Tech News

MapTap, a daily geography game, is my new Wordle

MapTap is a phone game that will make you feel smarter after you play it.

techcrunch Jun 18, 2026 Read more →

General Intuition in talks to raise $300M at around $2B valuation

The startup trains embodied AI and world models using Medal’s dataset of 2 billion videos per year from 10 million monthly active users.

techcrunch Jun 18, 2026 Read more →

A tech worker-backed PAC is bringing a $5M knife to Big Tech’s $100M gunfight

Guardrails positions itself as a populist political movement that runs on small donations from people in the trenches of the AI boom.

techcrunch Jun 18, 2026 Read more →

Adobe adds its AI assistant to Premiere, Illustrator and InDesign

Adobe is updating its Firefly AI assistant with new chops, and adding it to Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign and Frame.io.

techcrunch Jun 18, 2026 Read more →

Pixi’s new iOS app turns text messages into interactive AR experiences

Forget stickers, GIFs, and emoji reactions. Pixi is betting that the next evolution of messaging is interactive augmented reality (AR).

techcrunch Jun 18, 2026 Read more →

Waymo recalls nearly 4,000 robotaxis to stop them driving into highway construction zones

The company has identified at least 13 instances where its robotaxis drove into highway sections closed for construction.

techcrunch Jun 18, 2026 Read more →

NASA picks Eric Schmidt’s rocket company for Mars mission, setting up a race with SpaceX

Relativity Space—a rocket maker acquired by former Google executive chair Eric Schmidt last year after stumbling on the path to orbit—might just beat SpaceX to Mars.

techcrunch Jun 18, 2026 Read more →

How to turn off AI in your Google Docs

Here's what you need to do to get those pesky "write with Gemini" pop-ups to go away.

techcrunch Jun 18, 2026 Read more →

AI is hurting Apple in more ways than one: it may force iPhone price increases

CEO Tim Cook said in a recent interview that the situation is "unsustainable."

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →

Chi-Hua Chien saw Facebook coming — now he says the real AI winners won’t be selling AI

Chi-Hua Chien has spent more than two decades as a venture capitalist, but he thinks like a cultural anthropologist.

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →

Roelof Botha joins SpaceX’s board of directors

The former Sequoia Capital leader is filling an "existing vacancy" on SpaceX's board, days after the company went public in the largest IPO ever.

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →

After unveiling ridiculously expensive AR glasses, Snap’s stock takes a dive

Snap's long-awaited smart glasses debut hasn't exactly done wonders for the company's stock.

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →

NEA’s Tiffany Luck says enterprises are still figuring out their AI ROI

Tokenmaxxing was the hottest trend in Silicon Valley earlier this year, with CEOs encouraging employees to push AI usage as far as it would go. Then the bill came due. Uber reportedly blew through its

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →

FTC lawsuit reveals how subscription scam networks evade app store enforcement

A new FTC lawsuit reveals how sophisticated subscription app operators can allegedly use shell companies and payment infrastructure to stay active on app stores despite mounting consumer complaints.

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →

World leaders want American AI. They just don’t want America to be able to turn it off.

French President Macron and Indian PM Modi raised alarms at the G7 summit that the U.S. could cut off access to American AI overnight — a fear the Anthropic blackout just made real.

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →

Anthropic becomes first AI startup to join the Frontier carbon removal coalition

Anthropic has joined the Frontier coalition, which received another $915M in pledges to fund carbon removal projects.

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →

Cybercriminals allegedly hacked tens of thousands of Fortinet firewalls used by major companies all over the world

An alleged Russian-speaking group of cybercriminals is reportedly compromising and targeting several major companies that use Fortinet Firewalls and VPNs through previously known passwords.

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →

Social media’s next evolution: user-controlled algorithms

Social media feeds are becoming more customizable as platforms like Threads, Instagram, and TikTok introduce tools that let users directly influence the algorithms powering their recommendations.

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →

World model maker Odyssey nabs $1.45B valuation backed by Amazon and other big names

World models are the next big thing in AI beyond LLMs and, with this round, Odyssey has cemented itself as one of the startups to watch.

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →

Mastodon looks to newsletters to help revive the open social web

Mastodon’s newly launched newsletter feature lets anyone subscribe to creators by email, even without a Mastodon account.

techcrunch Jun 17, 2026 Read more →