Author: TechBrunch

23Andme interim chief executive Joseph Selvage told lawmakers on Tuesday that since filing for bankruptcy protection in March, he had requested that genetic data be removed from the company's servers. Selsavage was speaking at a House Oversight Committee hearing. Meanwhile, lawmakers scrutinised the company's sales following previous bankruptcy auctions. The bankruptcy sparked concern that data from millions of Americans using 23AndME could fall into the hands of uncruel, stimulating customers to ask the company to delete the data. Pharmaceutical Giant Regeneron won a court-approved auction in May, providing $256 million to 23andMe and its clients' DNA and genetic data banks.…

Pinterest is experimenting with “automatic collage,” an AI feature that allows advertisers to quickly turn product catalogs into shopping collages, the company announced this week. This new feature is designed to help advertisers reach their customers while saving time and creative resources, says Pinterest. The company notes that collage is one of the most popular and engaging content types among Gen Z users, with more than tens of millions of collages being created on the platform. In early testing, Pinterest discovered that users saved auto collages at twice the rate of standard product pins. Auto-Collages works by grouping product images…

Traditional web tools are facing an existential crisis as AI products and tools are gaining increasing attention from the wide range of products people have used to interact with the Internet for years. At the very least, that's what browser companies think is happening. Last year, the company decided to stop developing the popular web browser ARC. This was not a hit on the scale as ARC was popular among enthusiasts, but presented a learning curve that was too steep to reach mass adoption. The startup has since moved towards developing AI-burning browsers at the heart of the browser. A…

Vijay Pande, general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, has announced that he has resigned from his role after establishing the company's A16Z Bio + Health Strategy. Since its founding in 2014, A16Z Bio + Health has raised four funds, each with nearly $3 billion, including the $1.5 billion fund that closed in 2022. In January, A16Z Bio + Health announced it would manage a $500 million biotechnology fund funded by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. A16Z Bio + Health supports digital health startups and businesses at the intersection of AI, computation and biology. Pande's investments include dedicated health, a personalized health planning…

The vast amount of data that provides an AI-friendly data storage platform is in the market to raise new rounds with a major leap in valuation. Earlier this year, the 9-year-old company was sought a valuation of around $25 billion, according to anyone familiar with the deal. If that were achieved, it would be a massive jump from the $9 billion Series e rating set aside in December 2023. The person said the contract was not finalized and the terms could change, adding that despite impressive growth, the ratings requested were high at the time. Many VCs are interested in…

If you recently upgraded to a new iPhone model, you will notice that Apple Intelligence appears in some of the most commonly used apps, such as messages, emails, and notes. Apple Intelligence (yes, also abbreviated to AI) appeared in Apple's ecosystem in October 2024. Apple will compete with Google, Openai, humanity and others, so stay here to build the best AI tools. What is Apple Intelligence? Image credit: Apple The Marketing Executive at Cupertino has branded Apple Intelligence. The platform is designed to utilize what generate AI already works, such as text and image generation, to improve existing functionality. Like…

Whole Foods told employees that the ongoing suspensions and confusion at leading distributor United Natural Foods (UNFI) “takes several days to resolve.” The Amazon-owned retailer told internal communications staff that TechCrunch saw that UNFI was experiencing a “national technology system outage.” Whole Foods said in communications with staff that cyber attacks will affect UNFI's “ability to select and ship products from warehouses,” which “impact normal delivery schedules and product availability.” Staff to the missive included instructions to limit communication with customers. Communications say that “only approved customer topics” that Whole Foods employees can share with customers is that the grocery…

Some users and designers are called Apple's new user interface, called liquid glass, but it's a little faster. There is reason to think that it could improve, but there are also effective criticisms. While no doubt overhauling the operating system design looks unfinished in many parts, notifications are hard to read, and there is the Control Center overlay monster – the first developer beta ever shipped to Apple, not the final release. By the time Apple launches iOS 26 and other OSes are updated to the public this fall, there is still time for many of the current issues in…

A day after Apple announced an operating system overhaul at WWDC 2025, Google launched its own major software upgrade set for phones. Starting Tuesday, a new release of Android 16 will be rolling out to Google's Pixel smartphone lineup, adding group chat to RCS, AI-driven editing suggestions for Google photos, and support for corporate badges on Google Wallet. This release also focuses on better accessibility support and improved messaging and contact customization. Apart from Android 16, Google has announced an upgrade as part of the regular feature updates for its eligible pixel phone, Pixel Drop. Android 16 improvements Android 16…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said today that its social networking thread will eventually begin testing a DM (direct message) inbox that is separate from the users' Instagram DM inbox. This means that users don't have to use Instagram or switch apps to chat with anyone on the platform. The company will initially test the feature in a limited number of regions, including Hong Kong, Thailand and Argentina, and plan to deploy it elsewhere soon. The chat feature is currently limited to one-to-one conversations rather than group messaging. This could be seen as a positive development of Meta's latest social networks.…