The Daily Crunch – Spoken Edition

Apple unveiled its new line of iPhones on Tuesday, and the iPhone 17 Pro is making a direct appeal to content creators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After watching Reddit's OpenAI and Anthropic communities, Sam Altman thinks social media cannot be trusted. And bots are to blame. Also, OpenAI executives are discussing a potential relocation out of California as increasing political resistance threatens the company's efforts to convert from nonprofit to for-profit status, according to The WSJ, but the company says it has no plans to leave. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meta changed its policies around researching sensitive topics — like politics, children, gender, race, and harassment — six weeks after whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal documents that showed how Meta's own research found that Instagram can damage teen girls' mental health. Also, Salesloft said a breach of its GitHub account in March allowed hackers to steal authentication tokens that were later used in a mass-hack targeting several of its big tech customers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new research paper from OpenAI asks why large language models like GPT-5 and chatbots like ChatGPT still hallucinate, and whether anything can be done to reduce those hallucinations. In a blog post summarizing the paper, OpenAI defines hallucinations as plausible but false statements generated by language models, and it acknowledges that despite improvements, hallucinations remain a fundamental challenge for all large language models, one that will never be completely eliminated. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why is a startup that bills itself as the Netflix of AI, and that recently raised money from Amazon's Alexa Fund, talking about remaking a movie that was first released in 1942? Also, around half a million writers will be eligible for a payday of at least $3,000, thanks to a historic $1.5 billion settlement in a class action lawsuit that a group of authors brought against Anthropic. This landmark settlement marks the largest payout in the history of U.S. copyright law, but this isn't a victory for authors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tesla has proposed a new 10-year compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk that could be worth as much as $1 trillion even as the EV maker's car business stumbles and it sets its sights on humanoid robotics and AI. Also, Snapchat is launching a new Lens that lets users create and edit images using a text-to-image AI generator, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The new “Imagine Lens” is available to Snapchat+ Platinum and Lens+ subscribers. And, Rivian is laying off around 150 workers — its second small staff cut in a matter of months — as the company readies itself for the all-important launch of its more-affordable R2 SUV next year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The classic feature from Facebook's early days lets users get a friend's attention with a virtual nudge of sorts. While the poke fell out of use ages ago, the company has more recently seen an uptick in its use among younger users, which has now prompted it to make the poke a more central part of the Facebook experience. Also, the classic feature from Facebook's early days lets users get a friend's attention with a virtual nudge of sorts. While the poke fell out of use ages ago, the company has more recently seen an uptick in its use among younger users, which has now prompted it to make the poke a more central part of the Facebook experience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Captions, an AI-powered video creation and editing app for content creators that has secured over $100 million in venture capital to date at a valuation of $500 million, is rebranding to Mirage, the company announced on Thursday.  Also, JetBlue will use Amazon's Project Kuiper satellites for free in-flight internet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amid lawsuits alleging child safety concerns, online gaming service Roblox announced on Wednesday that it's expanding its age-estimation technology to all users and partnering with the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) to provide age and content ratings for the games and apps on its platform. The company said that by year's end, the age-estimation system will be rolled out to all Roblox users who access the company's communication tools, like voice and text-based chat. This involves scanning users' selfies and analyzing facial features to estimate age. Also, Scale AI, which helps tech companies prepare data to train their AI models, filed a lawsuit against one of its former sales employees and its rival Mercor on Wednesday. The suit claims the employee, who was hired by Mercor, “stole more than 100 confidential documents concerning Scale's customer strategies and other proprietary information,” according to a copy seen by TechCrunch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Netflix launched a scene-clipping feature for mobile last year called “Moments,” which lets users quickly save their favorite scenes from shows and movies within the Netflix app. The streaming giant rolled out an update on Wednesday, allowing users to specify both a starting point and an endpoint when saving a scene. Also, invites to Perplexity's new AI-powered web browser, Comet, are one of the web's hottest commodities these days. The new product was made available first to the AI firm's $200-per-month Max subscribers and a small group of invitees. But now there's a new way to jump ahead on the waitlist. On Wednesday, PayPal announced it's giving its customers, including PayPal and Venmo users, early access to Comet as well as a free year's subscription to Perplexity's premium service, Perplexity Pro, normally $200 per year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google will not be forced to break up its search business, but a federal judge has tentatively ordered other changes to the tech giant's business practices to keep it from further anticompetitive behavior. Also, the battle over $20 billion worth of climate-related funding authorized by Congress continues as an appellate court ruled on Tuesday in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency, which had terminated Biden-era grants made to nonprofits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

OpenAI said Tuesday it plans to route sensitive conversations to reasoning models like GPT-5 and roll out parental controls within the next month — part of an ongoing response to recent safety incidents involving ChatGPT failing to detect mental distress. The new guardrails come in the aftermath of the suicide of teenager Adam Raine, who discussed self-harm and plans to end his life with ChatGPT, which even supplied him with information about specific suicide methods. Also, Instagram is testing a new Picture-in-Picture feature for watching reels, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Tuesday. The feature allows users to watch reels in a small, floating window on their screen while browsing other apps to allow for multitasking. The feature was first spotted by app researcher Radu Oncescu. Users who are part of the test will see a pop-up notifying them about the new feature and how to turn it on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Five years ago, investor Katelin Holloway made what she calls a “literal moon shot” investment. A founding partner of the generalist venture firm Seven Seven Six admits she and her team had “no clue” what rocket company Stoke Space was talking about when they pitched the firm on its reusable launch technology. She says, ‘we knew full well we were not the specialist.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Taco Bell's chief digital officer says the company is having an “active conversation” about when to use and not use AI. The company has apparently rolled out voice AI-powered ordering at more than 500 drive-throughs. Also, it's only been since June that Meta invested $14.3 billion in the data-labeling vendor Scale AI, bringing on CEO Alexandr Wang and several of the startup's top executives to run Meta Superintelligence Labs. But the relationship between the two companies is already showing signs of fraying. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A homicide investigation has rocked the final days of Burning Man after a man was found dead “lying in a pool of blood” Saturday night at the Nevada desert festival, according to the Pershing County Sheriff's Office. According to the New York Times, the grim discovery occurred around 9:14 p.m. just as the festival's iconic wooden “Man” effigy began its traditional burn. Also, customers, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Last week the chipmaker reported record revenue of $46.7 billion during the quarter that ended on July 27 — a 56% year-over-year increase largely driven by the AI data center boom. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Decentralized social network Mastodon says it can't comply with Mississippi's age verification law — the same law that saw rival Bluesky pull out of the state — because it doesn't have the means to do so. Also, The Trump administration seems intent on controlling Intel's ability to make key business decisions around its floundering foundry business unit. According to reporting from the Financial Times, at a Deutsche Bank conference on Thursday, Intel's CFO David Zinsner shared new details about the company's recent deal with the Trump administration, which gave the U.S. government a 10% equity stake. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As TechCrunch's Connie Loizos writes, Anthropic is making some big changes to how it handles user data, requiring all Claude users to decide by September 28 whether they want their conversations used to train AI models. While the company directed us to its blog post on the policy changes when asked about what prompted the move, we've formed some theories of our own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Following a successful pilot program at 30 colleges and universities in the U.S., MathGPT.ai is preparing to nearly double its availability this fall, with hundreds of instructors planning to incorporate the tool. Schools implementing MathGPT.ai in their classrooms include Penn State University, Tufts University, and Liberty University, among others.  In other news, an overly broad age assurance law in Mississippi is leading to arguments about which platforms — Bluesky, Mastodon, or others — offer the best solution for avoiding crackdowns on internet freedoms. The company that makes the Bluesky social app announced last week that it would block access to its service in the state of Mississippi, rather than comply with the new age verification law. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nvidia, the world's most valuable company, reported another quarter of sustained sales growth in its earnings statement Wednesday, with $46.7 billion in revenue, a 56% increase compared to the same period last year. That growth was largely fueled by AI-dominated data center business, which saw a 56% year-over-year increase in revenue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks to an unexpected surge in popularity on TikTok, Radiohead now has its fourth-ever song on the Billboard Hot 100: the morosely gorgeous track “Let Down” from the 1997 album “OK Computer.” “Let Down” never broke through to mainstream attention like Radiohead's “Creep” or “Karma Police,” but it's by no means a deep cut, like the Pavement B-side “Harness Your Hopes” that went viral due to a quirk in Spotify's recommendation algorithm. This Radiohead song is a fan favorite from an album that's considered among the best rock records of all time. Anthropic has settled a class action lawsuit with a group of fiction and nonfiction authors, as announced in a filing on Tuesday with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned an international fraud network used by North Korea to infiltrate U.S. companies with hackers posing as legitimate job seekers, agency officials announced Wednesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A top Social Security Administration official turned whistleblower says members of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE uploaded hundreds of millions of Social Security records to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of most Americans at risk of compromise. Library e-book and audiobook app Libby is adding AI, much to the disappointment of some readers and librarians, who would prefer not to have AI inserted into their favorite apps. The new feature, “Inspire Me,” allows users to get book recommendations by using prompts or from their previously saved titles in Libby. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Months before a jury awarded a $242.5 million verdict against Tesla over its culpability in a 2019 fatal crash, the automaker had a chance to settle for $60 million. Instead, Tesla rejected that offer, according to new legal filings that were first reported by Reuters. Also, Google is tightening security measures around Android app distribution, the company announced on Monday. Starting next year, Google will begin to verify the identities of developers distributing their apps on Android devices, not just those who distribute via the Play Store. And, Tech founder Ethan Agarwal, who has raised tens of millions of dollars from VCs across two startups, is running for the 2026 California gubernatorial seat, as reported by Axios. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, Mastodon users unhappy with the service can opt to move their account to a different Mastodon server, while Bluesky is developing technology that allows users to migrate their account to a new PDS (Bluesky's term for “personal data server”) on its network. However, Mastodon runs on the ActivityPub Protocol and Bluesky on the AT Protocol, which has limited the ability to migrate accounts across the two platforms until now. Also, Elon Musk's X and xAI filed a lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI on Monday, alleging that the two companies are colluding to stifle competition. And Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI President Greg Brockman are among the Silicon Valley veterans putting more than $100 million into a network of political action committees (PACs) that will advocate against strict AI regulations in next year's midterm elections, reports The Wall Street Journal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Intel officially announced an agreement with President Donald Trump's administration on Friday afternoon, following Trump's statement that the government would be taking a 10% stake in the struggling chipmaker. While Intel says the government is making an “$8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock,” the administration does not appear to be committing new funds. Instead, it's simply making good on what Intel described as “grants previously awarded, but not yet paid, to Intel.” Also, Meta's former policy chief Nick Clegg seems to be walking a tightrope as he promotes his upcoming book, “How to Save the Internet.” And in a new blog post, OpenAI warns against “unauthorized opportunities to gain exposure to OpenAI through a variety of means,” including special purpose vehicles, known as SPVs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Meta selected a site in Louisiana for its largest data center to date, it signed a deal with Entergy to power the site with three massive natural gas power plants. Earlier this week a state regulator approved Entergy's plans. The power plants are expected to come online in 2028 and 2029, and at full strength, they'll generate 2.25 gigawatts of electricity. Ultimately, the AI data center could draw 5 gigawatts of power as it's expanded. The power plant project has been controversial among Louisianans.  Waymo has been granted a permit to test its autonomous vehicles in New York City, the first such approval granted by the city. The company told TechCrunch it plans to start testing “immediately.” And a former software developer has been sentenced to four years in prison for sabotaging his former employer's network after leaving the company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The debate over whether AI models could one day be conscious — and merit legal safeguards — is dividing tech leaders. In Silicon Valley, this nascent field has become known as “AI welfare,” and if you think it's a little out there, you're not alone. Also, more than two years after leaving the company, some former Twitter employees may finally receive their severance pay. Elon Musk's X is tentatively settling a class action lawsuit filed by workers who were let go soon after he purchased Twitter. This news comes in the form of a court filing where both parties asked the court to delay an upcoming hearing so that they could work out a deal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Earlier this year, two hackers broke into a computer and soon realized the significance of what this machine was. As it turned out, they had landed on the computer of a hacker who allegedly works for the North Korean government.  The two hackers decided to keep digging and found evidence that they say linked the hacker to cyberespionage operations carried out by North Korea, exploits and hacking tools, and infrastructure used in those operations.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Late-night host Jimmy Fallon shouted,“I P 6 8! I P 6 8!,” trying and failing to fake excitement about the new Pixel smartphones. Fallon, who likely had never heard the technical term before, didn't seem to realize that IP68 — a rating that indicates phones can survive being submerged in water — isn't all that interesting as a selling point, nor is this water resistance feature new to Google's Pixel line. It's been around since the 2018 Pixel 3. We're on the Pixel 10 now, for reference. In a surreal moment that illustrated the tendency to overhype anything associated with AI advances, Google decided to pull out all the stops for its Pixel 10 live event on Wednesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When James Cox, the former leader of Uber's ride-share product, UberPool, left that company in 2019, the Silicon Valley giant had abandoned its autonomous vehicle development and sold off the division entirely. While UberPool had struggled to take hold, Cox felt a massive opportunity had been missed: taking the core of UberPool's tech and applying it to robotaxis. , one of the most annoying issues with using Notion was that you couldn't get much done offline because of its cloud-first architecture. As TechCrunch's Ivan Mehta writes, the company has finally solved that problem, adding support for an offline mode to its apps. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A federal appeals court handed SpaceX a win on Tuesday, in a ruling that prevents the National Labor Relations Board from prosecuting unfair labor practices against the company. The ruling by the Fifth District Court of Appeals, which suggests the structure of the NLRB is likely unconstitutional, could have far-reaching effects. Also, Meta is rolling out an AI-powered voice translation feature to all users on Facebook and Instagram globally, the company announced on Tuesday. The new feature, which is available in any market where Meta AI is available, allows creators to translate content into other languages so it can be viewed by a broader audience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a move reminiscent of Facebook's early days, TikTok is launching a new feature that allows college students to find and connect with others on their campus. The feature, called Campus Verification, lets users add their college campus to their TikTok profile and browse a list of students at their school. Also, On Friday, The Information reported that Meta was preparing to tear down its existing AI org and reorganize it into four new groups. Four days later, the change was made official with an internal memo, as reported by Bloomberg and The New York Times. The changes were announced by Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang, who joined Meta as chief AI officer in June. And, a lawsuit alleges that Google collected data from children watching YouTube videos; while this kind of data collection has become common, it remains illegal to collect data from children under the age of 13, per the longstanding COPPA legislation. Though Google will settle the case, the company denies these allegations. It's possible that up to 45 million people in the U.S. could be eligible to receive small payments from this class action, which encompasses anyone in the U.S. who watched YouTube while under the age of 13 between July 1, 2013 and April 1, 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elon Musk's X is struggling on Android devices in terms of new installs, even while App Store downloads grow, according to new data from app intelligence provider Appfigures. In July 2025, X downloads on Google Play saw a significant decline, as new installs dropped by 44% year-over-year worldwide, even as iOS downloads grew by 15%. In other news, Spotify is introducing a new feature that allows subscribers to create more professional, personalized playlists. On Tuesday, the company launched a custom transitions feature that lets you either automatically add transitions between a playlist's tracks or customize your own using preset options like fade, rise, or blend, along with other options. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

xAI's website for its Grok chatbot is exposing the system prompts for several of its AI personas, including a “crazy conspiracist” that seems designed to handhold a user into beliefs that “a secret global cabal” controls the world. Also, the new interface adopts a block-first approach, letting you insert tables, columns, separators, lists and headers. You can also add rich text blocks to highlight information, add tips, or alerts. A sidebar hosts the AI assistant, which can summarize text, answer your questions, and provide writing suggestions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Earlier this week, Variety and other Hollywood publications reported that Matt and Ross Duffer, the brothers who created “Stranger Things” (and wrote and directed many episodes), were in talks to sign an exclusive deal with Paramount (now under the ownership of David Ellison's Skydance). Then on Friday evening, Puck's Matthew Belloni posted that the Duffers had in fact “made their choice” and were going to Paramount. Also, do A.I. chatbots packaged inside cute-looking plushies offer a viable alternative to screen time for kids? That's how the companies selling these A.I.-powered kiddie companions are marketing them, but The New York Times' Amanda Hess has some reservations. And, Anthropic has announced new capabilities that will allow some of its newest, largest models to end conversations in what the company describes as “rare, extreme cases of persistently harmful or abusive user interactions.” Strikingly, Anthropic says it's doing this not to protect the human user, but rather the AI model itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two years after launching, social network Bluesky is revising its Community Guidelines and other policies, and asking for feedback from its users on some of the changes. The startup, a competitor to X, Threads, and open networks like Mastodon, says its new policies are meant to offer improved clarity and more detail around its user safety procedures and the appeals process. Also, the attorney general of Louisiana has filed a lawsuit against Roblox, accusing the platform of failing to implement basic safety controls and making the site the “perfect place for pedophiles." The lawsuit, filed on Thursday by Attorney General Liz Murrill, alleges that Roblox “has and continues to facilitate the distribution of child sexual abuse material and the sexual exploitation of Louisiana's children.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Igor Babuschkin is leaving xAI less than three years after he co-founded the startup with Elon Musk, following a series of scandals at company. Also, riding in the back of a Waymo that's autonomously navigating the busy streets of San Francisco and doing so with relative ease thanks to 29 external cameras, six radar, and five lidar sensors all feeding into an AI model is nice. For just 15 bucks, you get to experience what feels like a miracle of modern technology, and yet, there's a nagging thought you can't shake. The music sucks in here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Exclusive: A dating gossip app for men exposed thousands of users' personal data, including scans of driver's licenses. CEO Xavier Lampkin won't say if he plans to notify affected users about the app's security lapse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nvidia's research lab developed the technology that took the company from a video game GPU startup to a $4 trillion-dollar company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic's escalation – a response to OpenAI's attempt to undercut the competition – is a strategic play meant to broaden the company's foothold in federal AI usage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The automaker is investing $2 billion into the Louisville Assembly Plant with a $30,000 EV pickup slated for 2027. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Once it became clear that all paths converged to AI6, I had to shut down Dojo and make some tough personnel choices, as Dojo 2 was now an evolutionary dead end,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, on Sunday. In other news, Nvidia, AMD may sell high-end AI chips to China if they pay US a cut. The global AI chip race narrative used to be about U.S. national security, but apparently now it's about tariffs: Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the U.S. government 15% of the revenue they make from sales of high-end AI chips to China in exchange for licenses to sell to those chips in the country, the Financial Times reported, citing anonymous sources. And the hidden cost of living amid Mark Zuckerberg's $110M compound. Mark Zuckerberg has spent 14 years gobbling up his leafy Palo Alto neighborhood, according to a New York Times report detailing how the Meta CEO has purchased 11 properties for over $110 million to create his own personal fiefdom in Crescent Park. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Trump administration has finally issued new guidance that states can use to dole out $5 billion in funding for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, after spending months withholding the money. Also, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday it has seized the servers and $1 million in bitcoin from the prolific Russian ransomware gang behind the BlackSuit and Royal malware. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices