OpenAI could reportedly increase its valuation to $100 billion. Nvidia and Apple are apparently in talks to contribute to the company’s next fundraising round, and Thrive Capital would lead the deal should it happen, according to The New York Times. OpenAI’s annualized revenue reportedly eclipsed $3.4 billion early this year, but it’s said to be on track to lose $5 billion by year end as it expands its AI training and staffing efforts.
X is marking some links to NPR’s website as “unsafe.” When users click through to read the latest story about an altercation between a Trump campaign staffer and an Arlington National Cemetery employee, they are met with a warning typically applied to malicious links. It’s unclear why NPR’s site would have triggered this warning, though it raises questions about whether X is actively trying to stop the news story from spreading.
Lyft’s new pilot program aims to help drivers verify riders’ identities in a new effort to improve its security measures. Riders will now see a verification badge next to their profile, indicating that Lyft confirmed they’re using their legal name. The new program is rolling out to markets in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Jacksonville, Miami, Phoenix and Seattle.
This is TechCrunch’s Week in Review, where we recap the week’s biggest news. Want this delivered as a newsletter to your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.
News
ChatGPT won’t win a spelling bee anytime soon: Users have noticed that when asked how many times the letter “r” appears in the word “strawberry,” ChatGPT answers with twice. The reason? The LLMs powering AI chatbots aren’t actually reading the information they’re ingesting. Read more
More layoffs at Apple: Apple is reportedly cutting around 100 jobs in its digital services group, affecting the teams working for the Apple Books app and Apple News. Read more
New AI pin just dropped: Plaud’s AI-powered NotePin is focused on just one task — note-taking. Users can wear it as a necklace or a wristband, allowing them to record meetings and dictate notes, and have those recordings transcribed using OpenAI’s GPT-4o. Read more
Spotify points the finger at Apple: Spotify claims Apple may again be in violation of the Digital Markets Act after the company discontinued the technology that allows Spotify users to control the volume of their connected devices with the physical buttons on their iPhone. Read more
Tesla does a digital detox: Tesla has deleted all of its blog posts prior to 2019, effectively erasing a digital history of the company. While archive.org still has a record, neither the company nor Musk have explained why the posts were deleted. Read more
Watch the iPhone 16 reveal with us: It might have been a brat summer, but Apple says it’s “glowtime” for its iPhone 16 event. The company will host an event to unveil the new devices on September 9 at 10 a.m. PT. Here’s how to watch it live. Read more
Tumblr officially moves to WordPress: After its 2019 acquisition by WordPress parent company Automattic, the new owner will shift Tumblr’s back end over to WordPress. But don’t worry, bloggers, Tumblr won’t turn into WordPress; it will just run on WordPress. Read more
The AI doctor is in: Google has reportedly trained its Gemini AI model with 300 million pieces of audio that included coughs, sniffles and labored breathing to identify health issues and predict early signs of disease. Read more
Analysis
What it’s like to fly through Seattle’s hacked airport: Several days after the Port of Seattle announced a “possible” cyberattack on its systems, Seattle-Tacoma Airport is still largely offline, causing chaos among travelers and acting as a standing warning against taking cybersecurity lightly. TechCrunch’s Devin Coldewey knows that because he experienced it. As he writes, the response to the cyberattack is a lesson in why we have rules about where we put our eggs. Read more
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