Author: TechBrunch

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has taken over CEO of 9-year-old Rocket Startup, Relativity Space. This is Schmidt's first CEO job since leaving Google nearly 15 years ago. Schmidt told employees on Monday that he had invested heavily and had control of the company, the New York Times first reported. Schmidt will take over the startup co-founder Tim Ellis as CEO. In an X post, Ellis said he will continue to support the relativity space as director of the company's board. Schmidt is taking part in conjunction with Relativity Space for the 2026 launch of the Terran R, a larger…

BlueSky allows for up to 3 minutes of video. The platform began supporting video in September with a time limit of 60 seconds. With new, expanded time limits, BlueSky is more aligned with user experiences along threads from its competitors, X (formerly Twitter) and Meta. X allows non-paying users to upload videos for up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds long, while threads allow users to upload videos for up to 5 minutes. This change is also welcome news for all apps that work to become “Tiktok of Bluesky” such as Bluescreen and Skylight. The developers behind these apps are…

There could be two initiatives coming together to create a more open web where users control their own digital IDs and data. At SXSW 2025, entrepreneur Frank McCourt, who is developing an open internet infrastructure (and throwing hats at the ring as a potential buyer for Tiktok), announced that his organization is discussing the integration of Internet pioneer Timerers-lee with an open source project to control its own data. On a panel at SXSW, McCourt shared that his team “talked to Tim Berners-Lee about Solid”, adding that “Project Liberty is compatible with Solid.” He did not announce any official partnerships,…

We're only a few months until 2025, but the recent Edtech giant Powerschool hack is on track to become one of the biggest educational data breaches in recent years. PowerSchool provided K-12 software to more than 18,000 schools to support approximately 60 million students across North America, and disclosed a data breach in early January 2025. The California-based company, which was acquired by Bain Capital for $5.6 billion, said it would use a single compromised qualification to infringe the customer support portal in December 2024, allowing schools to have more access to the company's school information system used to manage…

Deepseek founder Liang Wenfeng is not in a hurry to get investment from outsiders, the WSJ reported Monday. Deepseek is currently one of the hottest AI startups in the world after a Chinese AI company swept Silicon Valley with its latest model earlier this year. Unlike the counterpart of Deepseek's AI model provider, who regularly announces mega-rounds filled with well-known investors, Liang has not announced his funding despite the interests of many VCs. Rumors about the expected investors even fueled (unfounded) gatherings in some Chinese stocks. The founders of Deepseek don't want to lose control An analysis of Chinese company…

Surf is the new Flipboard app for browsing the Open Social Web and expands support for Bluesky's social networks. On Monday, the company announced a new version of its beta software (known as “Blue Wave”). This will allow users to log in to the app using their BlueSky credentials and see all the BlueSky feeds, including the next feed, discovery feed, and custom feeds pinned to the BlueSky app. The new integration also allows users to access other Bluesky sources when building their own custom feeds. This is a list of recommended followers to build to help new users find…

Given how much money VCS is putting into AI startups these days, it may seem like it's decided. If it's not AI, then they won't write big checks. But that's not exactly what's going on. The deals are more subtle at the moment, Ryan Hinkle, managing director at VC Insight Partners, said in a recent Equity Podcast. Our Insight Partners manage our $90 billion assets, so we invest at every stage. It is known to have written huge checks in itself and stacked up in huge rounds. Insight, for example, will co-led the December $10 billion deal. He participated in…

The hackers breached US Edtech giant Powerschool several months before the “large” data breaches in December, according to a now-released forensic report on an incident conducted by US cybersecurity company Crowdstrike. In a letter sent to affected customers last week, TechCrunch saw, PowerSchool confirmed that investigation into the incident revealed that its network had “experienced fraudulent activity prior to December.” PowerSchool previously said it had detected unauthorized access to the system during December 19th until it discovered a compromise on December 28th, 2024. In the Report, Crowdstrike said that hackers using the same compromised support qualification used in the December…

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…

It wasn't a good week for Russian crypto exchange Garantex. First, on Thursday, Stablecoin Issuer Tether blocked access to Garantex's wallet, which holds approximately $28 million in Crypto Exchange funds. On the same day, the official Garantex website was seized by international law enforcement operations led by the Secret Service in the US. At the time, Garantex didn't mention this operation on its official telegram channel. Instead, the company announced that it would “suspend all services, including the withdrawal of cryptocurrency.” Then on Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced accusations against two of the exchange's managers, Aleksej Besciokov and…