A consortium of investors led by Elon Musk’s x.AI offered to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion this week. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has dismissed the proposal, which would gum up OpenAI’s planned conversion from a nonprofit, something Musk is attempting to block in a lawsuit. Altman’s lawyers argued in a Wednesday filing that Musk can’t … Read more
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! Raise your hand if you’re exhausted by the firehose of information coming from every direction. Yeah, me too. At TechCrunch, we’re focused on helping readers (that’s you!) … Read more
UX and UI designers work closely with engineers throughout product development to build and implement design concepts and wireframes for functional user interfaces. Regular communication, feedback and testing are required for the collaboration to work smoothly and deliver a user experience that aligns with the intended design goals. Nick Budden, a serial entrepreneur who used … Read more
Valve removed a game from its Steam video game platform and store because it contained malware, according to media reports. In its notice to users who downloaded the game, Valve said affected users may want to “consider fully reformatting your operating system.” The game was called PirateFi, and billed itself as “a thrilling survival game … Read more
Alibaba on Thursday confirmed recent reports of a partnership with Apple that’s set to bring AI features to iPhones sold in China. The deal is an important one for Apple, as iPhone sales have dropped precipitously in the world’s largest smartphone market. The handset experienced an 11% year-over-year drop in China, according to Apple’s most … Read more
Helsing, the German defense tech startup backed by Spotify’s Daniel Ek and others, is producing 6,000 HX-2 strike drones in addition to the 4,000 HF-1 strike drones financed by Germany that are currently being delivered to Ukraine. “We are scaling up production of HX-2 in response to additional orders from Ukraine,” Helsing co-founder Gundbert Scherf … Read more
Tech companies, data center developers, and power utilities have been panicking over the prospect of runaway demand for electricity in the U.S. in the face of unprecedented growth in AI. Amidst all the hand wringing, a new paper published this week suggests the situation might not be so dire if data center operators and other … Read more
Germany’s antitrust watchdog has been investigating Apple’s app privacy framework since 2022. On Thursday, releasing preliminary findings from this probe, the Bundeskartellamt (FCO) said it suspects the iPhone maker may not be treating third-party app developers as equally as the law requires. The antitrust watchdog said it believes Apple’s behavior could amount to self-preferencing. Apple … Read more
Developer tooling and containerization company Docker has a new CEO: Former Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) executive vice president Don Johnson (pictured above) landed in the hotseat starting Wednesday. Incumbent Scott Johnston will leave the company with immediate effect. During his eight-year spell at Oracle, Johnson was instrumental in transitioning the company from its legacy on-premise … Read more
Security researchers say the Chinese government-linked hacking group, Salt Typhoon, is continuing to compromise telecommunications providers, despite the recent sanctions imposed by the U.S. government on the group. In a report shared with TechCrunch, threat intelligence firm Recorded Future said it had observed Salt Typhoon — which the company tracks as “RedMike” — breaching five … Read more