August 2, 2025

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AI ChatGPT evergreens Generative AI OpenAI

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big year for OpenAI, from its partnership

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matthew e butler Media & Entertainment Netflix the electric state

How ‘The Electric State’ team created a world of unlikely robots

The new Netflix movie “The Electric State” depicts a world full of robots — but not robots as we know them. Directed by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo (who previously helmed two Avengers blockbusters, “Infinity War” and “Endgame”) for a reported budget of $320 million, “The Electric State” takes place in an alternate version of

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Exclusive gps SXSW TC tern ai Transportation

Tern AI’s low-cost GPS alternative actually works

We’ve all experienced that moment of frustration when the GPS glitches and you miss an exit on the highway. The team at Tern AI, which is building a low-cost GPS alternative, says that’s because the current technology is limited by its reliance on satellite positioning.  Tern AI says it has figured out how to locate

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SXSW techcrunch mobility Transportation Uber Waymo

Testing the Uber-Waymo robotaxi, Rivian goes hands-free, and Travis Kalanick has AV FOMO 

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! For regular readers of TechCrunch Mobility, you may be wondering, “Why did this newsletter land in my inbox on Friday?” Folks, we’re moving days in an effort

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cybersecurity National Security Agency Security us government wiretapping

AT&T technician Mark Klein, who exposed secret NSA spying, dies

Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician turned whistleblower who exposed mass surveillance by the U.S. government, has died at age 79. Klein went public in 2006 with documents revealing that the NSA was using a secret room in an AT&T hub in San Francisco to tap into the backbone of the internet. Behind the door

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AI maya sesame voice assistant

Sesame, the startup behind the viral virtual assistant Maya, releases its base AI model

AI company Sesame has released the base model that powers Maya, the impressively realistic voice assistant. The model, which is 1 billion parameters in size (“parameters” referring to individual components of the model), is under an Apache 2.0 license, meaning it can be used commercially with few restrictions. Called CSM-1B, the model generates “RVQ audio codes” from text

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Climate data centers Fervo Energy Fundraising geothermal IPO

Geothermal unicorn Fervo Energy may IPO as early as next year

Geothermal startup Fervo Energy is reportedly eyeing an initial public offering in the next two years. Driving the consideration is the growing concern over power demand growth from data centers, which could double by 2029. “There’s clearly a huge hunger in the public markets right now to figure out, how are we going to solve

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Apps Gaming Google Google Play Google Play Games

Google introduces new developer tools and titles for games on mobile and PC

Google announced new features around PC and mobile gaming today ahead of the Game Developers Conference (GDC), including new titles, control customization, and developer tools for making mobile games available on PC. The company first introduced Play Games for PC in 2022 in the beta phase. Over time, it has introduced the program to various

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AI Apps Google google gemini

Google wants Gemini to get to know you better

In the AI chatbot wars, Google thinks the key to retaining users is serving up content they can’t get elsewhere, like answers shaped by their internet habits. On Thursday, the company announced Gemini with personalization, a new “experimental capability” for its Gemini chatbot apps that lets Gemini draw on other Google apps and services to

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AI deepseek Government & Policy OpenAI policy

OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models

In a new policy proposal, OpenAI describes Chinese AI lab DeepSeek as “state-subsidized” and “state-controlled,” and recommends that the U.S. government consider banning models from the outfit and similar People’s Republic of China (PRC)-supported operations. The proposal, a submission for the Trump administration’s “AI Action Plan” initiative, claims that DeepSeek’s models, including its R1 “reasoning” model,

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