Meta now allows preteens to explore Horizon Worlds with parent's permission

Meta is now letting preteens with parent-managed accounts explore different experiences in its online virtual reality (VR) platform, Horizon Worlds, with certain restrictions in place. The company announced that parents will soon be able to approve age-appropriate worlds they'd like their pret

IBM Cloud to offer Intel’s Gaudi 3 AI chips next year

Intel has found its first cloud customer for its Gaudi 3 AI accelerator chip: IBM Cloud. IBM and Intel on Thursday said IBM Cloud will begin offering Gaudi 3 to customers early next year. The chip’s accelerators will be available for both hybrid and on-premise environments, and IBM says it p

Russian government hackers found using exploits made by spyware companies NSO and Intellexa

Google says it has evidence that Russian government hackers are using exploits that are “identical or strikingly similar” to those previously made by spyware makers Intellexa and NSO Group. In a blog post on Thursday, Google said it is not sure how the Russian government acquired the e

Social network Butterflies AI adds a feature that turns you into an AI character

Butterflies AI, the new social network where humans and AIs interact with each other, is launching a new Clones feature that turns you into an AI character. This latest addition builds on a feature launched to the public back in June that lets users create AI personas, called Butterflies, that au

UK's Wayve secures strategic investment from Uber to further develop self-driving tech

Uber is making a strategic investment into Wayve as an extension of the U.K.-born startup's previously announced $1.05 billion Series C round. The partnership will also see the two companies work with automakers to integrate Wayve's AI into consumer vehicles that will one day operate on the

France formally charges Telegram founder, Pavel Durov, over organized crime on messaging app

After spending four days in police custody, the founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, was put under formal investigation in France on Thursday for a wide range of criminal charges. He was released from custody on the condition that he does not leave French territory during the i

Reliance skips IPO updates for Jio and Retail in AI dominated event

Reliance Industries, India’s largest company by market capitalization, is not ignoring the AI frenzy that has gripped the tech world. At the company’s 47th annual general meeting on Thursday, Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani and other executives mentioned AI nearly three dozen times wit

Durex India spilled customers’ private order data

Durex India, the Indian subsidiary of the British condom and personal lubricants brand, has exposed its customers’ personal information, including their full names and order details. Security researcher Sourajeet Majumder contacted technewss this week about the issue of exposing sensitive c

Apple’s new iOS developer beta lets you remove objects from pictures using AI

Apple has added yet more AI features in its latest developer betas for iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS 15.1, and this time we’re getting the ability to remove objects from photos. The feature, called Clean Up, lets users identify and remove objects from pictures without affecting the rest o

NEA quietly reenters the secondaries market

New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is getting back into the secondaries game.  The Silicon Valley-based VC raised more than $468 million for NEA Secondary Opportunity Fund, according to an SEC filing. The fundraise closed on July 3, according to a source familiar with the matter, but hasn’

One of Bolt’s proposed new backers, The London Fund, has been scrubbing its web page

One-click checkout tech company Bolt is still waiting to find out if shareholders will sign off on a proposed funding round with stipulations that founder Ryan Breslow would return as CEO. In the meantime, Axios' Dan Primack did some digging around on The London Fund, a firm that is suppose

Reddit back online after a software update took it down

Reddit’s mobile and web applications went down on Wednesday afternoon, with more than 150,000 users reporting outages on Downdetector as of 1:30 p.m. in San Francisco. When trying to access Reddit’s homepage, users were met with the message, “Server error. Try again later.”

OpenAI's Converge 2 program has been shrouded in mystery

Last December, OpenAI announced it was opening applications for its second cohort of a six-week accelerator program it had kicked off in 2022. Then things grew very quiet. But OpenAI's Converge 2 startup accelerator program did indeed take place, according to two sources familiar with the progr

Bluesky adds ‘anti-toxicity’ tools and aims to integrate ‘a Community Notes-like’ feature in the future

Social networking startup and decentralized X competitor Bluesky is introducing new features designed to make its platform less toxic and conversations less combative than on its predecessor. The company on Wednesday introduced a handful of anti-abuse features, including the ability to hide replies