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,…
Meta’s AI Tamagotchi bet is…working?
When AI leaders at OpenAI and Anthropic started talking about “pacing the frontier,” maybe someone should have asked: what pace? Now it’s turned into model drop week for both companies as Anthropic rolled out Opus 5.5, followed by OpenAI’s GPT-6 model updates just 90 minutes later. But the company that stole the spotlight was Meta, whose personal AI agent Muse is reportedly outpacing ChatGPT’s early numbers…
Astra and Opus just passed Turing’s other test
Computer pioneer Alan Turing is best known for his eponymous experiment to test whether artificial and human intelligence can be distinguished. However, the more important test he faced during his lifetime was cracking the Enigma code used by Nazi Germany during World War II. Now, a pair of cryptanalysts say…
Some Supabase customers are publicly exposing reams of people’s data to the web
Thousands of databases hosted by development platform Supabase are exposing people’s sensitive information to the public web, new security research by cybersecurity firm UpGuard has found. UpGuard told TechCrunch that it found around 16,000 databases on which some degree of personal data was exposed while they were hosted by Supabase,…
Ahead of US IPO, British AI neocloud Nscale secures $3.36B in convertible financing
Nscale, a British neocloud, has secured $3.36 billion in financing ahead of its IPO later this year, the company announced on Friday. Structured as a convertible note, the massive funding round underscores the staggering capital required to build out AI data centers. Led by hedge fund Third Point, the new…
The hottest new hangout for middle schoolers is NPR’s comment section?
Parents have spent years trying to keep their kids off social media, so some kids headed to the one place no adult would think to look for them: NPR. On this week’s “This American Life,” host Ira Glass tells the story of the team behind NPR’s podcast “Wild Card,” who…
Automattic has a new board after failed attempt to put CEO on leave
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg has rebuilt the company’s board just weeks after its previous directors tried, and failed, to oust him. The board, which was announced to staff Friday, is an eclectic group that includes a best-selling science-fiction author and two co-founders of the now-defunct social app IRL, TechCrunch has…
At Meta Connect, the company’s smart glasses were everywhere
If there was one thing that was obvious this from Meta Connect this year, it’s that the social media giant is all-in on its burgeoning line of smart glasses. Indeed, the glasses were pretty much everywhere at the annual event, where Meta shows off its newest hardware and AI products.…
5 settings every new Android Auto user needs to change ASAP
The year is 2025 — an entire decade since the launch of the first iteration of Android Auto — but I’ve only now taken possession of a motor vehicle with the infotainment utility built into it for the very first time. Over the years, I’ve had on-again, off-again experience with…
Crusoe abandons $1.25B plan to use Boom turbines at AI data centers
Crusoe, a Denver-based AI data center startup that recently raised $3.9 billion, has ended plans to use a new line of stationary power plants developed by fellow Denver company Boom Supersonic. Founded in 2018 as a bitcoin miner that ran on excess natural gas from oil fields, Crusoe has since…