Turo scraps plans for an IPO

Turo on Thursday withdrew its plans for an IPO, ending a three-year wait to bring the online car-sharing network to the public marketplace, according to a regulatory filing. Turo, which was founded in 2010, allows private car owners to rent out their vehicles through the startup's website or a

UK drops ‘safety’ from its AI body, now called AI Security Institute, inks MOU with Anthropic

The U.K. government wants to make a hard pivot into boosting its economy and industry with AI, and as part of that, it's pivoting an institution that it founded a little over a year ago for a very different purpose. Today the Department of Science, Industry and Technology announced that it woul

Google Gemini now brings receipts to your AI chats

Google’s Gemini AI chatbot can now tailor answers based on the contents of previous conversations, the company announced in a blog post on Thursday. Gemini can summarize a previous conversation you’ve had with it, or recall info you shared in another conversation thread. This means you

OpenAI removes certain content warnings from ChatGPT

OpenAI says it has removed the “warning” messages in its AI-powered chatbot platform, ChatGPT, that indicated when content might violate its terms of service. Laurentia Romaniuk, a member of OpenAI’s AI model behavior team, said in a post on X that the change was intended to cut

Elon Musk’s full offer letter to buy OpenAI reveals five key details

A consortium of investors led by Elon Musk’s x.AI offered to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion this week. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has dismissed the proposal, which would gum up OpenAI's planned conversion from a nonprofit, something Musk is attempting to block in a lawsuit.  Altman's l

Phase raises $13M to speed up the UX design process with its no-code platform

UX and UI designers work closely with engineers throughout product development to build and implement design concepts and wireframes for functional user interfaces. Regular communication, feedback, and testing are required for the collaboration to work smoothly and deliver a user experience that al

Another robotaxi operation heads to Texas and Archer scores $300M for its defense mission

Welcome back to technewss Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click technewss Mobility! Raise your hand if you're exhausted by the firehose of information coming from every direction. Yeah, me too. 

Tofu is building an omni-channel marketing platform for enterprises

When EJ Cho started his first company in 2018, he was exposed to what it takes to market a product. He was surprised to find a market filled with different single-use tools. “It was a very frustrating experience,” Cho told technewss. “I had to learn and juggle all these differen

OpenAI scrubs diversity commitment web page from its site

OpenAI has eliminated a page on its website that used to express its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The URL “https://openai.com/commitment-to-dei/” now redirects to “https://openai.com/building-dynamic-teams/,” a page that talks about people with “different backgrounds”

Seagate acquires Intevac, which makes equipment for hard disk drives, for $119M

Seagate, the data storage company, has announced its intent to acquire Intevac, a hard drive equipment producer, in an all-cash deal worth $119 million. Seagate said on Thursday that it’ll pay $4 per share in a tender offer for Intevac, which is publicly traded. Seagate will initially purcha

Valve removes Steam game that contained malware

Valve removed a game from its Steam video game platform and store because it contained malware, according to media reports. In its notice to users who downloaded the game, Valve said affected users may want to “consider fully reformatting your operating system.” The game was called Pir

Alibaba confirms Apple deal bringing AI features to iPhones in China

Alibaba on Thursday confirmed recent reports of a partnership with Apple that's set to bring AI features to iPhones sold in China. The deal is an important one for Apple, as iPhone sales have dropped precipitously in the world's largest smartphone market. The handset experienced an 11% year

Germany’s Helsing doubles down on drones for Ukraine, scales up manufacturing

Helsing, the German defense tech startup backed by Spotify's Daniel Ek and others, is producing 6,000 HX-2 strike drones in addition to the 4,000 HF-1 strike drones financed by Germany that are currently being delivered to Ukraine. “We are scaling up production of HX-2 in response to additio

Spyware maker caught distributing malicious Android apps for years

Italian spyware maker SIO, known to sell its products to government customers, is behind a series of malicious Android apps that masquerade as WhatsApp and other popular apps but steal private data from a target’s device, technewss has exclusively learned. Late last year, a security researc