Latest and Hotest Technology Updates

Good afternoon, and welcome back to TechCrunch PM! UnitedHealth confirms one of its subsidiaries was hacked and gives names. Meanwhile, a U.S. government watchdog was able to "steal" some sensitive data of its own. We've also got a conversation with Brain.ai's CEO about the future of smartphones, and we discuss Figure's giant funding round, figuring out Reddit's IPO price, Venus Williams' new gig and a big new fund.

— Christine

TechCrunch PM Top 3

UnitedHealth knows who hacked its subsidiary: UnitedHealth Group has confirmed a ransomware attack on its health tech subsidiary Change Healthcare and says "a cybercrime threat actor who has represented itself to us as ALPHV/Blackcat" is behind the hack. The Russia-based group is claiming it is behind it and stole personal information from millions of patients.

This is just a test: A U.S. government watchdog was able to steal one gigabyte of seemingly sensitive personal data from the cloud systems of the U.S. Department of the Interior. The good news? It was just a test to see if the department's cloud infrastructure was safe.

Spotify becomes a Song Psychic: The new feature plays on Wrapped, Spotify's year-end review of all the things you liked. Except instead of going back, you can ask Spotify the kinds of questions you might ask a psychic or a Magic 8 Ball for fun and get a musical answer.

More top reads

This is your smartphone on generative AI. Any questions?: While at Mobile World Congress this week, Brian Heater met with Brain.ai founder and CEO Jerry Yue, and what resulted is a delightful chronicle of how generative AI might be foundational to the next generation of devices.

Figure is now valued at $2.6 billion: Humanoid robots are having a moment, and in Figure's case, a giant, whopping funding moment. The company raised a $675 million Series B round from a group of investors, including Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia and Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund.

All things Google: The search engine giant is partnering with Stack Overflow to use its data to enrich Gemini for Google Cloud and provide validated Stack Overflow answers in the Google Cloud console. Meanwhile, Google is making some improvements so that search suggestions in Chrome are more helpful.

Speaking of smarter: Microsoft is making Windows 11 Copilot smarter with a list of plugins and skills that include settings being changed, new AI editing integrations and improvements to widgets.

A faster composter: Mill's new bin design turns a big pile of your food waste into something you can feed plants or chickens in a few hours rather than having to wait a whole day.

Reddit's IPO price: Secondary investors tell us that Reddit is likely to have a successful IPO if it prices itself at $5 billion or less. We go into why, as well as why some of its more recent investors might not like the sound of that.

More Brave AI: Brave is launching its AI-powered assistant, Leo, to all Android users, who can ask it questions, use it to translate or summarize pages and create content. iOS devices will get this soon.

It's all about the money, money, money: Inspired Capital, which has backed companies like Habi, Teamshares and Rho, closed on its third fund with $330 million in capital commitments. Adtech startup Vibe raised $22.5 million to help small companies buy video ads on streaming services. And Particle.news grabbed $4.4 million to develop an AI-powered news reader.

Set, point, design: Tennis icon-turned-entrepreneur Venus Williams launches Palazzo, an AI-powered interior design platform. One of its features is an "Aesthetic DNA" test where you can select room designs you like, and the results are turned into the prompts for the AI to generate renderings.

MacPaw first to adopt Apple's new DMA rules in the EU: MacPaw offers Setapp, a subscription-based platform of curated apps, to iOS and Mac users. The move is notable because Apple has received a lot of pushback for how it’s complying with the EU regulation.

On the pods

For this week's Chain Reaction, we're resharing a conversation Jacquelyn had in June 2023 with Jack Lu, CEO and co-founder of Magic Eden.

Looking back on this conversation, we decided this episode was a great addition to the NFT series to add some context for what a crazy year it has been and how much things have changed (and some things stayed the same), especially for people building in the NFT space.

They discussed why the NFT marketplace expanded its support to other blockchains, its BRC-20 token support and how the company plans on staying competitive in the constantly changing market. Listen here.

• Systems Administrator II at City of Newport (Newport, Oregon, USA)
• Product Manager at imgix (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Senior Cloud Engineer at imgix (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Engineering Manager at Murmuration (USA)
• Consultant - Workday Implementation Project Manager at Central Park Conservancy (non-profit organization) (New York, NY, USA)

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.

Good afternoon, and welcome back to TechCrunch PM! UnitedHealth confirms one of its subsidiaries was hacked and gives names. Meanwhile, a U.S. government watchdog was able to "steal" some sensitive data of its own. We've also got a conversation with Brain.ai's CEO about the future of smartphones, and we discuss Figure's giant funding round, figuring out Reddit's IPO price, Venus Williams' new gig and a big new fund.

— Christine

TechCrunch PM Top 3

UnitedHealth knows who hacked its subsidiary: UnitedHealth Group has confirmed a ransomware attack on its health tech subsidiary Change Healthcare and says "a cybercrime threat actor who has represented itself to us as ALPHV/Blackcat" is behind the hack. The Russia-based group is claiming it is behind it and stole personal information from millions of patients.

This is just a test: A U.S. government watchdog was able to steal one gigabyte of seemingly sensitive personal data from the cloud systems of the U.S. Department of the Interior. The good news? It was just a test to see if the department's cloud infrastructure was safe.

Spotify becomes a Song Psychic: The new feature plays on Wrapped, Spotify's year-end review of all the things you liked. Except instead of going back, you can ask Spotify the kinds of questions you might ask a psychic or a Magic 8 Ball for fun and get a musical answer.

More top reads

This is your smartphone on generative AI. Any questions?: While at Mobile World Congress this week, Brian Heater met with Brain.ai founder and CEO Jerry Yue, and what resulted is a delightful chronicle of how generative AI might be foundational to the next generation of devices.

Figure is now valued at $2.6 billion: Humanoid robots are having a moment, and in Figure's case, a giant, whopping funding moment. The company raised a $675 million Series B round from a group of investors, including Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia and Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund.

All things Google: The search engine giant is partnering with Stack Overflow to use its data to enrich Gemini for Google Cloud and provide validated Stack Overflow answers in the Google Cloud console. Meanwhile, Google is making some improvements so that search suggestions in Chrome are more helpful.

Speaking of smarter: Microsoft is making Windows 11 Copilot smarter with a list of plugins and skills that include settings being changed, new AI editing integrations and improvements to widgets.

A faster composter: Mill's new bin design turns a big pile of your food waste into something you can feed plants or chickens in a few hours rather than having to wait a whole day.

Reddit's IPO price: Secondary investors tell us that Reddit is likely to have a successful IPO if it prices itself at $5 billion or less. We go into why, as well as why some of its more recent investors might not like the sound of that.

More Brave AI: Brave is launching its AI-powered assistant, Leo, to all Android users, who can ask it questions, use it to translate or summarize pages and create content. iOS devices will get this soon.

It's all about the money, money, money: Inspired Capital, which has backed companies like Habi, Teamshares and Rho, closed on its third fund with $330 million in capital commitments. Adtech startup Vibe raised $22.5 million to help small companies buy video ads on streaming services. And Particle.news grabbed $4.4 million to develop an AI-powered news reader.

Set, point, design: Tennis icon-turned-entrepreneur Venus Williams launches Palazzo, an AI-powered interior design platform. One of its features is an "Aesthetic DNA" test where you can select room designs you like, and the results are turned into the prompts for the AI to generate renderings.

MacPaw first to adopt Apple's new DMA rules in the EU: MacPaw offers Setapp, a subscription-based platform of curated apps, to iOS and Mac users. The move is notable because Apple has received a lot of pushback for how it’s complying with the EU regulation.

On the pods

For this week's Chain Reaction, we're resharing a conversation Jacquelyn had in June 2023 with Jack Lu, CEO and co-founder of Magic Eden.

Looking back on this conversation, we decided this episode was a great addition to the NFT series to add some context for what a crazy year it has been and how much things have changed (and some things stayed the same), especially for people building in the NFT space.

They discussed why the NFT marketplace expanded its support to other blockchains, its BRC-20 token support and how the company plans on staying competitive in the constantly changing market. Listen here.

• Systems Administrator II at City of Newport (Newport, Oregon, USA)
• Product Manager at imgix (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Senior Cloud Engineer at imgix (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Engineering Manager at Murmuration (USA)
• Consultant - Workday Implementation Project Manager at Central Park Conservancy (non-profit organization) (New York, NY, USA)

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.

Good morning and welcome to TechCrunch AM! If you had ever wondered why Apple's been strangely silent about AI, well, it just started shouting from the rooftops that it's been doing just that.

And if you are a founder looking at accelerators, we have news for you this morning about how the venture downturn hasn't left anyone unscathed. We're gonna close with notes about the energy transition, and just how much money you can save if you are not into gas-powered or electric cars.

– Alex

TechCrunch Top 3

1. Apple will 'break new ground' in GenAI, Cook claims: After scuttling its Apple Car initiative, the iPhone maker is leaving no stone unturned to ensure everyone knows that it is working hard on new AI technologies. The company doesn't want to lose its reputation for innovation after all. Here's hoping Siri will finally be useful for more than a few basic tasks.
2. Techstars lost more money than expected last year, remains well-capitalized: The startup accelerator's decision to shutter some of its city-focused programs and trim staff came after it suffered bigger losses in 2023 than it had expected, per some internal documents. The good news for Techstars is that it seems to have ample cash reserves to fund its operations. Still, there’s no denying that the venture downturn is here and it's affecting everyone.
3. Reliance, Disney combine India media assets in $8.5B deal: Reliance-owned media company Viacom18 and Disney are planning to combine their media assets in India to create “the largest media entity in the world's most populous nation,” Manish Singh reports. Disney will own 36.84% of the new entity, and will take a charge of $1.8 billion-$2.4 billion. The new entity is expected to control some 85% of the domestic streaming market, and about half of India’s television audience.

Don't miss these

Meta's expensive opt-out policy under scrutiny: When Meta started offering EU users a choice between opting-in for its ads and paying for an ad-free experience, it was trying to thread the needle between local regulations and making money. Now, eight regional consumer rights groups are suing the company over this choice, alleging violations of GDPR principles.

Snowflake CEO to step down, stock melts: In a shocking move, Frank Slootman, the CEO of Snowflake, announced that he intends to step down. The company also forecast its Q1 product revenue below what analysts expected, and the double whammy has sent its shares down more than 20%. Wall Street, it turns out, were big fans of Slootman.

Elon, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) head to court: Last year, Musk-owned X sued the CCDH for making "misleading claims" about the service. The Center had reported on X's moderation choices and the potential financial benefits they might bring to the social media company. Oral arguments will start today in San Francisco, and are set to be livestreamed.

Taiwanese startups hope for looser investing rules: When Lai Ching-te became Taiwan's president-elect, he inherited a contentious neighbor in China as well as the mandate to deal with the global rush to compete with the island-nation's semiconductor industry. Taiwan's entrepreneurs, though, are heartened by his upcoming tenure in office. TechCrunch's Catherine Shu reports that the country's startups are hopeful Lai's government will streamline and improve processes for fundraising and international expansion.

Speaking of chips, India has approved the allocation of $15.2 billion to build three semiconductor plants, which will include the nation's first semiconductor fab. The investment may help India better compete with both China and Taiwan in the chip race. Ever since the chip shortage a few years ago, every nation wants to produce their own silicon, so this move makes a lot of sense.

Money, money, money:

1. French cybersecurity startup Filigran, the company behind the open-source product OpenCTI, has raised $16 million in a round led by Accel.
2. Nigerian fintech debt-collection startup Bfree has raised $2.95 million to help lenders recover debt ethically.
3. Singaporean web3 security firm Silence Laboratories has put together a $4.1 million round.

Twodos is a fresh take on personal task management: There are a few tech projects that humans will work on until the end of time, and task management and note-taking appear to be two of them. In the case of the former, there's a new entrant in the market called Twodos. Built by Adam Whitcroft (he formerly worked with Rewind), this app is dead-simple in terms of features, and leans heavily on swiping gestures to sort upcoming tasks.

Don't forget: TechCrunch's Early Stage event is just around the corner!

Before you go

Want a free Toyota?

Between discounts and incentives, you can effectively get a 2023 Toyota Mirai for free. The catch? It runs on hydrogen fuel cells, and stations to refuel it are few and far between — even in California, the only market where it kinda makes sense to own a fuel cell car.

Why the massive discount? Because while fuel cell technology is neat, the shift to electric cars around the world is coming along well.

• Systems Administrator II at City of Newport (Newport, Oregon, USA)
• Product Manager at imgix (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Senior Cloud Engineer at imgix (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Engineering Manager at Murmuration (USA)
• Consultant - Workday Implementation Project Manager at Central Park Conservancy (non-profit organization) (New York, NY, USA)

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.