Angel investor Hannah Bronfman is ready to launch her own fund

Early Thursday morning, excited AfroTech attendees shuffled into a conference room to see one thing: Hannah Bronfman, a noted angel investor who has more than 1 million followers on social media, in conversation with Blavity founder and CEO Morgan DeBaun.  Bronfman is a wellness content creat

Musk’s amended lawsuit against OpenAI names Microsoft as defendant

Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI accusing the company of abandoning its nonprofit mission was withdrawn in July, only to be revived in August. Now, in an amended complaint, the suit names new defendants, including Microsoft, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and former OpenAI board member a

Heroku CEO Bob Wise departs

Bob Wise, the CEO of Heroku, Salesforce’s cloud platform as a service (PaaS), has left. A Salesforce spokesperson confirmed the news to technewss in a statement via email. “Bob Wise has left Salesforce for his next career move,” the spokesperson said. “We appreciate all t

Sam Altman and Arianna Huffington’s Thrive AI Health assistant has a bare-bones demo

In a splashy op-ed in Time published this summer, Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced Thrive AI Health, a venture with the goal of building an AI-powered assistant to promote healthier lifestyles. Backed by Huffington's mental wellness firm Thrive Glob

How to use Bluesky, the Twitter-like social app taking on Elon Musk’s X

Bluesky is continuing to blow up. The Twitter-like service and alternative to Elon Musk’s X, has now surpassed 16 million users after seeing rapid growth in the days following the U.S. presidential election. While many are leaving X over the service’s increasing right-wing leanings and

Chinese autonomous driving startup Pony AI seeks up to $224M in US IPO

Pony AI is inching closer to its initial public offering in the U.S., but as it does so, it continues to drop its minimum target for what it hopes to raise in the transaction.   Pony operates a fleet of 190 “robotrucks” in Beijing and Guangzhou and more than 250 robotaxis in Beijing,

Bluesky is courting the Swifties

Bluesky has grown by 2 million users — about 15% — since Donald Trump won the U.S. election last week. But the emerging social platform isn’t just acting as a refuge for left-leaning X users who are disappointed in Elon Musk’s alliance with the president-elect. A community of Taylor

The $7,500 EV tax credit is on Trump’s chopping block

Republicans have long opposed the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles contained in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Now, it seems President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has made that a priority with plans to end the tax credit as part of broader tax reform legislation, R

‘Hawk Tuah’ girl launches Pookie Tools, an AI-powered dating advice app, and it’s fine?

Haliey Welch, the 22-year-old who went viral for her “Hawk Tuah” video, has managed to turn her brief moment of fame into a full-fledged career. In just a few months, Welch has rapidly risen to fame, amassing around 5 million followers across various social media platforms.  After recentl

Will Rivian be Volkswagen's software savior? VW is betting $5.8B it will

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! Before we jump into the news, I wanted to steer you toward a recent technewss Equity podcast episode with Waabi co-founder and

ChatGPT can now read some of your Mac’s desktop apps

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is starting to work with other apps on your computer. On Thursday, the startup announced the ChatGPT desktop app for macOS can now read code in a handful of developer-focused coding apps, such as VS Code, Xcode, TextEdit, Terminal, and iTerm2. That means dev

New Apple security feature reboots iPhones after 3 days, researchers confirm

Apple's new iPhone software comes with a novel security feature that reboots the phone if it's not unlocked for 72 hours, according to security researchers. Last week, 404 Media reported that law enforcement officers and forensic experts were concerned that some iPhones were rebooting them

Ecolectro stuffs hydrogen production into shipping containers to cut costs

For all its promise as a climate-friendly fuel, hydrogen hasn't had much luck. It lost the battle over personal transportation to battery electric vehicles, and for industrial users, it remains far more expensive than natural gas. That's in part because natural gas can flow through sprawli

AI pioneer François Chollet leaves Google

François Chollet, a leading figure in the AI world, is leaving Google after close to a decade. In a post on X, the 34-year-old French developer said he’s starting a new company with “a friend,” but he declined to reveal many details. “I’m very gratef