Startups are still racing to build the world's first commercial fusion power plant on land, but Maritime Fusion thinks the path will be easier out at sea. Also, AI testing startup Momentic has raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Standard Capital, with participation from Dropbox Ventures. Existing investors at Y Combinator, FCVC, Transpose…

Reuters reports that the executive order has been put on hold. If signed, the order would probably face significant opposition, including from Republicans who previously criticized the proposed moratorium on state regulation. Waymo continues to expand its reach, with the robotaxi company posting Friday that it’s now “officially authorized to drive …

Plus, despite Chinese hacks, Trump’s FCC votes to scrap cybersecurity rules for phone and internet companies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesVon TechCrunch

Sierra’s rapid growth suggests that enerprises are embracing AI agents. Also, Phictly helps fans find niche clubs for their favorite books, shows, and movies, offering intimate, spoiler-safe communities with flexible pacing and tracker tools. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

The region's startup market is hungry for its first trillion-dollar startup, and in many ways has set itself up to reach that goal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesVon TechCrunch

-Cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike denied it had been hacked following claims from a hacker group, which leaked screenshots from inside CrowdStrike's network. -X's new feature will show where users are based, how they're connected to X, and how many times they've changed their username. -Two Trump-appointed FCC officials voted to undo the telecom ind…

Plus - YouTube tests an in-app private messaging feature again; Spotify’s latest feature lets you transfer playlists from other services Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesVon TechCrunch

The quickly growing prediction betting market raised fresh capital from Sequoia and CapitalG, according to someone familiar with the deal. Also, Point One Navigation, now valued at $230 million, is building out well beyond automotive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

According to Grok, Elon Musk can out slug the MLB's greatest power hitters... except Ohtani. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesVon TechCrunch

Google is upgrading its image generation model with new editing chops, higher resolutions, more accurate text rendering, and the ability to search the web. Also, the fire that broke out at the Oswego, NY Is the second major fire -- and the third overall -- in the last few months at the Novelis plant, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastc…

Curastory’s founder and CEO, Tiffany Kelly, has resigned from the role and replaced herself with Dave Dickman, former CEO of the influencer marketing platform Tagger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesVon TechCrunch

When Anthony Sardain began developing Cavela in 2023, an AI startup that helps brands automate supplier sourcing, he did not foresee that new tariffs would drive customers to become increasingly wary of manufacturing products in China. Function Health, which offers a regular lab testing service to help people track their health, wants to change tha…

Plus - Target joins OpenAI’s growing list of retail apps; TikTok will now give you badges for limiting your doomscrolling Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesVon TechCrunch

Written by: Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai The story of the Ghost in the Shell’s main villain the Puppet Master hinted at a future where governments use hackers for espionage, at a time when most of the world had never connected to the internet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

“The best ideas in drug discovery were often blocked not by biology, but by synthesis,” Boiko told TechCrunch. Synthesis is the creation of new molecules by using chemical reactions. It’s like a recipe or Lego pieces, where small pieces, ingredients, molecules, come together to form a wider puzzle picture, a food dish, a larger molecule. Learn more…

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has resigned from OpenAI’s board days after Congress released an extensive cache of emails with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which included details of intimate affairs. OpenAI is pushing deeper into retail, with Target set to debut a new ChatGPT-powered app for shoppers in coming weeks. The news fo…

Plus - Toyota keeps betting on hybrid vehicles in the US; Hank Green’s Focus Friend is Google Play’s app of the year Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesVon TechCrunch

Instead of getting an AI-generated travel plan, Boop aims to give users access to itineraries from real people who went on real trips. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesVon TechCrunch

Constellation Energy will use the loan to refurbish a reactor it idled in 2019. Microsoft has agreed to buy the power once the facility reopens in 2028. Also, Hugging Face co-founder and CEO Clem Delangue says all the attention is on LLMs, but smaller, specialized models will make sense in many use cases going forward. Learn more about your ad choi…

Zap’s Fuze-3 device has been firing pulses of plasma at the company’s headquarters in Seattle, and the results of those experiments will ultimately inform the design of the company’s future demonstration plants. The Fuze-3 device was able to compress a soup of charged particles to more than two hundred thirty two thousand PSI and heat it to more th…

With consumers increasingly asking questions to ChatGPT, not Google, product discovery is changing — and the promise to give brands visibility and control over this fast-growing search channel has made Peec AI one of Europe's hottest startups. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

Plus - Ford turns to Amazon to give used cars sales a boost; Google rolls out its AI ‘Flight Deals’ tool globally Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesVon TechCrunch

On Monday, Luminal announced $5.3 million in seed funding, in a round led by Felicis Ventures with angel investment from Paul Graham, Guillermo Rauch, and Ben Porterfield. Also, as U.S. giants like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic race to develop the large language models that underpin their AI products, startups such as Sakana AI, Mistral AI, DeepSee…

One year ago, e-commerce giant Amazon kicked off its new online car sales business with Hyundai. Now, Ford is joining in with a certified used car twist. Also, Facebook's new content protection tool extends to Instagram too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesVon TechCrunch