Month: January 2023

Cell network provider Google Fi confirms customer data breach

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To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here. As January is coming to a close, the TechCrunch team is firing on all cylinders (do we still say that, in a time of electric cars? What is a better expression these days?), with a wall of amazing content for you to download straight into your brain. We’ve picked the cream of the crop, even as we are further confused as to why there was cream on the crops in the first place. In summary, idiomatic English continues to confound even the biggest language nerds among us. — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 Who’s calling?: T-Mobile’s data breach last week seems to have spilled over into Google Fi, which now says hackers accessed customers’ information. Carly has more. Home sweet HomePod: Brian plugged in the 2023 Apple HomePod and shares what he likes and doesn’t like about it. More layoffs: Cloud data management giant NetApp will lay off 8%, or …

OpenAI releases tool to detect AI-generated text, including from ChatGPT

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After telegraphing the move in media appearances, OpenAI has launched a tool that attempts to distinguish between human-written and AI-generated text — like the text produced by the company’s own ChatGPT and GPT-3 models. The classifier isn’t particularly accurate — its success rate is around 26%, OpenAI notes — but OpenAI argues that it, when used in tandem with other methods, could be useful in helping prevent AI text generators from being abused. “The classifier aims to help mitigate false claims that AI-generated text was written by a human. However, it still has a number of limitations — so it should be used as a complement to other methods of determining the source of text instead of being the primary decision-making tool,” an OpenAI spokesperson told TechCrunch via email. “We’re making this initial classifier available to get feedback on whether tools like this are useful, and hope to share improved methods in the future.” As the fervor around generative AI — particularly text-generating AI — grows, critics have called on the creators of these tools …

DOJ requests Autopilot, FSD documents from Tesla

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The U.S. Department of Justice has asked Tesla for documents related to its branded Full Self-Driving and Autopilot advanced driver assistance systems, the automaker disclosed in a securities filing. Tesla said in the filing it “has received requests from the DOJ for documents related to Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD features.” “To our knowledge no government agency in any ongoing investigation has concluded that any wrongdoing occurred,” Tesla noted in the 10K filing that was posted Monday. Tesla has been under investigation by the DOJ for at least a year, Reuters reported last fall, citing three people  familiar with the matter.” It’s unclear if the DOJ’s request for documents is connected to that investigation, which was launched in late 2021 following more than a dozen accidents involving the active use of Tesla’s Autopilot system. Tesla vehicles come standard with a driver assistance system branded as Autopilot. For an additional $15,000, owners can buy “full self-driving,” or FSD — a feature that CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly promised will one day deliver full autonomous driving capabilities. Neither one …

Peacock kills its free tier option for new customers

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Peacock is no longer offering its free tier to new customers, a spokesperson for NBCUniversal confirmed to TechCrunch on Tuesday. The company says it’s shifting its focus to its Premium offering, and that doing so will allow the streaming service to remain competitive in the marketplace. The change was first reported by The Streamable. The free tier is still available to users who are already on the plan, the spokesperson said in an email. In addition, users who cancel their paid subscriptions will automatically be downgraded to the free tier. Peacock has offered the free tier since its launch in 2020, giving users restricted access to the streaming service’s content catalogue. The tier included a limited amount of content when compared to the paid tiers. New customers will now have to choose between Peacock’s Premium or Premium Plus tiers. The ad-supported Premium tier costs $4.99 per month and includes the full content library, live sports and NBC and Bravo shows after they air on TV. The Premium Plus tier costs $9.99 per month and offers …

Spotify’s test of a Friends tab on mobile hints at expanded social ambitions

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Spotify’s success with its year-end review known as Wrapped, designed for social sharing, may be pushing the company toward building more social experiences directly into its mobile app. The company for many months has been testing different iterations of a “friends activity” tab on its mobile app, and investors have now taken notice. During the streamer’s Q4 earnings call earlier today, the company was asked to clarify some details about its social plans. Though Spotify CEO Daniel Ek declined to comment on the specific feature the investor asked about, he didn’t shoot down the idea of Spotify becoming a more social platform. Instead, he replied that social could become “a meaningful driver of creating an even stickier and more engaging experience” for the company. The exec was answering an investor question about Spotify’s recent tests of a “Friends tab” which appears in the app’s bottom navigation bar for some subset of Spotify’s users. Though only an experiment at present, the test already has gained many positive reviews from members of the test group. On Twitter, …

Meta starts testing ‘members-only worlds’ in Horizon Worlds

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Meta is starting to test closed spaces called “members-only worlds” in Horizon Worlds, its social VR experience. The company has begun a limited alpha test to give creators the ability to grow and moderate their own communities. Meta has selected a small group of creators to build and obtain feedback about members-only worlds. In a blog post, Meta explained that creators can hand-select members and offer them exclusive experiences. During the alpha test, each members-only world can have up to 150 world members and 25 concurrent visitors at any given time. With members-only worlds, creators can launch a dedicated space to do things like host a book club, gather a gaming group, organize a support group or just hang out with friends and family without having to worry about uninvited guests. Image Credits: Meta “Every community develops its own norms, etiquette, and social rules over time as it fosters a unique culture,” Meta explained in its blog post. “To enable that, we’ll provide the tools that allow the creators of members-only worlds to set the …

GM invests $650M in lithium mining to lock down EV raw materials

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General Motors said Tuesday it will invest $650 million into Lithium Americas as part of an agreement to develop a mine in Nevada, the latest effort by the automaker to lock down a supply chain of key components needed to produce millions of EVs. The investment in raw materials for batteries is the biggest to date, according to GM. And it’s no wonder. General Motors has a litany of all-electric sedans, SUVs, crossovers and trucks that are coming to market in the next two years, including the GMC Sierra EV, Cadillac Lyriq, Chevrolet Silverado EV, Chevrolet Blazer EV and Chevrolet Equinox. GM said in November it expects to generate more than $50 billion in revenue from sales of its 30 EV models in 2025, with profit margins in the low to mid-single digits. But that can’t happen if supply chain constraints prevent GM from producing the vehicles. The semiconductor chip shortage that kicked off in 2020 is an experience that every automaker is keen to avoid, especially as the industry transitions to EVs. GM and …

SaaS spending squeeze, tax time tips, freemium frameworks

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If you thought egg prices were out of control, the SaaS inflation rate is outpacing the rest of the economy. In the U.S., SaaS expenses are growing 3.5x faster than market inflation. In Australia and the UK, that rises to 5x, according to Eldar Tuvey, founder and CEO of Vertice. “If cutting SaaS costs is a top priority for your business in 2023, improving your software negotiation strategy is the place to start,” he writes. Full TechCrunch+ articles are only available to membersUse discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription Finding meaningful ways to save can extend your runway and even stave off layoffs: this article contains tactics and strategies for working with vendors to reduce contract length and arrange more favorable terms. “Negotiating each of the contracts that make up your SaaS stack will provide long-term savings by mitigating the effect of rising prices,” says Tuvey. Thanks for reading, Walter ThompsonEditorial Manager, TechCrunch+@yourprotagonist When to build a freemium plan and how to get it right Image Credits: Jonathan Knowles …

Precision Neuroscience is making brain implants safer, smarter and reversible

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Brain researchers have relied on devices called microelectrode arrays for decades, but the technology behind these tools is increasingly outdated. Precision Neuroscience is building a modern alternative that’s not only an order of magnitude better, but far less invasive to put in. With a newly raised $41 million in the bank, they’re all set to embark on the complex path to market. In order to understand what’s going on in the brain, sometimes a EEG or MRI from outside it just isn’t enough — you need to really get in there. Implanted electrodes have been used for this purpose for a long time, and arrays of them in formation are used to collect information from multiple points within the cortex at the same time. But while an electrode array a couple dozen strong is invaluable in a research setting, it simply isn’t enough for something like a functional brain-computer interface. The information density is too low for the patient to, say, control a prosthetic limb or move a cursor on the screen. And you can’t …

Teal unwraps $8.8M to build out a telehealth platform for women — starting with cervical cancer screening

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Female-focused telehealth startup, Teal Health, is popping up today to announce an $8.8 million seed round with a roster of heavy hitting investors on board — including (Serena Williams’) Serena Ventures, (Chelsea Clinton’s) Metrodora Ventures, and (Laurene Powell Jobs’) Emerson Collective. The February 2020-founded San Francisco-based startup’s first product will be a service that supports women to collect their own sample for cervical cancer screening in the comfort of their own home. It wants to tackle the problem of women not getting screened — either because the traditional route of going to a doctor’s surgery for a pap smear (using a speculum) is uncomfortable or inconvenient or both. Teal has developed a novel device for women to self collect a sample to mail off for lab analysis. Its websites refers to this device as a “collection wand” — and we gather there’s a sponge involved — but details of what exactly it looks like and how it will function remain under wraps as the startup is still in the process of applying for FDA clearance, per …