TechCrunch Industry News

Some major consolidation is afoot in the world of internet communications — and it will have implications for competition and consumer internet access in U.S. On Thursday, Verizon announced that it would gobble up Frontier Communications for $20 billion — more than double Frontier’s market cap at the close of trading the night before; A long-running lawsuit over the Internet Archive’s “emergency” ebook lending practices during the COVID-19 pandemic has ended in a loss for the website and a victory for publishers. The lawsuit concerned the Internet Archive’s National Emergency Library, a program it established at the beginning of the pandemic to allow wider access to some 1.3 million ebooks; These final maneuvers will bring to a close a troubled first crewed mission for the Boeing-made Starliner; The Cosmos Institute, a nonprofit whose founding fellows include Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark and former Defense Department technologist Brendan McCord, has announced a venture program and research initiatives to — in the organization’s words — “cultivate a new generation of technologists and entrepreneurs equipped with deep philosophical thinking to navigate the uncharted territory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The American sports betting market produced $10.9 billion in revenue in 2023 for casinos, sportsbooks and iGaming, according to the American Gambling Association. One of the reasons this industry is so lucrative is because the majority of people who bet on sports lose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthropic is launching a new subscription plan for its AI chatbot, Claude, catered towards enterprise customers that want more administrative controls and increased security. Claude Enterprise will compete with OpenAI’s business-specific solution, ChatGPT Enterprise, released roughly a year ago. Claude Enterprise allows businesses to upload proprietary company knowledge into Anthropic’s AI chatbot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Flexible green methanol, which is made without fossil fuels, could rid carbon pollution from a range of industries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spotter, the startup that provides financial solutions to content creators, announced Tuesday the launch of its new AI-powered creative suite. Dubbed Spotter Studio, the solution aims to support YouTubers throughout the creative process, such as helping them brainstorm video concepts, generate thumbnail and title ideas, plan projects, organize tasks, and collaborate with their team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Home robots’ unfulfilled potential is neither because of lack of demand on the part of consumers nor lack of effort from manufacturers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Mac mini will be the next Apple device to say goodbye to USB-A, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Apple customers have probably gotten used to seeing the familiar, rectangular USB-A ports replaced with their thinner USB-C siblings. And while USB-C has its advantages, the transition can sometimes leave users confused and scrambling for adapters; TikTok is introducing a new “Manage Topics” feature that will give you more control over what you see on your For You feed, the company announced on Friday. The new feature is rolling out to users in the U.S. With the new tool, you can tailor your For You feed to show you more; a Brazilian court’s decision to ban X (formerly Twitter) seems to benefiting its rivals, especially Bluesky. The microblogging platform announced late Friday that it was seeing “all-time-highs for activity” with 500,000 new users joining in the previous two days. It’s also number one on the free iPhone app chart in Brazil today; In the latest twist in Bolt’s aggressive fundraising efforts, the fintech company’s CEO appears to have made a veiled threat of legal action against Silverbear Capital, the investment bank whose involvement in the deal remains in some dispute. “We believe there was some internal miscommunication at Silverbear Capital, one of our lead investors; No matter who powerful generative AI becomes, writer Ted Chiang says it will never create true art. Chiang is one of the most admired science fiction authors writing today, best known for the novella “Story Of Your Life” (which was adapted into the movie “Arrival”). But he’s also published terrific pieces for The New Yorker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jam & Tea Studios is the latest gaming startup implementing generative AI to transform the way players interact with non-playable characters (NPCs) in video games.  Traditionally, video game NPCs are directed by predetermined scripts, which can feel repetitive, unrealistic, and boring Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Given everything you’ve already heard about AI, you may not be surprised to learn that Google is among other outfits beginning to use sound signals to predict early signs of disease.  How? According to Bloomberg, Google has trained its foundation AI model with 300 million pieces of audio that included coughs, sniffles, and labored breathing; Nvidia and Apple are reportedly in talks to contribute to OpenAI’s next fundraising round — a round that could value the ChatGPT maker at $100 billion. Per its sources, the New York Times says earlier OpenAI investor Thrive Capital would lead the deal should it happen; It seems that the Ministry of Truth has been busy at Tesla. Some sharp-eyed folks, including reporters at Electrek, noticed that Tesla has deleted all of its blog posts prior to 2019; Gmail users on Android devices can now chat directly with Google’s AI assistant, Gemini, about their emails in the Gmail app. Google rolled out the new feature, Gmail Q&A, on Thursday to users who pay for Gemini, according to a blog post, and announced the feature would be coming to iOS devices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uber is making a strategic investment into Wayve as an extension of the U.K.-born startup’s previously announced $1.05 billion Series C round. The partnership will also see the two companies work with automakers to integrate Wayve’s AI into consumer vehicles that will one day operate on the ride-hail giant’s platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices