Bench is charging people for services they already paid for, some customers say
After Employer.com acquired bankrupt accounting startup Bench in a fire-sale late last year, CEO Jesse Tinsley pledged on LinkedIn and elsewhere to honor past customer payments.
“We’re honoring all prepaid Bench services even though we will not have the revenue from that directly ourselves
AI coding assistant Cursor reportedly tells a ‘vibe coder’ to write his own damn code
As businesses race to replace humans with AI “agents,” coding assistant Cursor may have given us a peek at the attitude bots could bring to work, too.
Cursor reportedly told a user going by the name “janswist” that he should write the code himself instead of relying o
Profitable Klarna files for a potentially blockbuster IPO
Swedish fintech Klarna took the next step in its highly anticipated U.S. IPO on Friday when it made its F-1 prospectus public. We are sifting through the document now.
Klarna hopes to raise at least $1 billion at a $15 billion valuation with this IPO, Bloomberg reported last week. The public docum
Google is replacing Google Assistant with Gemini
Google will replace Google Assistant on Android phones with Gemini later this year, the company announced on Friday.
Google said in a blog post that it’ll upgrade more users from Google Assistant to Gemini “over the coming months.” Later this year, Assistant will no longer be ac
‘Open’ AI model licenses often carry concerning restrictions
This week, Google released a family of open AI models, Gemma 3, that quickly garnered praise for their impressive efficiency. But as a number of developers lamented on X, Gemma 3’s license makes commercial use of the models a risky proposition.
It’s not a problem unique to Gemma 3. Com
Tern AI's low-cost GPS alternative actually works
We've all experienced that moment of frustration when the GPS glitches and you miss an exit on the highway. The team at Tern AI, which is building a low-cost GPS alternative, says that's because the current technology is limited by its reliance on satellite positioning.
Tern AI says
How 'The Electric State' team created a world of unlikely robots
The new Netflix movie “The Electric State” depicts a world full of robots — but not robots as we know them.
Directed by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo (who previously helmed two Avengers blockbusters, “Infinity War” and “Endgame”) for a reported budget of $320 million, “The Electri
Startups Weekly: Founders may be raising less, but deals haven't been lacking
Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can't miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here.
This week showed more optimism among startups than in other corners of the world, with entrepreneurs feeling confident enough to acquire o
Arizona proposes law that would shift wildfire liability from utilities to insurers
Arizona lawmakers are debating a bill that would protect utilities from wildfire-related lawsuits, a move that would likely send shockwaves through the insurance industry.
The bill would make it harder to prove that utilities are to blame for wildfires started by faulty or poorly maintained
No one knows what the hell an AI agent is
Silicon Valley is bullish on AI agents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said agents will “join the workforce” this year. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella predicted that agents will replace certain knowledge work. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that Salesforce’s goal is to be “the number
iPhone and Android users will soon be able to send encrypted RCS messages to each other
Text messages sent between iPhones and Android devices will soon benefit from end-to-end encryption (E2EE), after the GSM Association (GSMA) yesterday published new specifications for the Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol that include support for cross-platform E2EE.
RCS is a long-standin
US lawmakers urge UK spy court to hold Apple ‘backdoor’ secret hearing in public
A group of bipartisan U.S. lawmakers are urging the head of the U.K.’s surveillance court to hold an open hearing into Apple’s anticipated challenge of an alleged secret U.K. government legal demand.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, along with four other federal lawmakers, said in a letter this
Kerry Washington invests in wedding marketplace Cheersy
Kerry Washington is expanding her angel investment portfolio, serving as lead investor in the pre-seed round of the wedding marketplace Cheersy.
Cheersy, which was founded in 2024 by Amy Shack Egan, helps couples find day-of-service wedding coordinators and has raised a total of $550,000 fro
SoftBank buys $676M old Sharp plant for its OpenAI collab in Japan
SoftBank is marching ahead on its ambitions to build out a major AI operation in its home market of Japan, on its own steam and in strategic partnership with others like OpenAI. On Friday, the tech company confirmed it would pay $676 million for a factory previously used by Sharp to build LCD panel