Author: TechBrunch

Apple has threatened to remove crowdfunding app Patreon from the App Store if creators continue to use unsupported third-party billing options or disable transactions on iOS instead of using Apple's own in-app purchasing system. In a blog post and email to Patreon creators about the upcoming changes to its iOS app memberships, the company said it has begun a 16-month transition process to move all creators to Apple's subscription billing by November 2025. Patreon also notified creators that it will switch to subscription billing starting in November 2024, but creators can decide whether to set a higher membership fee to…

Increase your brand's presence at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Francisco by hosting a custom side event during Disrupt Week, which runs from October 26th to November 1st. Engage directly with 10,000+ Disrupt 2024 attendees, network, and connect with the Bay Area's dynamic tech community. Host industry meetups, VC office hours, workshops, fun runs, cocktail parties, happy hours, or whatever activity resonates with your brand. The event possibilities are endless. Don't miss your chance to boost your brand awareness at one of the most iconic tech events of the year. Applications close on September 6th. How do you support side…

Meta and Universal Music Group (UMG) on Monday announced an expanded multi-year music licensing agreement that will allow users to share songs from UMG's music library across Meta's platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Horizon, Threads and WhatsApp) without infringing copyright. The most notable aspect of the new agreement is that the two companies specify that they are addressing “unlicensed AI-generated content,” which often refers to songs that have been scraped by AI systems without the consent of the original creators. Artists and songwriters have increasingly been plagued by AI fakes and works that AI companies are using to train their models. “We…

Polymarket, a prediction marketplace that allows users to bet on real-world events, has partnered with AI-powered search engine Perplexity to surface news summaries of events. When users click on an event in Polymarket, they are now shown a summary of news related to the event based on Perplexity's search results, with a search box to ask further questions. Polymarket is also using Perplexity's Pages feature (which allows users to create shareable pages from search results) to create columns that will appear on Perplexity's Discover page, and Perplexity said it will explore partnerships with more third parties to feature content in…

This week, thousands of hackers, researchers, and security professionals gathered in Las Vegas for the security conferences Black Hat and Def Con, annual pilgrimages aimed at sharing the latest research, hacks, and knowledge across the security community. TechCrunch was on-site to report on the back-to-back shows and bring you some of the latest research. CrowdStrike got the attention and the “big fail” award it didn't want, but the company addressed the scandal and admitted it screwed up just weeks after releasing a buggy software update that caused a global IT outage. Hackers and security researchers may not forget easily, but…

Elon Musk's social media platform X has been the target of a series of privacy complaints after it used European Union users' data to train AI models without their consent. Late last month, eagle-eyed social media users discovered settings that indicated X had begun covertly processing local user-submitted data to train its Grok AI chatbot. The revelation prompted the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), the watchdog that oversees X's compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to express “consternation.” GDPR allows for fines of up to 4% of annual global turnover if a violation is found, but stipulates…

Heavy-equipment maker CNH Industrial has a long history of mergers and acquisitions and once oversaw legendary brands like Ferrari, but five years ago, at the height of agtech's boom, the global giant struggled to make inroads in the startup world. The conglomerate turned to one of its longest-tenured executives, Italian businessman Michele Lombardi. Lombardi rose through the ranks in CNH's business development group, where he was part of the “black belt team” that built top-tier corporate partnerships, and when the company approached him for this new role in 2019, he was essentially starting a new chapter “from scratch.” “They were…

Just weeks after a software update caused a global IT meltdown, CrowdStrike isn't shying away from the spotlight — in fact, the company's president, Michael Sentonas, took to the stage at the Pwnie Awards to accept the Most Epic Fail award. The awards ceremony took place at Def Con, right after the Black Hat conference, where CrowdStrike had the largest booth and gave away free T-shirts and action figures. A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that the message to attendees was “thanks and admiration for the Black Hat community.” Video of Sentonas' acceptance speech Share onlineLike conference attendees who seemed ready…

Where there's shadow there's yang, where there's action there's reaction, where there's proprietary software there's an open source alternative, and so on. The issue of “openness” in technology has rarely been more central to the public consciousness than it has been in the past few years. The steady decline of Twitter has led millions of people to seek alternatives, many of which are open source, and last year's OpenAI power struggle has put a spotlight on what “open source” actually means in the context of the burgeoning AI revolution. The consumer software world has long offered “open” alternatives to existing…

Once India's second-highest-valued startup, Oyo's valuation at $10 billion has fallen to $2.4 billion in a new funding round. The Gurugram-headquartered startup has raised $173.5 million in a Series G funding round. InCred Wealth, Patient Capital and J&A Partners invested in the new round. TechCrunch reported in May that Oyo was seeking a funding round that could lower its valuation to below $3 billion. “We deny any rumors, including those about the valuation in the article,” a company spokesperson told TechCrunch in May. “At this stage, there are no concrete transactions, let alone any discussions about valuation.” The valuation cut…