Author: TechBrunch

Reddit co-founder and investor Alexis Ohanian has joined the bid for billionaire Frank McCourt, who will acquire Tiktok as a strategic advisor specializing in social media, Reuters reports. “I think he has a portfolio of extensive experiences about where social media is and has a keen understanding of where it is evolving,” McCourt told Reuters. “The main place he can help is not only verify what we are doing, but socialize.” Project Liberty, the Internet advocacy group at McCourt, has organized a consortium called People's Bids to buy Tiktok's US assets. In January, Project Liberty officially submitted a proposal to…

AI startup Humanity announced Monday it raised $3.5 billion in a post-money valuation led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. According to CrunchBase, participants were also from Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, General Catalyst, Jane Street, Menlo Ventures and Salesforce Ventures. “This investment will help humanity develop next-generation AI systems, expand their computing power, deepen their research into mechanical interpretability and consistency, and accelerate international expansion,” the company wrote in a blog post. “Humanity is focused on developing AI systems that serve as real collaborators, working with teams to tackle complex projects, consolidate information…

The cost management startup lamp has almost doubled its valuation to $13 billion after a $150 million secondary stock sales, the company announced Monday morning. New and existing supporters, including VC Stripe, GIC, Avenir Growth, Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, 137 Ventures and Definition Capital, purchased a second from employees and early investors. This is a major conflict in the ratings of Fintech Startup Ramp. It was valued at $7.65 billion last April, when it raised $150 million in a Series D expansion co-led by the Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund. That pay raise has secured $1.2…

Tiktok, owned by Chinese company Bytedance, has been at the heart of US controversy for four years due to concerns about user data that the Chinese government may access. Just last month, the app experienced a temporary suspension in the US, leaving millions of users suspenseful before it was quickly restored. Tiktok returned to the App Store and Google Play Store last month. Nevertheless, Tiktok's future remains uncertain, with many investors competing for the opportunity to buy the app. As Angelo Zino, senior vice president at CFRA Research, estimates the platform's US business could raise its valuation to more than…

Reports say the US has halted offensive cyber operations against Russia amid the Trump administration's efforts to give Moscow concessions to end the war in Ukraine. Records show that the reported order to halt US launch hacking operations against Russia was approved by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses. The new guidance will affect operations carried out by US Cyber ​​Command, a Department of Defense division focused on hacking and operation in cyberspace, but it does not apply to espionage carried out by the National Security Agency. The reported order has been confirmed by the New York Times and the…

On the evening of March 5, 2012, the Egyptian revolutionary took place in Cairo and stormed the headquarters of a secret police called the National Security Investigation (SSI) Service, a building known as the “capital of hell” because of its reputation as a place where ruthless officers tortured prisoners. Inside, protesters discovered both unharmed and shredded documents, torture devices, hard drives, CDs and DVDs. In the document, protesters found a memorandum written in Arabic by an SSI officer about a mystical software called Finfisher, created by the German British company Gamma International. Officials reported that it is a “high-level hacking…

For years, startups have tried to bridge the various gaps to help businesses improve their processes on the surface, groan and help managers identify and deal with where their teams are wasting their time. The most recent part in this cohort is Hacker Pulse. This has created a platform that provides more information about what the engineering team is doing to enable enterprises to find productivity bottlenecks and resolve inefficiencies. The San Francisco-based company offers tools such as revenue markers and user analytics, as well as dashboards that integrate with developer tools used by engineers such as GitHub, Gitlab and…

The software supply chain is well known for being porous. 81% of the reported codebases contain high- or critical-risk open-source vulnerabilities. A single vulnerability could have wider impact on the broader software supply chain, as evidenced by something like the log4shell exploit, where millions of applications are seen exposed to potential remote code execution hacks through the log4J logging library. Northern Ireland's startup Cloudsmith is set out to solve this exact problem with its cloud-native “Artifact Management Platform.” It promotes it as a more modern alternative to legacy software supply chain platforms such as JFrog and Sonatype. To drive the…

Browser Company Opera has announced a new AI agent called Browser Operators that can complete tasks across a variety of websites. In a demo video, the company showed AI agents finding the right pair of socks from Walmart. Secure tickets for soccer matches from the club's website. Looking for flights and hotels for your trip on Booking.com. Opera said the feature is readily available to users through its feature drop program. It is not clear whether agents can work on individual websites or whether they can understand and achieve broader queries such as “Find the cheapest ticket from London to…

Uber has begun piloting teenager-focused Uber pilots in India to teenage services. TechCrunch is an exclusive learning experience. Uber for Teens lives in Bengaluru, Delhi NCR and Mumbai. Uber checked with TechCrunch. The company said it will expand its services to 35 cities, including Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune in the coming weeks. The service allows parents and guardians to set up accounts for teenagers (ages 13 to 17) so they can request travel directly using their devices. It also includes features such as live trip tracking and opt-in audio recording. Guardians can also book rides for teenagers. You…