI image model is designed to provide more accurate editing of images based on natural language requests from users. For example, ask ChatGpt or Xai Grok to change the…

Spotify shows you how to chat with friends to become a more social content-consuming app. Users have been sharing Spotify links for music and podcasts with others for years. With this feature, users don't need to search for songs, as Spotify wants users to do more within the app while keeping a history of shared content. Messages are one-on-one and only allow you to start a chat with people who have previously shared content. This means that if you have a collaborative playlist with someone, or if you join a jam or blend, you can start a conversation. This applies…

Lobbying records submitted to Congress show Andreesen Horowitz's plan to promote the agenda in Washington shows no signs of slowing down. A16Z is spending narrowly on its own industry trade group, the National Venture Capital Association. According to a TechCrunch review of lobbying disclosures, the pace of lobbying appears to have been accelerating since last year. A16z spent $1.8 million on lobbying for all of 2024 and $950,000 in 2023. A16Z's lobbying strategy stands out among major VC companies, most of which report little or no federal lobbying. Sequoia Capital reports just $120,000 a year, while General Catalyst costs $500,000…

Bounce, a new technology that adds critical components to the open social web, will be made public on Monday. The Cross-Protocol Migration tool provides a service that allows users of open social networks such as Bluesky and Mastodon to move follow graphs between accounts, despite the network relying on different underlying protocols. Today, Mastodon users who are unhappy with the service can choose to move their accounts to another Mastodon server, but Bluesky is developing technology that allows them to migrate their accounts to a new PDS on their network (the term Bluesky's “personal data server”). However, Mastodon runs the…