TechCrunch Industry News

Google’s parent company Alphabet might be on the verge of making its biggest acquisition ever. The Wall Street Journal reports that Alphabet is in advanced talks to acquire Wiz for around $23 billion. While the deal isn’t finalized, the WSJ says it could come together soon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whistleblowers have accused OpenAI of placing illegal restrictions on how employees can communicate with government regulators, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post. Lawyers representing anonymous whistleblowers sent the letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon’s AI-powered shopping assistant, named “Rufus,” is now live for all U.S. customers in the Amazon mobile app, the retailer announced on Friday. The assistant, which lives on the bottom right of the app’s main navigation bar, is designed to offer customers help with finding products, performing product comparisons, and getting recommendations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Archer Aviation and Southwest Airlines are teaming up to figure out what it will take to build out a network of electric air taxis at California airports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dark patterns refer to a range of design techniques that can subtly encourage users to take some sort of action or put their privacy at risk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As venture capitalists continue to pour money into defense tech startups, they’re turning to a new hiring pool: ex-military officials.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Prompt engineering became a hot job last year in the AI industry, but it seems Anthropic is now developing tools to at least partially automate it. Anthropic released several new features on Tuesday to help developers create more useful applications with the startup’s language model, Claude, according to a company blog post. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fast food chain Whataburger’s app has gone viral in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, which left around 1.8 million utility customers in Houston, Texas without power. Hundreds of thousands of those people may remain without power for days as Houston anticipates a heat wave, with temperatures climbing into the mid-90s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The essential labor of data work, like moderation and annotation, is systematically hidden from those who benefit from the fruits of that labor. A new project puts the lived experiences data workers around the world in the spotlight, showing firsthand the costs and opportunities of tech work abroad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Poe, Quora’s subscription-based, cross-platform aggregator for AI-powered chatbots like Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s GPT-4o, has launched a feature called Previews that lets users create interactive apps directly in chats with chatbots. Previews allows Poe users to build data visualizations, games and even drum machines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices