When Alexandru Voica, head of corporate affairs at the video-generation startup Synthesia, sent me a link this summer to the newest addition to their PR team, I was surprised. It was an interactive virtual avatar of him, trained to answer common press questions about Synthesia, like what it does and…
How I use Apple CarPlay with two different phones
Although Apple does have a lot of features geared towards sharing with other people, such as AirDrop and Family Sharing, it does have occasional blindspots. On iPads, for example, you can’t set up multiple user profiles, even though they increasingly operate like Macs. To buy an Apple Watch for your…
Old-School Credit Card Scams Are Far From Dead
Welcome to Kernel Panic! A weekly newsletter by Lily Hay Newman and Matt Burgess from inside the new world of privacy and digital security. To receive this newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up here. When every random text message feels like it’s a scam, and with AI supercharging…
Disrupt 2026 Layoff Expo+ Passes available for $75
If you’ve been laid off, you can get a TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 Expo+ Pass for just $75. The offer is limited to the first 100 qualifying people, or until Disrupt doors open on October 13 at 8 a.m. PT. Once all 100 passes are claimed, the offer is no longer…
4 Science-Backed Reasons to Love Physical Media
Although physical media offers various advantages over streaming and digital downloads, collecting it doesn’t necessarily come without challenges. For example, depending on where you live, finding somewhere to actually buy DVDs, Blu-rays, and vinyl records in-person could be a struggle. Even if you have access to a quality physical media…
Tesla finally moves to electrify trucking after a decade of work and delays
Tesla is finally handing over the first of its all-electric Semi trucks to customers after nearly a decade of delays and refinements to the vehicle, which it first revealed in 2017. Company executives — except CEO Elon Musk, who was at President Trump’s state dinner with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping…
3 free streaming horror movies that every sci-fi fan needs to see
There is absolutely no better way to get into festive mode for Halloween than by watching horror movies designed to induce chills and offer thrills (cue my unintended poetic charm). Maybe we are all gluttons for punishment, but watching people make a series of bad decisions amidst a horrifying situation…
Anthropic’s founders seek voting control ahead of IPO
Anthropic’s founders want to stay in charge after the company goes public. According to The Information, the company is asking shareholders to approve a structure “in the coming days” that would give CEO Dario Amodei and his six co-founders special shares carrying a combined 50.1% of the vote on most…
I’m uneasy about an all-digital future, and media companies are making it worse
It’s a perilous new world for physical media collectors. Earlier this Summer, Sony announced that it would cease production of PlayStation games on disc starting in 2028. To the disdain of many, Sony faced wild backlash across social media. Despite the ire of PlayStation’s vocal consumers, there’s no indication that…
For months, OpenAI’s agent swarms have been attacking online databases to find obscure facts
With little help from frontier labs, independent researchers are piecing together how AI agents coordinate in internet backwaters to access private data hosted on secure servers. Transluce, a nonprofit lab focused on AI oversight, released a report Wednesday that shows agents from OpenAI attempting to exfiltrate data from Data USA,…