Author: TechBrunch

Today is Election Day in the United States, so you should be glued to the latest news about which presidential candidate is currently in the lead. To help with this, Apple has released a Live Activity widget within the Apple News app. This brings real-time election updates directly to your iPhone or iPad's home and lock screen. Rather than providing a static view of data that doesn't change, this widget takes advantage of the ability for iOS apps to continually update the widget with new information. The feature, which Apple calls “Live Activity,” will be introduced with the release of…

The richest man in the world buys one of the most popular social media platforms and uses it as a propaganda and disinformation machine to support his presidential candidates. What could go wrong? Elon Musk has made at least 87 claims about the U.S. presidential election this year that fact-checkers have rated as false or misleading, according to an analysis by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit organization that tracks misinformation. It turns out that he posted something. These false and misleading posts generated more than 2 billion views, and not just because Musk is an influential…

Swiggy will sell more than 75 people as part of its $1.35 billion initial public offering, as Indian food delivery and quick commerce startups prepare for the country's second-largest public offering of the year next week. It has raised approximately $606 million from major investors. The Bangalore-based startup is seeking a $11.3 billion valuation in its IPO and received bids worth $15 billion for the $600 million portion. Indian institutional investors received about 56% of the total anchor allocation, sources said. Eight of the top 10 mutual funds in India have invested in anchor rounds. Major investors include BlackRock, Fidelity,…

Google has confirmed plans to require all Google Cloud customers to use multi-factor authentication (MFA). The process begins this month and will embed prompts and “helpful reminders” within the Google Cloud console before it goes into effect in stages starting in the new year. year. The internet and cloud giant quietly announced its MFA plans in a document published in October, but Mayank Upadhyay, the company's vice president of engineering, formally announced it in a blog post this week. “We plan to implement mandatory MFA in Google Cloud in a phased approach and roll it out to all users globally…

The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has more than 130,000 job cuts across 457 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. Smaller-sized startups have also seen a fair amount of cuts, and in some cases, have shut down operations altogether. By tracking these layoffs, we’re able to understand the impact on innovation across companies large and small. We’re also able to see the potential impact of businesses…

A hacker suspected of being involved in a series of major Snowflake-related hacks has been arrested in Canada, according to local authorities. “At the request of the United States, Alexander Mouka (also known as Connor Mouka) was arrested on a preliminary arrest warrant on Wednesday, October 30, 2024,” Ian McLeod, a spokesperson for Canada's Department of Justice, told TechCrunch in an email. “It was done,” he said. Over several months, hackers stole internal data from dozens of companies, including AT&T, Ticketmaster, Advanced Auto Parts, and about 165 other business customers of Snowflake, which provides cloud services and data analytics to…

Two of Europe's oldest names in the world of print-on-demand are merging, but you may not even realize they're two different companies in the first place. Printful and Printify, both startups with roots in Latvia and offering custom printing services, will be combined as one company. They frame this move as a given to unlock greater economies of scale, efficiency, and profitability. But reading between the lines also highlights the struggles that on-demand manufacturing and creator economy startups face as a single company. Financing for late-stage startups has become particularly difficult in Europe in recent years, and 2025 looks set…

DeepRoute.ai, a Shenzhen-based self-driving technology startup, has raised $100 million from Great Wall Motors. Reuters reports that the company aims to install its self-driving system in as many vehicles as possible in China before Tesla's widespread adoption next year. Deeproot has not disclosed the names of the automakers it supports, but Chinese media reports, including press releases, have pointed to Great Wall Motors. The company is one of China's largest automakers, with sales of 970,612 new cars in the first 10 months of this year. GWM is collaborating with BMW to produce the next mini EV hatchback, and its presence…

VC Renata Quintini, co-founder of early-stage VC Renegade Partners, said on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt last week that 2025 funding will continue to be a “tale of two cities.” “While some companies do have the promise of going after large, rapidly growing markets, [will be] It's gaining a lot of funding and momentum. But on the other hand, Quintini warned that “companies that need to build real businesses and efficient businesses” will struggle to raise capital. She is referring to the tight funding market faced by startups in an era of high interest rates. In 2023, around 3,200 startups died…

Flash, a payment management service that tracks all your online purchases, announced its entry into the U.S. market on Tuesday, giving U.S. customers the ability to manage all their spending in one place while offering perks like gift cards and cashback. can now also be obtained. The US has many high-spending consumers, making it a strategic choice to launch the app here. The Department of Commerce's Census Bureau estimates that U.S. online shopping brought in approximately $291.6 billion in the second quarter of 2024. We estimate that total retail sales will reach approximately $1.8 trillion. Projections for the global e-commerce…