Author: TechBrunch

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that in the second quarter it drove users to spend on the company's app. Consumers are increasingly complaining about the prevalence of “AI Slops,” or flooded social apps with content generated with low quality AI, but Meta says that AI systems are improving helping users connect with recommended content. “AI has significantly improved our ability to show people what they find interesting and useful,” Zuckerberg told investors in a second revenue call. “Advanced recommendation systems have significantly improved quality, which has led to a 5% increase in time spent on Facebook and 6% increase on…

Google has proposed a sweep change to its Play Store and Advertising Policy in India, and aims to allow the platform to have more real money gaming apps in order to resolve the ongoing antitrust cases on its local online gaming platform Winzo. On Wednesday, Indian Competition Watchdog issued a public notice (PDF) on Google regarding “commitment proposals” offering to expand its access to play stores and advertising policies for more real money gaming apps in the South Asian market. Google has proposed to replace the current pilot program by allowing Google Play to distribute all real money games in…

Cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Network announced Wednesday that it aims to acquire identity management and security company CyberArc for $25 billion. The transaction, which is a mixed cash and stock, marks an entrance into Palo Alto's identity security space, according to a company's press release. According to the Financial Times, Palo Alto has been shopping ever since Nikesh Arora took over as CEO and chairman of the company in 2018. The company's acquisition of Cyberark is the largest ever. Other acquisitions of Palo Alto include an estimated $400 million Dig Security in October 2023. Talon Cyber Security was estimated at…

A new startup called GARM brings end-to-end encrypted messaging to the Bluesky social network, allowing users to have more secure options for chat than existing DMs on Bluesky. After more than two years of development, the service plans to launch Bluesky's encrypted DMS in beta this week, gradually boarding new testers before they are released to the public. In time, many of the technologies Germ is building are open source, allowing Bluesky to deploy encrypted messaging into its own apps. Germ is designed to provide alternatives to existing, end-to-end encrypted platforms that are globally dominated, such as iMessage, Signal, and…

According to notifications filed in several US and seen by TechCrunch, hackers who violated the lives of US insurance giant Allianz earlier this month stole a large number of clients' Social Security numbers. Allianz Life revealed the violation last weekend on July 16, stolen personally identifiable information belonging to a “majority” of its 1.4 million customers, and confirmed that TechCrunch had stolen personally identifiable information belonging to financial experts and employees of Allianz Life. The company said its customer relationship database was breached in a social engineering attack. This is a trick in which a malicious hacker uses deception tricks,…

Meta recently released a new video editing app for creators called Edit. This new app is designed to rival Capcut by Bytedance, the popular short video editing app used by many creators. Meta first shared that he was working on editing in January after the refund-owned capcut was removed from the US app store when the Tiktok ban came into effect instantly. The app can then be returned online and downloaded, but as Tiktok's future in the US remains uncertain, Meta is ready to take advantage of the future Capcut absence with the new editing app. Create this guide to…

The surge in copper demand promises to boost prices to new heights. As the global economy moves away from fossil fuels, it will need twice as much copper in the coming years than humanity has mined throughout its entire existence. A New Jersey-based startup founded in 2022, still bright, and believes that novels (and cleaner ways) have been found to cut these costs. “The fact that we already mined something that can be easily mined and that more mines need to be produced each year — the fact that we're talking like over 60 mines seems impossible as there's no…

Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz has revitalized the state's National Guard after a cyberattack on St. Paul, the state's capital. City officials have yet to disclose the nature of the cyberattack, but the July 25 violation continues to disrupt the city's operations and several public services. St. Paul is one of the largest cities in the United States with over 300,000 residents, and is the latest in a list of major cities targeted by hackers and ransomware gangs in recent years. In a statement Tuesday, Waltz allowed the National Guard cyber forces at city demands to help St. Paul recover from…

Skechers introduced a line of kids' sneakers, including hidden compartments that parents can glide on Apple Airtags. Inside the heel of the shoe, a small insert can be lifted to reveal the compartment. Parents can then track the location of their children. At least you can track your child's shoes. These shoes don't come with air tags and look like they're third-party products, developed by Skechers, not real collaborations with Apple. The shoes were announced to Little Press in mid-July, but Appleinsider reported on the product on Wednesday. Apple only promotes air tags as products that track items such as…

In the first half of 2025, generative AI apps are experiencing incredible growth in both downloads and in-app revenue, a report from market intelligence company Sensor Tower said. Users downloaded the Genai app 1.7 billion times in H2 2024 compared to 1 billion people. These apps doubled in-app revenue, resulting in $1.87 billion in 2025, compared to $932 million in H2 in 2024. The report noted that users spent over 15.6 billion hours on the Genai app in the first half of 2025, jumping from 8.5 billion hours on H2 2024. This time it recorded more than 426 billion sessions.…