CrowdStrike says it will lay off 500 workers

Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike said on Wednesday that it would lay off 5% of its global workforce, which amounts to about 500 workers.  In an 8-K filing, CrowdStrike said the layoffs were part of a “a strategic plan (the 'Plan') to evolve its operations to yield greater efficiencie

Spotify’s latest update gives users more control over their listening experience

Spotify on Wednesday announced an update to its app designed to give users more control over their listening experience and recommendations. The refreshed experience introduces a handful of new features that will roll out gradually to Spotify users and Premium subscribers, including features to hel

Trump administration plans to shutter money-saving Energy Star program

For years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star program has helped consumers save a collective $40 billion in annual energy costs. Now, the Trump administration wants to wind it down, according to a report from CNN.  The Energy Star program, which has a budget of $32

Mark Zuckerberg’s AI ad tool sounds like a social media nightmare

Tech executives have long talked about how AI is going to revolutionize the advertising industry. In particular, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been quite vocal about how exactly he wants his company to lead the transformation. Speaking onstage at Stripe’s annual Sessions conference in San Fra

AI data startup WisdomAI nabs $23M with a smart way to avoid hallucinations

Rubrik co-founder Soham Mazumdar, who left in 2023, has a new data startup called WisdomAI. The company offers AI data analytics that can deliver business insights with structured, unstructured, and even “dirty” data, meaning data not cleaned of typos or errors. Working with data where

VSCO is launching an AI-powered collaborative moodboard

Photo and video editing platform VSCO on Wednesday launched an AI-powered collaborative moodboard to expand how its products are used by photographers and artists. Called Canvas, the moodboard lets you import and edit your photos using the standard VSCO editing tools — so you can tune settings l

Game, Sett, funding: A startup building AI agents for game development emerges from stealth with $27M

Games drove the creation of GPU processors back in the 1990s, so it's only fitting that artificial intelligence — the technology that GPUs are used to power nowadays — is making its way into nearly every aspect of video game design. In keeping with that trend, on Wednesday a startup called

Breathe lands $21M Series B to predict battery performance

Few markets are moving as rapidly as China's automotive sector. There, new models are rolled out in as little as 18 months, putting tremendous pressure on legacy Western automakers, which need four-plus years to go from concept to sales floor. “With the increasingly short development cycles

Netflix debuts its generative AI-powered search tool

After hinting at a new AI-powered search experience during its recent earnings call, Netflix officially unveiled the feature at its tech and product event on Wednesday.  This new search experience will utilize OpenAI's ChatGPT to provide users with a conversational discovery experience. Users

Netflix is getting into short videos with a new vertical feed for mobile

Netflix announced on Wednesday that it's testing a short-form video feature, signaling that even a streaming giant with over 300 million subscribers is concerned about losing viewers' time spent on mobile to apps like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels. The company debuted the fea

Ox Security lands a fresh $60M to scan for vulnerabilities in code

As “vibe coding” gains in popularity and tech companies push devs in their employ to embrace generative AI tools, a platform that scans for vulnerabilities in AI-generated code has raised a fresh round of funding. Ox Security, which models risk across both AI- and human-produced code,

OpenAI expects to cut share of revenue it pays Microsoft by 2030

OpenAI sees itself paying a lower share of revenue to its investor and close partner Microsoft by 2030 than it currently does, The Information reported, citing financial documents. The news comes after OpenAI this week changed tack on a major restructuring plan to pursue a new plan that would see

Rivian earnings: EV maker cuts delivery guidance because of Trump’s tariffs and trade wars

Rivian said in its earnings report Tuesday it will likely deliver fewer vehicles this year than previously forecasted due to President Trump’s tariffs and other regulatory changes, making it the latest automaker to be affected by the new administration’s chaotic economic policies. The

NSO Group must pay more than $167 million in damages to WhatsApp for spyware campaign

Spyware maker NSO Group will have to pay more than $167 million in damages to WhatsApp for a 2019 hacking campaign against more than 1,400 users. On Tuesday, after a five-year legal battle, a jury ruled that NSO Group must pay $167,254,000 in punitive damages and around $444,719 in compensatory da