Signal downloads spike in the US and Yemen amid government scandal

The encrypted messaging app Signal is getting some unexpected attention this week. High-ranking officials in the Trump administration, including Vice President J. D. Vance and Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth, communicated the plans for an attack on the Yemeni Houthis via a potentially unauthor

New Utah law makes app stores responsible for age verification

Meta, X, and Snap are celebrating a new Utah law that will require Apple and Google to take responsibility for verifying users’ ages on their app stores and obtain parental consent for minors. The tech giants have been battling to determine which party should be responsible for age verificat

YC alum Mendel, a 'Ramp for LatAm enterprises,' raises $35M Series B

Mexico City-based Mendel has raised $35 million in a Series B round of funding, it tells technewss exclusively. Corporate spend management platform Mendel last raised in December 2021 — a $15 million Series A round and $20 million in debt — after participating in Y Combinator's Wi

eBay backs WunderGraph to build an open source GraphQL federation

A fledgling open source startup that’s setting out to tackle API sprawl in the GraphQL ecosystem has secured the backing of e-commerce giant eBay. WunderGraph, as the company is called, today said it has raised $7.5 million in a Series A round of funding to “scale its open source Graph

With the Switch 2 coming, Nintendo is working on Virtual Game Cards for cross-device portability

Nintendo announced on Thursday that it is working on Virtual Game Cards, a feature that makes digitally downloaded games more portable across different devices. With the highly awaited Nintendo Switch 2 on the horizon, these Virtual Game Cards will make it easier for users to port over their existi

Google rolls out new vacation-planning features to Search, Maps, and Gemini

Google is rolling out a slew of new features — some powered by AI — across Search, Maps, and Gemini that are designed to help people plan their summer vacations. The new features arrive as users have been turning to tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT for help with planning trips. Google Search&

Times Internet spinout Abound raises $14M to let more Indian Americans send money home

Abound, a remittance app that was spun off by Times Internet in 2023, has raised $14 million in its first external funding round as it aims to reach more Indian expats in the U.S. Remittance flows to India are rising as the Indian diaspora spreads worldwide. In 2024, the South Asian country recor

OpenAI’s viral Studio Ghibli moment highlights AI copyright concerns

It’s only been a day since ChatGPT’s new AI image generator went live, and social media feeds are already flooded with AI-generated memes in the style of Studio Ghibli, the cult-favorite Japanese animation studio behind blockbuster films such as “My Neighbor Totoro” and R

UnitedHealth scrubs mentions of DEI from its website

UnitedHealth Group has scrubbed much of its website mentioning its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, including pulling down blog posts and removing large sections from its website, technewss has learned. According to archived copies of UnitedHealth’s website, several of the c

Island lands $250M in funding at a $4.8B valuation

Enterprise browser startup Island just raised a sizable funding round — one that bumps up its valuation significantly, and less than one year after its last fundraise. Dallas-based Island raised $250 million in a Series E round led by Coatue that valued the company at $4.85 billion, the star

The Lumon Terminal Pro computer pops up on Apple’s website

The Lumon Terminal Pro — the computer used in Apple TV’s hit series “Severance” — has appeared on Apple’s retail website. When shopping Apple.com, you’ll see the new device, adorned with a red “New” label, when you click to view the available Ma

OpenAI adopts rival Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to data

OpenAI is embracing rival Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data resides. In a post on X on Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that OpenAI will add support for Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol, or MCP, across its products, including the desktop

SpaceX reportedly has a secret backdoor for Chinese investment

Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX has allowed Chinese investors to buy stakes as long as the funds are routed through the Cayman Islands or other offshore hubs, according to reporting from ProPublica.  SpaceX is a defense contractor for the Pentagon, one that handles sensitive work like b

Leaked data exposes a Chinese AI censorship machine

A complaint about poverty in rural China. A news report about a corrupt Communist Party member. A cry for help about corrupt cops shaking down entrepreneurs. These are just a few of the 133,000 examples fed into a sophisticated large language model that’s designed to automatically flag any p