Latest 25 news items

At our past TechCrunch Disrupt events, AI has taken center stage, both throughout our programming and in a stage of its own. This year, the technology, implications, and players are so rapidly developing and widespread that we’re expanding the single AI stage into two!

Palo Alto Networks paid $500 million in cash and stock to acquire Console, a two-year-old startup that uses AI agents to automate routine IT help desk tasks, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. The companies officially announced the acquisition on Tuesday but didn’t reveal terms of the deal.

The Builders Stage is returning to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 , bringing together founders, startup operators, and investors for practical conversations on what it takes to build and scale successful companies. Hear from startup and venture leaders shaping the tech ecosystem, including Grant Lee, CEO and co-founder of Gamma; Leah Solivan, founder and general…

Uber beat out Waymo in launching a commercial robotaxi service in London, the city’s first. The vehicles use autonomous driving tech developed by Wayve , a UK-based startup, and will initially feature safety drivers behind the wheel.

OpenAI’s new Astra model will use a reasoning technique called “recurrent depth” that allows it to operate outside of the sequential thinking that characterizes most reasoning models, The Information reported on Tuesday. This technique, also called “opaque recurrence,” will likely make the model’s chain of thought more difficult to monitor — and that has…

The timing of newly available scans—typically within a day, if not hours, of me and a small sample of other victims presenting them at rental companies or others—likely means that Nexus has near real-time access to data flowing through the third-party scanning service these businesses are using. Over a span of 24 hours, Krebs said the number of driver’s…

Google launched Gemini 3.8 Flash , arriving just a few weeks after its predecessor . The company claims the new model “works harder” than Gemini 3.7 Flash by performing more reasoning steps on complex tasks and “calling tools iteratively.” It has the same introductory pricing as 3.7 Flash, $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens,…

1Password faced immediate backlash from customers this week over a $300,000 pledge in support of a Linux distro created by David Heinemeier Hansson, who has regularly published overtly racist blog posts that include comments calling for deportation of ethnic minorities in Europe. The popular password manager is now a “ distinguished corporate patron ” of…

Summer is winding down, but REI’s Labor Day sale is here to help save you some bucks on gear that’ll let you get the most out of your upcoming outdoor expeditions. There are many, many discounts, from men’s and women’s clothing and REI Co-op gear to equipment for camping and hiking and more.

I think automakers are finally getting the memo. Rather than try to reinvent the wheel with its new electric vehicle, Range Rover just made one that looks nearly identical to its lineup of gas-powered SUVs.

Amazon is trying to combat impersonation scams with a new feature that allows you to use its AI assistant to determine whether an email, text message, or phone call actually came from the company. With the update, you can ask Alexa for Shopping about a message you received, and it will use AI to compare it “against a record of every message Amazon has…

In a lawsuit that The New York Times filed against OpenAI, the Trump administration has contributed a 20-page brief in defense of the ChatGPT maker’s unlicensed use of copyrighted material to train its LLMs. “The United States has a strong interest in continuing to develop a robust and competitive artificial intelligence industry that sets the standard for…

The internet has a trust problem, and it’s not just because social media feeds are filling up with AI slop. AI-generated text and images are now making their way into job applications, product reviews, and even insurance claims, leaving platforms and users alike scrambling to figure out what’s real.

The internet has a trust problem, and it’s not just because social media feeds are filling up with AI slop. AI-generated text and images are now making their way into job applications, product reviews, and even insurance claims, leaving platforms and users alike scrambling to figure out what’s real.

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio is opening its cloud PC service to any internet user in India, positioning it as a way to turn aging computers into AI-ready machines without hardware upgrades. On Wednesday, Reliance Jio expanded JioPC, originally launched in July 2025, beyond its own broadband subscribers, making the service available as a stand-alone…

Israeli-Dutch AI startup Wonderful has raised $550 million in a Series C funding round that gives it a price tag of $5 billion, more than doubling the $2 billion valuation the company gained when it last raised funding nearly six months ago . Insight Partners returned to lead this round, too, and existing investors Index Ventures, IVP, Vine Ventures,…

The Trump administration has intervened in The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, making an argument in favor of the AI lab. The landmark lawsuit, filed in December 2023 , alleging that OpenAI unlawfully trained its AI systems on articles from The New York Times and seeks to recoup “billions of dollars” in damages from both Microsoft and…

OpenAI is on the cusp of releasing its most powerful AI model yet, Astra, following weeks of delays to shore up safety protocols after its agents attacked real targets during testing. As details about the model trickle out, researchers are warning it “may be the single worst development for AI security/safety to date.” Shortly after OpenAI said on Tuesday…

The doors to Europe’s largest consumer tech show officially opened to the public today following a week of news coming out of IFA 2026 in Berlin, Germany. If you’re struggling to keep up with what has been announced, here are some of the best new gadgets and upgrades from the show — including a smartphone that attempts to finally rid the world of screen…

Researchers have managed to execute code within an "llms.txt" file that many large companies use to instruct AI agents on how to scrape the website correctly. Back when the internet exploded and search engines became popular, sites started publishing a "robots.txt" file to guide search bots to content.

Verge readers can get a discount on Belkin’s SoundForm Mini 2 wireless headphones . The kid-focused on-ear headphones feature an 85-decibel volume limit and easy controls, and a mode that lets them beam audio (wired or wirelessly) to a second pair without extra hardware.

This is Optimizer , a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they’re going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here .

US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema declined the Justice Department’s request to make Google sell off parts of its ad tech business, accepting milder remedies to restore competition to markets it illegally monopolized for years. Brinkema said she would adopt most of the behavioral changes proposed by the parties, with some modifications.