This week, two major AI companies scored early wins in court, with federal judges siding with Meta and Anthropic in separate lawsuits over how their models were trained on copyrighted material. The decisions represent the first real legal validation of AI companies’ argument that training models on books, images, and other creative works can be… Continue reading Big Tech lands an early win in legal battles against publishers
Author: Tech Crunch Online News
Redwood Materials launches energy storage business and its first target is AI data centers
Tucked between two massive buildings in the hills of the Nevada desert, 805 retired EV batteries lie in neat formation, each one wrapped in nondescript white tarps — and hiding in plain sight. A passerby might not realize this unassuming array is the largest microgrid in North America, that it’s powering a 2,000 GPU modular… Continue reading Redwood Materials launches energy storage business and its first target is AI data centers
Travis Kalanick is trying to buy Pony AI — and Uber might help
Uber founder Travis Kalanick is looking for ways to buy the U.S. arm of Chinese autonomous vehicle company Pony AI, according to The New York Times. Kalanick is reportedly working with investors to finance an acquisition, and Uber may even help make the transaction happen, the Times reports. Pony AI went public last year and… Continue reading Travis Kalanick is trying to buy Pony AI — and Uber might help
Uber has Atlanta’s autonomous ride-hailing and delivery market on lock
Uber Eats customers in Atlanta can now opt in to have their food delivered via sidewalk delivery robots, following partner Serve Robotics’s launch on Thursday. The move comes just two days after Uber and Waymo launched a commercial robotaxi service in the city. Serve, which spun out of Uber in 2021 before braving the public… Continue reading Uber has Atlanta’s autonomous ride-hailing and delivery market on lock
Indian drone startup Raphe mPhibr raises $100M as military UAV demand soars
Indian drone startup Raphe mPhibr has raised $100 million in an all-equity Series B round led by General Catalyst, as the startup aims to boost its R&D and local production capabilities amid growing demand for drones in battlefields and for border surveillance. Drones are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in global military operations. In recent and ongoing… Continue reading Indian drone startup Raphe mPhibr raises $100M as military UAV demand soars
Intel hits the brakes on its automotive business, and layoffs have started
Intel is shuttering its automotive architecture business and laying off most of its staff as part of a broader restructuring at the chipmaker. The news was first reported by The Oregonian/Oregon Live, which cited an internal memo that was shared with employees Tuesday morning. Intel confirmed to TechCrunch that plans to wind down the auto… Continue reading Intel hits the brakes on its automotive business, and layoffs have started
Nascent Materials emerges from stealth to make LFP batteries better and cheaper
Lithium-ion batteries have dropped in cost by 75% over the past decade, a marvel of research and development that isn’t the result of a singular breakthrough but of myriad incremental improvements. Few know that better than Chaitanya Sharma, founder of the stealthy Nascent Materials. Sharma spent a little over two years working at Tesla’s Gigafactory… Continue reading Nascent Materials emerges from stealth to make LFP batteries better and cheaper
Kodiak is using Vay’s remote driving tech in its self-driving trucks
Self-driving trucks developed by Kodiak Robotics contain some remote-driving DNA courtesy of Vay, a driverless car-sharing startup out of Berlin. The two companies, which announced a partnership on Wednesday, have been working together since last year, when Kodiak’s self-driving trucks began making driverless deliveries for Atlas Energy Solutions in the oil-rich Permian Basin of West… Continue reading Kodiak is using Vay’s remote driving tech in its self-driving trucks
Feds question Ford in hands-free driving investigation
The top federal vehicle safety regulator has sent Ford an exhaustive list of questions about its hands-free driver-assistance system known as BlueCruise. It’s the latest development in an investigation that started more than one year ago following two fatal crashes involving the software. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Office of Defects Investigation (ODI)… Continue reading Feds question Ford in hands-free driving investigation
How a data processing problem at Lyft became the basis for Eventual
When Eventual founders Sammy Sidhu and Jay Chia were working as software engineers at Lyft’s autonomous vehicle program, they witnessed a brewing data infrastructure problem — and one that would only become larger with the rise of AI. Self-driving cars produce a ton of unstructured data from 3D scans and photos to text and audio.… Continue reading How a data processing problem at Lyft became the basis for Eventual