Robots that walk, talk, dance, and perform backflips make great videos. But can they close the blinds? Help someone eat? Scratch an itch? For people with severe mobility impairments, those everyday tasks can mean greater independence. And they’re exactly the kinds of jobs Hello Robot designed its home-assistance robot, Stretch,…
Noble Carbon will show how it’s making EV charger installs painless at TechCrunch Disrupt
Plenty of people want to buy electric vehicles, but not everyone is prepared to shell out for an upgrade to their home’s electrical service just to add an EV charger. The worry is reasonable. One study found that upgrading things like electrical panels (that box in the garage or basement…
Five AI safety sessions every founder should have on their Disrupt 2026 agenda
Would you trust an AI agent with access to your company’s systems? Put your employees in an autonomous vehicle? Deploy a robot that has to make sense of an unpredictable physical world? These aren’t hypothetical questions for AI founders anymore. As AI moves out of demos and into businesses, vehicles,…
Anthropic releases Opus 5.5 with lower prices and Fable-level performance
Anthropic’s newest model, Opus 5.5, was released on Tuesday, setting a new state-of-the-art in coding and knowledge work performance, according to the company. Opus is the most capable and expensive tier in Anthropic’s three-tier Claude lineup; Sonnet sits in the middle, while Haiku is the fastest and cheapest. Notably, Anthropic…
‘We’re already fighting yesterday’s battle’: Greece’s prime minister gets candid about AI
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis came to San Francisco on Monday night to promote Greece, but he also did something that heads of state on trade missions don’t typically do. In front of roughly 250 founders, investors and operators, he said openly that he doesn’t have answers to many of…
Discord’s age verification era is upon us, despite community backlash
Starting Wednesday, Discord, the community messaging platform, will roll out age verification measures to all users. The rollout comes after the company initially delayed its age verification plans in February due to backlash from users concerned that biometric scans and ID checks could jeopardize their privacy. Those concerns weren’t unfounded;…
OpenAI launches GPT-6 Sol and Luna, boasting lower cost and fewer mistakes
Earlier this month, OpenAI launched GPT-6 Astra, which it heralded as its most powerful and capable model yet, and the “world’s best model” for a variety of activities, including computer work and coding. Now, the lab is expanding the GPT-6 generation with updated versions of the smaller Sol and Luna…
a16z is challenging Silicon Valley’s love for drop-outs by launching a school
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is launching a school called The Horowitz Andreessen Academy aimed at aspiring founders who have just graduated high school and have not yet attended college. The academy is aiming to train these high school grads with hands-on coursework on a variety of topics ranging from…
Hacking group ShinyHunters claims it breached the FBI, stole agents’ and applicants’ data
ShinyHunters, a prolific cybercriminal group known for large-scale data theft and extortion, says it has breached the FBI and stolen data on thousands of agents and applicants. The hackers made the claim on their dark web leak site, which TechCrunch reviewed, saying they had stolen “sensitive data on almost all…
One of Android Auto’s best features is nowhere to be found on Apple CarPlay
You’d most accurately describe Apple and Google’s relationship as frenemies. The idea that they’re bitter rivals is at best a relic of the Steve Jobs days, when the co-founder threatened to go to “thermonuclear war” over the similarities between Android and iOS. In truth, Google keeps paying Apple billions to…