The Army has granted upstart weapons maker Anduril control of one of its highest-profile and long-troubled projects known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, founder Palmer Luckey announced in a blog post Tuesday. IVAS was initially awarded to Microsoft in 2018 to develop augmented reality headsets for soldiers based on a ruggedized version of Hololens. […]

Google has removed events such as Black History Month and Pride Month from being listed on the calendar by default.  Other events that were removed from the default calendar include Jewish Heritage, Indigenous People Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Hispanic Heritage Month.  Google spokesperson Madison Cushman Veld confirmed the changes to TechCrunch, saying that in […]

Shopify took down Kanye West’s online store after the musician sold t-shirts with the swastika symbol. West, who also goes by Ye, advertised his online store in a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday, directing viewers to his website, where the only item listed was the swastika t-shirt. Though Shopify removed a policy banning sellers from […]

On Monday, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, offered to buy the nonprofit that effectively governs OpenAI for $97.4 billion. The unsolicited buyout would be financed by Musk’s AI company, xAI, and a consortium of outside investors, per a letter sent to California and Delaware’s attorneys general. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quickly dismissed Musk’s bid, […]

Since 2022, blogging site Tumblr has been teasing its plans to integrate with the fediverse — the open social web powered by the protocol ActivityPub also used by Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, and others. Now, the Automattic-owned blogging platform is sharing more information about when and how that integration could actually happen. As it turns out, […]

Bluesky users on Android now have access to a new app that works more like Instagram than X. On Tuesday, an app called Pinksky launched an Android version of its photo-centric social networking experience built on top of Bluesky. The app is now one of many attempting to court former Instagram users by offering a […]

Stripe is in talks for another shareholder sale that could value the company at “at least” $85 billion, according to multiple reports and a source familiar with the matter. The Information first reported the news that the payments infrastructure giant is working to sell employee-owned stocks. The move would help workers gain some liquidity as […]

In an interview at the AI Action Summit in Paris on Tuesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman dismissed Elon Musk’s unsolicited $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI’s nonprofit as “an attempt to slow [OpenAI] down.” “[Musk] obviously is a competitor,” Altman said. “He’s raised a lot of money for [his AI company] xAI, and they’re trying to […]

Apple Tuesday announced the long-awaited debut of Powerbeats Pro 2. The new headphones arrive nearly six years after the original Powerbeats hit the market. The new model maintains the familiar ear hook for workouts, while delivering upgraded sound, better battery life, and a wireless charging case. The earbuds also mark a major next step in […]

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech!  This week we’re looking at how fintech heavyweights such as Klarna and Stripe are incorporating crypto into their strategies, which companies are planning for IPOs, one fintech’s Super Bowl ad, Stripe’s new lead of startups and venture capital, and more! To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech […]