Japan has just smashed the record for the world’s fastest internet speed, clocking in at a mind-bending 1.02 petabits per second—a connection so fast you could download 10,000 Netflix movies in 4K in just one second. This blistering milestone is 16 million times faster than India’s average internet speeds and about 3.5 million times faster than what most Americans get at home. Even as Japan recently slipped to the world’s fifth-largest economy behind India, its tech innovation is showing no signs of slowing down. The record-setting feat comes from researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT).…
Author: Intern
The highly anticipated $3 billion acquisition of Windsurf AI, the breakout coding-focused AI startup, by OpenAI has officially collapsed, according to a report by The Verge. In a surprising twist, Google DeepMind has moved quickly to absorb the talent behind Windsurf AI. The company has hired CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and several top researchers from the startup. Google confirmed the hires in a statement to TechCrunch, marking a major shift in the competitive AI landscape. However, this isn’t a traditional acquisition. Google isn’t taking any equity in Windsurf AI or assuming ownership of its business. Instead, it has…
With the resignation of X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced on Wednesday, the platform formerly known as Twitter is heading into a new phase marked by growing uncertainty. Owned by Elon Musk, X has seen its daily active users decline by approximately 10% year-over-year in Q2 2025, according to new data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Although X still holds a significant lead—boasting a user base 65% larger than Meta’s Threads and nearly ten times the size of Bluesky—its long-term dominance is under pressure. Threads, in particular, is rapidly closing the gap, especially on mobile, signaling a shift in the…
Elon Musk announced early Thursday that Grok, the chatbot developed by his AI company xAI, will be arriving in Tesla vehicles “next week at the latest.” The news follows xAI’s debut of its latest flagship model, Grok 4, just hours earlier. Fans had been quick to notice that Musk spent nearly an hour discussing Grok on Wednesday night without mentioning Tesla integration—prompting his early-morning post clarifying the rollout timeline. This update comes amid controversy over Grok’s behavior. Recent adjustments have made the chatbot more likely to produce problematic content, including antisemitic remarks, political attacks, and even threats of violence. As…
Earlier this month, Adrian Holovaty, the founder of the music-learning platform Soundslice, finally figured out a strange puzzle that had been bugging him for weeks. Random screenshots of ChatGPT chats were flooding his system, and he had no idea why. When he dug deeper, he realized something unexpected: ChatGPT had become one of Soundslice’s biggest cheerleaders, but it was also spreading stories that simply weren’t true. Holovaty has a long history in tech. Years ago, he helped create Django, the popular Python framework. In 2012, he started Soundslice to help musicians learn and teach more easily. Unlike many startups, the…
Perplexity has just launched its first AI-powered web browser, called Comet, as part of its ambitious push to compete with Google Search as the main way people find information online. At first, Comet will only be available to subscribers of Perplexity’s $200-per-month Max plan and a select group of early users who joined a waitlist. The browser’s main attraction is Perplexity’s AI search engine, which comes pre-installed and set as the default. This puts Perplexity’s signature feature—AI-generated summaries of search results—front and center. Users also get access to Comet Assistant, a built-in AI agent designed to handle everyday tasks. According…
Apple’s longtime Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Williams, is preparing to step down later this month, the company announced Tuesday. His departure marks the end of a nearly 30-year career that helped shape some of Apple’s most iconic products. Williams is retiring to focus on spending more time with his loved ones. “I look forward to spending more time with friends and family, including five grandchildren and counting,” he shared in a statement. Sabih Khan, currently Apple’s Senior Vice President of Operations, will take over as the new COO. Although Williams plans to retire before the end of the year, he…
Activision has quietly taken down the Microsoft Store version of Call of Duty: WWII after hackers exploited a critical security flaw, which reportedly led to several players having their PCs compromised The game, originally released in 2017, was recently re-launched on Microsoft’s platform and included with Xbox Game Pass — a subscription service that offers access to a library of games. Last week, Activision announced it had taken this version of Call of Duty: WWII offline due to “reports of an issue,” but didn’t elaborate on the specifics. Now, a source with direct knowledge of Activision’s internal response tells us…
Epic Games has officially settled its antitrust lawsuit against Samsung, according to a new court filing. The case, which Epic filed last September, accused Samsung of working hand in hand with Google to keep competing app stores off Samsung phones by default. “We’re dismissing our court case against Samsung following the parties’ discussions,” Epic CEO Tim Sweeney shared in a post on X. “We are grateful that Samsung will address Epic’s concerns.” An Epic spokesperson declined to offer further details and referred to Sweeney’s statement. Samsung and Google did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. In the lawsuit,…
Instagram’s Threads is getting closer than ever to overtaking X (formerly Twitter) in daily mobile app usage, according to fresh figures from market intelligence firm Similarweb. In June 2025, Threads’ iOS and Android apps reached 115.1 million daily active users — a massive 127.8% jump compared to last year. In contrast, X attracted 132 million daily actives but saw its own growth decline by 15.2% year-over-year. Meanwhile, the decentralized social platform Bluesky is growing even faster in percentage terms, reporting an eye-popping 372.5% year-over-year increase. Still, its daily audience remains relatively modest: just 4.1 million daily active users worldwide as…
Companies everywhere are racing to keep up with the explosion of AI tools. The challenge? These technologies are evolving much faster than most businesses’ slow, traditional sales and procurement cycles can handle. Brex, the corporate credit card startup, has been no exception. Like many of its peers, Brex quickly realized that its old way of buying and testing software was too sluggish to keep pace with the AI boom. At the HumanX AI conference in March, Brex CTO James Reggio shared how the company had to rethink its entire approach. Initially, Brex tried to evaluate new AI products using its…
It’s a bittersweet weekend over on Bluesky, where one of the platform’s most unforgettable accounts has vanished—though maybe not forever. The account, known simply (and ominously) as The Louvre of Bluesky, earned a reputation for striking fear into the hearts of bad posters everywhere. Sure, it shared its own commentary and clever jokes. But what really made it legendary were the screenshots—those perfect, damning captures of unhinged posts that revealed the platform’s strangest instincts. It’s tough to write a real tribute now that the Louvre is gone. There’s no easy way to catalog the many shades of internet weirdness it…
Cloudflare is drawing a line in the sand—and it wants AI companies to pay up if they want to cross it. The cloud infrastructure giant, which quietly powers about 20% of everything you see online, just unveiled what could be its most ambitious move yet: an experiment called Pay per Crawl. The idea is simple in theory, but potentially transformative in practice. Under the new model, publishers would be able to charge AI firms every single time their bots crawl a site to ingest content. It’s a bold bet on the future of the web—one where the flood of AI…
Investing in Y Combinator startups has consistently proven to be one of the most promising paths to outsized returns. “If you look at the data: 6% of YC companies become unicorns, and of that 6%, a quarter become decacorns,” Kulveer Taggar told. Taggar, a two-time YC alum, is perhaps best known for founding Zeus Living, the property management startup that raised over $150 million in funding. Taggar believes so strongly in the continued potential of YC-backed startups that he’s launched Phosphor Capital, a venture firm focused exclusively on investing in them. Since its debut last year, Phosphor has raised $34…
Republican lawmakers on Thursday passed a sweeping reconciliation bill that will roll back major parts of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), dealing a significant blow to several clean energy sectors. The legislation narrowly passed the House in a 218-214 vote, with two Republicans breaking ranks to oppose it. It now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk, where he is expected to sign it into law. Under the bill, incentives for solar, wind, and clean hydrogen will be slashed or expire earlier than planned, dramatically shifting the landscape for renewable energy developers. In contrast, nuclear and geothermal energy will retain some…