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Google avoids break up, but has to give up exclusive search deals in antitrust trial , and more tech news Sep 03, 2025

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Google will not be forced to break up its search business, but a federal judge has tentatively ordered other changes to the tech giant’s business practices to keep it from further anticompetitive behavior.

Also, the battle over $20 billion worth of climate-related funding authorized by Congress continues as an appellate court ruled on Tuesday in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency, which had terminated Biden-era grants made to nonprofits.

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OpenAI to route sensitive conversations to GPT-5 and introduce parental controls Sep 02, 2025

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OpenAI said Tuesday it plans to route sensitive conversations to reasoning models like GPT-5 and roll out parental controls within the next month — part of an ongoing response to recent safety incidents involving ChatGPT failing to detect mental distress. The new guardrails come in the aftermath of the suicide of teenager Adam Raine, who discussed self-harm and plans to end his life with ChatGPT, which even supplied him with information about specific suicide methods.

Also, Instagram is testing a new Picture-in-Picture feature for watching reels, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Tuesday. The feature allows users to watch reels in a small, floating window on their screen while browsing other apps to allow for multitasking. The feature was first spotted by app researcher Radu Oncescu. Users who are part of the test will see a pop-up notifying them about the new feature and how to turn it on.

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Space investing goes mainstream as VCs ditch the rocket science requirements Sep 02, 2025

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Five years ago, investor Katelin Holloway made what she calls a “literal moon shot” investment. A founding partner of the generalist venture firm Seven Seven Six admits she and her team had “no clue” what rocket company Stoke Space was talking about when they pitched the firm on its reusable launch technology. She says, ‘we knew full well we were not the specialist.”

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Taco Bell is having second thoughts about relying on AI at the drive-through plus cracks are forming in Meta’s partnership with Scale AI Sep 01, 2025

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Taco Bell’s chief digital officer says the company is having an “active conversation” about when to use and not use AI. The company has apparently rolled out voice AI-powered ordering at more than 500 drive-throughs.

Also, it’s only been since June that Meta invested $14.3 billion in the data-labeling vendor Scale AI, bringing on CEO Alexandr Wang and several of the startup’s top executives to run Meta Superintelligence Labs. But the relationship between the two companies is already showing signs of fraying.

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Murder at Burning Man turns Silicon Valley’s desert playground into a crime scene plus Nvidia's two mystery customers Sep 01, 2025

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A homicide investigation has rocked the final days of Burning Man after a man was found dead “lying in a pool of blood” Saturday night at the Nevada desert festival, according to the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office. According to the New York Times, the grim discovery occurred around 9:14 p.m. just as the festival’s iconic wooden “Man” effigy began its traditional burn.

Also, customers, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Last week the chipmaker reported record revenue of $46.7 billion during the quarter that ended on July 27 — a 56% year-over-year increase largely driven by the AI data center boom.

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Mastodon says it doesn’t ‘have the means’ to comply with age verification laws; also Trump administration’s deal is structured to prevent Intel from selling foundry unit Aug 29, 2025

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Decentralized social network Mastodon says it can’t comply with Mississippi’s age verification law — the same law that saw rival Bluesky pull out of the state — because it doesn’t have the means to do so. Also, The Trump administration seems intent on controlling Intel’s ability to make key business decisions around its floundering foundry business unit. According to reporting from the Financial Times, at a Deutsche Bank conference on Thursday, Intel’s CFO David Zinsner shared new details about the company’s recent deal with the Trump administration, which gave the U.S. government a 10% equity stake.

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Anthropic users face a new choice – opt out or share your chats for AI training Aug 29, 2025

Show notes

As TechCrunch's Connie Loizos writes, Anthropic is making some big changes to how it handles user data, requiring all Claude users to decide by September 28 whether they want their conversations used to train AI models. While the company directed us to its blog post on the policy changes when asked about what prompted the move, we’ve formed some theories of our own.

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MathGPT.ai expands to over 50 institutions, also Mississippi’s age assurance law puts decentralized social networks to the test Aug 28, 2025

Show notes

Following a successful pilot program at 30 colleges and universities in the U.S., MathGPT.ai is preparing to nearly double its availability this fall, with hundreds of instructors planning to incorporate the tool. Schools implementing MathGPT.ai in their classrooms include Penn State University, Tufts University, and Liberty University, among others. In other news, an overly broad age assurance law in Mississippi is leading to arguments about which platforms — Bluesky, Mastodon, or others — offer the best solution for avoiding crackdowns on internet freedoms.

The company that makes the Bluesky social app announced last week that it would block access to its service in the state of Mississippi, rather than comply with the new age verification law.

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Nvidia reports record sales as the AI boom continues, also 911 centers are so understaffed, they’re turning to AI to answer calls Aug 28, 2025

Show notes

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, reported another quarter of sustained sales growth in its earnings statement Wednesday, with $46.7 billion in revenue, a 56% increase compared to the same period last year. That growth was largely fueled by AI-dominated data center business, which saw a 56% year-over-year increase in revenue.

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A 1997 Radiohead song is topping the charts, thanks to TikTok, plus Anthropic settled its AI book-training lawsuit, and US sanctioned a fraud network used by North Koreans Aug 27, 2025

Show notes

Thanks to an unexpected surge in popularity on TikTok, Radiohead now has its fourth-ever song on the Billboard Hot 100: the morosely gorgeous track “Let Down” from the 1997 album “OK Computer.” “Let Down” never broke through to mainstream attention like Radiohead’s “Creep” or “Karma Police,” but it’s by no means a deep cut, like the Pavement B-side “Harness Your Hopes” that went viral due to a quirk in Spotify’s recommendation algorithm. This Radiohead song is a fan favorite from an album that’s considered among the best rock records of all time.

Anthropic has settled a class action lawsuit with a group of fiction and nonfiction authors, as announced in a filing on Tuesday with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned an international fraud network used by North Korea to infiltrate U.S. companies with hackers posing as legitimate job seekers, agency officials announced Wednesday.

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