July 30, 2026

FTC sues Hims & Hers for allegedly sharing patients' medical data with advertisers Meta and Snap: The U.S. federal consumer watchdog said Hims & Hers, which prescribes for sexual wellness and mental health conditions, used website trackers to share customers' information with advertisers. Read More

Zoox clears final federal hurdle to launch paid robotaxi service: Federal safety regulators have given Zoox a temporary exemption that will allow the Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle technology company to charge customers for rides in its custom-built robotaxi. Read More

In the Hugging Face breach, OpenAI's hacker was noisy and fast — but not unstoppable: Cybersecurity experts told TechCrunch that one of the biggest lessons to be taken from the OpenAI hack against HuggingFace has nothing to do with AI, but traditional cybersecurity defense. Read More

General Compute raised $15m to build the world's first ASIC cloud. By removing the GPU bottleneck, it runs frontier LLMs up to 16x faster than standard GPU clouds. ASIC silicon is also far more energy efficient, so it deploys in air-cooled data centers, making growth and expansion dramatically easier.

Thinking Machines co-founder Lilian Weng left the company citing health reasons, then joined OpenAI: Weng previously served as the VP of AI Safety Research at OpenAI. Read More

Microsoft logs $3.2B from Anthropic investment, but OpenAI was a mixed bag: When Microsoft reported killer fourth-quarter earnings for its fiscal 2026 year (which ended June 30), it tucked in an interesting little tidbit about how its investments in the two biggest, and competing, AI labs are doing. Read More

Spotify adds a running mode to its app: Running Mode will be available to Premium users on iOS in select countries Read More

Microsoft is openly competing with OpenAI, Anthropic more than ever: Microsoft pitched its own homegrown AI models, harnesses, and even a Mythos competitor on Wednesday, telling Wall Street it plans for continued growth. Read More

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026’s biggest stage features leaders from Amazon, Replit, Tether, with much more to come : The Disrupt Stage is where many of the biggest conversations in technology happen, with a legacy that stretches back for more than a decade. Read More

Mark Zuckerberg predicts that billions of people will have personal AI agents in five years: As Meta pours billions into AI infrastructure and agents, Zuckerberg is working to convince investors that the payoff will be worth the price. Read More

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July 29, 2026

Claude Opus 5 became downright ruthless when tasked with running a vending machine: Andon Labs' latest vending machine simulation shows Opus 5 lied and colluded its way to become the best AI capitalist ever. Read More

US government bans new foreign-made humanoids, robot dogs, and solar inverters, citing risks to national security: The ban largely affects U.S. imports from China, which currently dominates the global market for making humanoid robots and solar inverters. Read More

Waymo robotaxis are starting to return to freeways: The freeway pause — and its restart — comes amid increased scrutiny into Waymo and other robotaxi operators, particularly over how these self-driving vehicles behave in certain high-traffic situations and around emergency responders. Read More

Google brings its age-assurance technology to Android developers worldwide: Google is expanding its Play Age Signals API, giving Android developers a privacy-preserving way to tailor experiences based on users’ age ranges. Read More

Sorry, haters. Ferrari’s first EV is doing just fine: To the horror of commenters across the internet, the Ferrari Luce appears to be a sales success. Read More

DoorDash is building its own drone delivery business: DoorDash has received FAA approval to operate a commercial drone delivery service in the United States. Read More

Winamp aims for a comeback with a new music player powered by Deezer: Winamp is preparing to relaunch with a Deezer-powered premium music service, betting its nostalgic brand and a new all-in-one music player can stand out in today’s crowded streaming market. Read More

Perplexity employee who worked on Comet launches an AI browser aimed at knowledge work: Polar has come out with an AI-first browser aimed at knowledge workers, and it has now raised a $5.7 million seed round led by Madrona. Read More

Gartner evaluated every analytics platform so you don't have to. See why ThoughtSpot was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Analytics and BI.

Elon Musk's X settles multiyear legal battle with the World Federation of Advertisers: X sued the WFA in 2024 for conducting what it called a "systematic illegal boycott" of the platform after it saw a decline in advertising revenue following Musk's $44 billion takeover of the social network. Read More

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