For more than two years, an app called ClothOff has been terrorizing young women online — and it’s been maddeningly difficult to stop. The app has been taken down from the two major app stores and it’s banned from most social platforms, but it’s still available on the web and through a Telegram bot. In October, a clinic at Yale Law School filed a lawsuit that would take down the app entirely, forcing the owners to delete all images and cease operation entirely. But simply finding the defendants has been a challenge.  “It’s incorporated in the British Virgin Islands,” explains…

Luminar has reached a deal to sell its lidar business to a company called Quantum Computing Inc. for just $22 million, unless it receives better offers by a deadline of 5:00 p.m. CT on Monday. The lidar-maker, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, already announced plans to sell its semiconductor subsidiary to Quantum Computing Inc. for $110 million. The deals have to be approved by the bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of Texas before they are finalized. Luminar founder and former CEO Austin Russell has signaled interest in submitting a bid for the lidar assets and…

French defense tech company Harmattan AI is rising almost as fast as the supersonic planes of its new backer. Founded in 2024, the company is now valued at $1.4 billion after raising a $200 million Series B round led by Dassault Aviation, which is best known for making the Rafale fighter jet. Harmattan AI, which builds autonomy and mission-system software for defense aircraft, had already received strong validation signals from the French and British ministries of defense in its less than two years of existence. But this funding and the accompanying partnership will give new wings to a company that…

After five years of building an edtech company, Nathan Nwachuku, 22, realized that Africa was at a crossroads. The continent is undergoing rapid industrialization, he told TechCrunch. There is money, opportunity, and a young, driven population. He figured, soon enough, the continent was on the “edge of an industrial revolution.”  “At the same time,” he said, he felt the continent still struggled to address what was one of its biggest Achilles heels. “Terrorism and insecurity.” Africa has more terror-related deaths than any region in the world, and it is this problem that could slow down — or even stop completely…

Known for its bidding-based approach to fares, inDrive is deepening its push beyond ride-hailing by rolling out advertising across its top 20 markets and expanding grocery delivery to Pakistan, executing on a “super app” strategy outlined last year to build new revenue streams and boost engagement while sustaining growth in price-sensitive markets. The latest move by the Mountain View, California–headquartered firm comes as ride-hailing platforms face intensifying competition and tighter margins across emerging markets, pushing companies to look beyond transport for growth. Advertising offers a high-margin revenue stream that scales with usage, while grocery delivery increases how frequently users open…

Instagram says that although some users received suspicious-looking password reset requests, it has not been breached. That seemingly contradicts a Friday Bluesky post from antivirus software company Malwarebytes, which shared a screenshot of an email from Instagram informing users of a request to reset their password. The post claimed, “Cybercriminals stole the sensitive information of 17.5 million Instagram accounts, including usernames, physical addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and more.” This data, Malwarebytes added, “is available for sale on the dark web and can be abused by cybercriminals.” However, Instagram subsequently posted (on X, rather than Instagram or Threads) that it…

Nearly two years ago, Motional was at an autonomous vehicle crossroads.  The company, born from a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, had already missed a deadline to launch a driverless robotaxi service with partner Lyft. It had lost Aptiv as one of its financial backers, prompting Hyundai to step up with another $1 billion investment to keep it going. Several layoffs, including a 40% restructuring cut in May 2024, had whittled the company from its peak of about 1,400 employees to less than 600. Meanwhile, advancements in AI were changing how engineers were developing the…

Sergey Brin and Larry Page appear to be pulling back from the state where they co-founded Google. The New York Times reports that in December, 15 limited liability companies overseeing Brin’s investments and interests were terminated or converted into Nevada entities. Those include LLCs that manage one of his superyachts and his interest in a private terminal at the San Jose International Airport. Similarly, 45 LLCs associated with Page have recently become inactive or moved out of state, and a trust associated with Page bought a $71.9 million mansion in Miami this week, according to the NYT. Brin and Page…

Wing, the Alphabet-owned company that delivers groceries, over-the-counter medicine, and hot lattes, is expanding its partnership with Walmart for the second time in less than a year. The two companies announced on Sunday plans to bring the on-demand drone delivery service to an additional 150 Walmart stores. The rollout, which builds off existing services at stores in Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta, will occur throughout this year and into 2027, Wing’s new chief business officer Heather Rivera told TechCrunch. The expansion suggests customers are using Wing’s drone delivery service enough to warrant growth. Rivera said its top 25% customers are using…

Following an investigation by the Guardian that found Google AI Overviews offering misleading information in response to certain health-related queries, the company appears to have removed the AI Overviews for some of those queries. For example, the Guardian initially reported that when users asked “what is the normal range for liver blood tests,” they would be presented with numbers that did not account for factors such as nationality, sex, ethnicity, or age, potentially leading them to think their results were healthy when they were not. Now, the Guardian says AI Overviews have been removed from the results for “what is…