Author: TechBrunch

On Friday, businesses around the world reported IT outages, including Windows “Blue Screen of Death” errors on computers, in what is already one of the most widespread IT outages in recent years. The outage, which many security experts blame on a CrowdStike update, has affected companies across a range of sectors, including airlines, banks, food chains, brokerages, news organizations and rail networks. The travel industry appears to be the most affected. “We're aware of an issue impacting Windows devices caused by a third-party software platform update. We expect a resolution is available soon,” a Microsoft spokesperson told TechCrunch in a…

J. Michael Klein, who co-founded Fandango and numerous other startups over a decades-long career, has died after falling from a Manhattan hotel, New York's Deputy Director of Public Information told TechCrunch. The New York Police Department responded to a 911 call from the Kimberly Hotel, a 30-story hotel on 50th Street in Midtown Manhattan, on Tuesday morning. Upon arrival, “officers found an unconscious and unresponsive male with injuries consistent with a fall from a great height,” the deputy police commissioner said in an email to TechCrunch. According to the New York Times, Klein fell from the hotel's 20th floor. Emergency…

In late June, a security researcher discovered a vulnerability in a web app used by a16z, one of Silicon Valley's most powerful and influential venture capital firms, exposing some data about the firm's portfolio companies. The bug has since been fixed. On June 30th, a security researcher going by the name of xyzeva wrote to X, hoping to get in touch with someone at a16z, suggesting that he had discovered a security issue. “Contact me now. This is bad. Security related,” she wrote. When contacted by TechCrunch, Xyzeva said he found a “very simple bug” in the a16z portfolio portal…

When Tade Oyerinde first set out to raise funds for his startup, Campus, a fully accredited online community college, it was incredibly difficult. Venture capitalists have funded for-profit education companies before, like Coursera and Udacity, but funding a more traditional two-year college was different. Plus, he was looking for capital a few years ago at a time when higher education was starting to face challenges from declining enrollment and rising tuition prices. Oyelinde said in a recent episode of TechCrunch's Found podcast that despite the challenges, he believes it makes sense to raise money from venture capitalists for a few…

Canadian private equity firm PartnerOne has acquired mobile app testing startup HeadSpin, whose founder was convicted of fraud earlier this year, for $28.2 million, according to documents seen by TechCrunch. The fire sale was reported by TechCrunch last week. According to the filing, HeadSpin had revenue of $21 million in 2023 and $5 million in Q1 2024. That means PartnerOne valued HeadSpin at about 1.4x revenue. The median M&A deal multiple for deals announced or closed in Q1 2024 was 1.6x, according to an analysis of PitchBook data. PartnerOne declined to comment on the purchase price or HeadSpin's revenue. In…

Meta has suspended its AI assistant after Brazil's National Data Protection Agency (ANPD) banned the company from using Brazilians' personal data to train AI models, a move that deals a blow to Facebook's efforts to build AI products in the Brazilian market, which has a population of more than 200 million. As cited in official documents, Brazilian authorities said the precautionary measure was due to “an imminent risk of serious harm and irreparable or irreparable damage to the fundamental rights of the guardians.” In addition, the ANPD stipulated that non-compliance would be subject to a fine of 50,000 reais per…

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth used by more than 92% of Fortune 500 companies. That growth has propelled OpenAI itself into becoming one of the most-hyped companies in recent memory. And its latest partnership with Apple for its upcoming generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, has given the company another significant bump in the AI race. 2024 also saw the release of GPT-4o, OpenAI’s new flagship omni…

After months of speculation, Apple Intelligence took center stage in June at WWDC 2024. The platform was announced following a flurry of news about generative AI from companies like Google and Open AI, raising concerns that the notoriously tight-lipped tech giant had missed out on the latest tech boom. But contrary to such speculation, Apple has assembled a team to work on a typically Apple approach to artificial intelligence, and while the demo was flashy (Apple always loves a splash), Apple Intelligence is ultimately a very pragmatic approach to the field. Apple Intelligence (yes, that's AI for short) is not…

European Union President Ursula von der Leyen was confirmed in her role for another five years on Thursday after lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to re-elect her. The scale of her support (401 in favor, 284 against, 15 abstentions) is much stronger than her last election, but it may speak less to any passionate enthusiasm for her leadership and more to lawmakers' concerns about growing geopolitical uncertainty, with the war still ongoing in Ukraine and the US facing elections in November that could see Donald Trump return to the White House by 2025. But her ability to keep cool in times of…

Olivia DeLaMas is turning that mindset on its head. What if scrolling through social media didn't make you feel bad? What if social media, especially for women, actually made you feel more supported? “This is certainly not what mainstream social platforms were created for,” DeRamus told TechCrunch. But with his social platform Communia, DeRamus is venturing out something that may seem counterintuitive. Communia is both a social platform and a mental health tool, allowing users to post updates in a community feed or keep a private diary to track their feelings over time. But to be vulnerable, users need to…