N e w s C e n t r a l
Zoom restores service after an hours-long outage
Zoom says its platform is back online after suffering an outage for much of Wednesday afternoon. “Service has now been restored after the earlier outage, and we sincerely appreciate your patience and understanding,” Zoom said in a post on X at around 2 p.m. Pacific. The trouble began around 11:40 a.m., according to The Verge, […]
Source: techcrunch.com
Reception: Positive
Chapter, a Medicare startup with links to Vance, Thiel, and Ramaswamy, just raised a round at $1.5B valuation
Chapter, a Medicare advisory startup co-founded by former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, has closed a $75 million funding round at a valuation of $1.5 billion led by private equity and venture firm Stripes. The startup helps seniors choose Medicare health plans analyzing doctors, hospitals, and prescription drug coverage. Unlike many other Medicare insurance brokers, […]
Source: techcrunch.com
Reception: Positive
Trump administration reportedly considers a US DeepSeek ban
The Trump administration is considering new restrictions on the Chinese AI lab DeepSeek that would limit it from buying Nvidia’s AI chips and potentially bar Americans from accessing its AI services, The New York Times reported on Wednesday. The restrictions are part of the Trump administration’s effort to compete with China on AI. Months after […]
Source: techcrunch.com
Reception: Positive
Rippling wants Revolut to reveal who paid off Deel’s alleged ‘spy’
Another highly valued startup has just been added to the mix in the ongoing legal drama between Rippling and Deel: U.K. fintech giant Revolut. In his blockbuster affidavit that reads like it’s straight out of a movie, Irish Rippling employee Keith O’Brien claimed that Deel paid him about $6,000 a month to spy on Rippling. […]
Source: techcrunch.com
Reception: Positive
Former CISA director Chris Krebs vows to fight back against Trump-ordered federal investigation
The former cybersecurity chief is the latest to push back on the Trump administration's targeting of critics and dissenters.
Source: techcrunch.com
Reception: Positive
OpenAI’s latest AI models have a new safeguard to prevent biorisks
OpenAI says that it deployed a new system to monitor its latest AI reasoning models, o3 and o4-mini, for prompts related to biological and chemical threats. The system aims to prevent the models from offering advice that could instruct someone on carrying out potentially harmful attacks, according to OpenAI’s safety report. O3 and o4-mini represent […]
Source: techcrunch.com
Reception: Positive
Zuckerberg: Snapchat would have grown faster if it accepted $6B buyout offer
During Meta’s antitrust trial this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Snapchat would have grown faster if it accepted his company’s offer to buy the social network back in 2013, Business Insider reports. Court documents revealed that Meta, then called Facebook, offered to buy Snapchat for $6 billion (reports at the time said that […]
Source: techcrunch.com
Reception: Positive
Trump-appointed judge orders Trump admin to ‘turn the funding spigots back on’
U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy said that the administrations actions were “neither reasonable nor reasonably explained.”
Source: techcrunch.com
Reception: Positive
OpenAI is reportedly in talks to buy Windsurf for $3B, with news expected later this week
Windsurf, the maker of a popular AI coding assistant, is in talks to be acquired by OpenAI for about $3 billion, Bloomberg reported. If the deal happens, it would put OpenAI in direct competition with a number of other AI coding assistant providers, including Anysphere, the maker of Cursor, which OpenAI backed from its OpenAI […]
Source: techcrunch.com
Reception: Positive
Rivian’s first non-Amazon van customer is HelloFresh
Meal-kit company HelloFresh has added 70 all-electric Rivian vans to its fleet, the first major customer to buy the commercial EVs since the automaker ended its exclusive deal with Amazon. The 70 all-electric commercial vans represent nearly one quarter of HelloFresh’s fleet, which has already helped the company save an estimated 20,000 gallons of gasoline, […]
Source: techcrunch.com
Reception: Positive