Can quick commerce leapfrog e-commerce in India?

Even as quick commerce startups are retreating, consolidating or shutting down in many parts of the world, the model is showing encouraging signs in India. Consumers in urban cities are embracing the convenience of having groceries delivered to their doorstep in just 10 minutes. The companies making those deliveries — Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy’s Instamart … Read more

Astroscale’s space junk inspection satellite snaps a close-up photo of a discarded rocket stage

Astroscale’s space junk observation satellite has moved within striking distance to a discarded rocket upper stage that’s been floating around Earth for nearly 20 years, taking close-up pictures — preliminary to actually deorbiting the object in a future mission. The company released an image captured by its satellite from a distance of just 50 meters … Read more

Runway’s new video-generating AI, Gen-3, offers improved controls

The race to high-quality, AI-generated videos is heating up. On Monday, Runway, a company building generative AI tools geared toward film and image content creators, unveiled Gen-3 Alpha. The company’s latest AI model generates video clips from text descriptions and still images. Runway says the model delivers a “major” improvement in generation speed and fidelity over … Read more

YouTube is experimenting with Notes, a crowdsourced feature that lets users add context to videos

YouTube is introducing a new experimental feature that will allow viewers to add “Notes” to provide more context and information under videos, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. If the feature sounds similar, it’s because it follows the same concept as Community Notes on X (formerly Twitter). The Google-owned company says the feature can be used … Read more

Autify launches Zenes, an AI agent for software quality assurance

With the advent of generative AI, AI applications are transforming and reshaping various industries and changing how people work. Software development is no exception. San Francisco- and Tokyo-based startup Autify has built an autonomous AI agent for software quality assurance to help software engineers complete code quickly, streamline workflows and increase productivity. In other words, … Read more

Today’s your last chance to apply for the Startup Battlefield 200

Today’s the day, startup founders. It’s your final opportunity to join Startup Battlefield 200, the world’s preeminent startup competition, at TechCrunch Disrupt in October. It’s your last chance to launch on a global stage like 900+ other Startup Battlefield companies have, including Vurb, Trello, Mint, Dropbox, Yammer, TripIt, Redbeacon, Qwiki, Getaround and Soluto. Startup Battlefield … Read more

Stop playing games with online security, Signal president warns EU lawmakers

A controversial European Union legislative proposal to scan the private messages of citizens in a bid to detect child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is a risk to the future of web security, Meredith Whittaker warned in a public blog post Monday. She’s the president of the not-for-profit foundation behind the end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging app … Read more

YC-backed Hona looks to reduce the communication friction between law firms and their consumer clients

When Manny Griffiths worked with a personal injury lawyer after his wife’s car accident, he was surprised by the lack of information and communication from their lawyer regarding their claim. The couple sometimes wouldn’t hear from their lawyer for months and found the entire process to be really opaque. Griffiths dug deeper and learned that … Read more

India’s Oyo, once valued at $10B, finalizes new funding at $2.5B valuation

Oyo, the Indian budget-hotel chain startup, is finalizing a fresh fundraise of about $100 million to $125 million that slashes its valuation to $2.5 billion, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.  That’s a steep decline in the Gurgaon-headquartered startup’s value, which was worth $10 billion in 2019. The startup, struggling to raise from … Read more

Startup Battlefield 200 applications close tomorrow

Holy procrastination, startup founders! Tomorrow’s your last chance to apply to the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024. Your last chance for a shot to stand on the Disrupt stage and pitch to a huge audience packed with global tier-1 investors, hundreds of media outlets and plenty of other influential movers and shakers. Cut … Read more

YouTube is testing another way to combat ad blockers

YouTube continues its efforts to circumvent ad blockers. Earlier this week, ad blocker SponsorBlock posted that the Google-owned video service is testing out server-side ad injection with a limited number of users. Essentially, this means that both the ad is injected into the video before it arrives on your device (in contrast to client-side ad … Read more

Subscription vitamin company Care/of is shutting down

Care/of, a company offering personalized subscription vitamin packs, says it will be canceling all subscriptions as of Monday, June 17 and will no longer be accepting new orders. The news doesn’t come completely out of the blue, as Care/of had previously disclosed in a New York Department of Labor filing that it planned to lay … Read more

Apple ushers in a new era with Apple Intelligence

Welcome back to TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference had a sizable focus on AI. Apple unveiled its generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, which will be available in iOS later this year. iOS 18 will … Read more