For decades, Silicon Valley has valorized the college dropout. Founders like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg left school early to build companies and became billionaires. That ethos was later institutionalized through initiatives like the Thiel Fellowship, which famously pays promising students $100,000 to leave college and start companies. …
Read More »Neon, the No. 2 social app on the Apple App Store, pays users to record their phone calls and sells data to AI firms
A new app offering to record your phone calls and pay you for the audio so it can sell the data to AI companies is, unbelievably, the No. 2 app in Apple’s U.S. App Store’s Social Networking section. The app, Neon Mobile, pitches itself as a money-making tool offering “hundreds …
Read More »Instagram now has 3 billion monthly active users, will test features to help users control their feeds
Instagram has grown to 3 billion monthly active users, according to announcements by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram Head Adam Mosseri. This is a notable milestone for the Meta-owned platform, which hit 1 billion users back in 2018. “If you look at the last few years, almost all of …
Read More »Spotify now integrates directly with DJ software from rekordbox, Serato, and djay
Spotify now directly integrates with desktop DJ software from rekordbox, Serato, and djay, the streaming service announced on Wednesday. Users will be able to access their entire libraries and playlists within these programs, making it faster and easier to create sets from playlists and blend tracks. “You can effortlessly mix songs from …
Read More »South Korea’s ‘Silicon Valley’ struggles to live up to its global ambitions
Just south of Seoul, in the city of Seongnam, sits what many call the “Silicon Valley of South Korea”: the sprawling tech complex known as Pangyo Techno Valley (PTV), which is just a 15-minute subway ride from Gangnam, better known for its luxury boutiques, K-pop agencies, and neon nightlife in …
Read More »Google’s AI Mode arrives in Spanish globally
Google Search is bringing its AI Mode feature — its AI-powered search experience — to Spanish-speaking users, the company announced on Tuesday. This expansion will introduce Google’s conversational search interface to a broader market, allowing users to ask questions using natural language queries, engage in back-and-forth conversations, upload images, dig …
Read More »What is Bluesky? Everything to know about the X competitor.
Is the grass greener on the other side? We’re not sure, but the sky is most certainly bluer. It’s been over two years since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, now X, leading people to set up shop on alternative platforms. Mastodon, Post, Pebble (two of which have already shuttered operations) and …
Read More »Even Rogers and Max Haot join the Space Stage at Disrupt 2025
The space economy isn’t just about rockets and satellites — it’s about infrastructure, autonomy, and entirely new models for building and defending off-Earth assets. At TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, happening October 27–29 at San Francisco’s Moscone West, the Space Stage is where this shift gets real. If you’re ready to explore …
Read More »OpenAI is building five new Stargate data centers with Oracle and SoftBank
OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it plans to build five new AI data centers across the United States with partners Oracle and SoftBank through its Stargate project. The new data centers will bring Stargate’s planned capacity to seven gigawatts — enough energy to power more than five million homes. Three …
Read More »How Google’s dev tools manager makes AI coding work
As Google’s project manager for developer tools, Ryan Salva has a front-row seat to the ways AI tools are changing coding. Formerly of Github and Microsoft, he’s now responsible for tools like Gemini CLI and Gemini Code Assist, nudging developers into the new world of agentic programming. His team released …
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