Meta AI gets its own app

Plus: A cow microbiome startup

View this email online in your browser By Rebecca Szkutak Tuesday, April 29, 2025 Welcome to TC PM! Today we are looking into the early news coming out of Meta's Llama developer conference, like a preview of a new Llama API; we have the details on a startup helping cows produce less methane; and we've got the latest Spotify subscriber numbers. Turn it up! TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Meta 🧐 Its own app: Meta is rolling out a stand-alone AI app that could help it better compete with other AI companies like Anthropic or OpenAI. Although, it's interesting to think of the use cases here for a Meta AI app considering Meta already has Meta AI baked into all of its products.  🧑‍🏫 Learn a new language: Google announced today that it is releasing three new AI experiments that use Gemini to help people learn new languages in a personalized way. The tool can be accessed through Google Lab and includes a variety of different languages.  ✉️ Email drama: A court in India today directed the Indian government to ban encrypted email service Proton Mail in the country. This directive follows a legal complaint from a local law firm that had inappropriate emails sent to its associates and no way to find out who sent them.    A Message from HSBC Innovation Banking HSBC helps evolectric transition vehicles to 100% electric Evolectric makes it easy for owners to give their fleets a new lease on life. Discover how HSBC helps connect them to the right investors, resulting in an extended runway and growth plans for both domestic and international markets. Watch Now   Afternoon must-reads Image Credits: Amazon 🛰️ Hey, they made it: The first 17 satellites of Amazon's space-based internet program have made it into orbit. This initiative seems to clearly be looking to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink. Amazon plans to send more than 3,000 satellites to space for this initiative.  🦙 Lotta Llama news: At its LlamaCon AI developer conference today, Meta said its Llama AI model family has reached 1.2 billion downloads, a modest bump from the 1 billion the company reported a month ago. Meta also previewed an API for its Llama model family today.   🫢 Lawsuit time: Fashion startup CaaStle, whose board recently accused the founder of financial misconduct, is now facing two new lawsuits. One lawsuit is from P180, a vehicle it launched to invest in companies using CaaStle's tech, and another for EXP Topco, an apparel company.  🎶 Spotify is still growing: Spotify reported today that its premium subscriber base grew by 5 million in the first quarter, to 268 million, marking a 12% year-over-year increase. The company also reported a record-high quarterly operating income.  🐮 Moooooney: Cows produce a lot of climate-harming methane gas. Hoofprint Biome is a startup that is developing probiotics and enzymes for cows that change their microbiome in a way that is both beneficial to them and causes them to release less methane into the environment. Neat!   A Message from TechCrunch Events Last week — buy one, get second 50% off to TC Sessions: AI Last chance for Early Bird pricing to TechCrunch Sessions: AI! Buy one ticket, get the second 50% off — or go solo and save up to $210. Join us June 5 in Berkeley, California, for AI deep dives with leaders from DeepMind, Anthropic, Odyssey, OpenAI, Google Ventures, and more. Offer ends May 4 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Register Now   Around the web 🪫 An AI conundrum: Donald Trump is pushing for more AI data centers to come online in the U.S. He's also pushing the country to focus less on renewable energy sources and more on fossil fuels. But these AI data centers won't be able to keep up without renewables.  ⏪ TikTok turnaround: Why did Donald Trump reverse course on banning TikTok? The Verge argues that while Trump didn't like how the platform helped Joe Biden in 2020, MAGA-supporting TikTokers may have changed his mind.  Before you go Image Credits: Amazon 💲A sale? Amazon announced that its annual Prime Day sale shopping event will be back this July. While Prime Day is generally very popular, it will be interesting to see the interest in this year's event, as tariffs will make items more expensive. Featured jobs from CrunchBoard Software Engineer, Revive Health (Boston, MA) IT Finance Assistant, Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (Middletown, PA) Technical Business Systems Analyst, Air Line Pilots Association (Tysons, VA) Partnerships Manager, Clearscope (Remote) Sr. IT Security Engineer - Computing Services, Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.   Check out some of our other newsletters: Startups Weekly TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 680 Folsom Street,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy

OpenAI fixing bug that let minors generate erotica on ChatGPT

Also: The unexpected hurdle in Canoo's bankruptcy sale

View this email online in your browser By Dominic-Madori Davis Tuesday, April 29, 2025 Welcome to TechCrunch AM! It's Dom, and I'm your guest writer this morning. We're looking at ChatGPT's lowered guardrails; Yelp's voice agent for restaurants; what's stopping Canoo's bankruptcy sale; Alibaba's latest slate of AI models; what to expect from LlamaCon, and more. TechCrunch Top 3 Image Credits: Silas Stein / picture alliance / Getty Images 1. A little can be a lot: OpenAI's intent to relax guardrails around ChatGPT may have backfired. TechCrunch testing revealed that ChatGPT happily writes erotica even for accounts where the user was registered as a minor. The company told us it is "actively deploying a fix." Read More 2. A mystery man steps in: Charles Garson, an investor with no clear ties to bankrupt EV startup Canoo, is trying to stop the sale of the startup's assets to its former CEO. Garson called the sale a flawed process, saying he's offering $20 million for Canoo's assets, more than Canoo CEO Anthony Aquila's $4 million bid. He isn't the only one protesting the sale, however. Read More 3. More competition: Alibaba has released a group of AI models called Qwen3, which it says can match and even outperform some of the flagship models from Google and OpenAI. The models are set to be released on Hugging Face and GitHub. Read More   A Message from RemoFirst An Employer of Record partner you can trust Ready to grow your team globally? Don't gamble with compliance or take risky employment shortcuts. RemoFirst enables you to employ international talent in 185+ countries while meeting all global compliance requirements (including AML and KYC). See why startups & Fortune 500 companies choose RemoFirst for their global HR management. Employ International Talent   Morning Must-Reads Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch ☮ Reminiscent of the 60s: New research from Google has found that hackers working for governments were responsible for the majority of zero-day exploits used in real-world cyberattacks last year. Read More 📜 You've been served: Deel's CEO Alex Bouaziz has been served legal papers amid its ongoing suit with Rippling. The latter's bailiffs previously said they couldn't find Deel execs to serve, but things came to a head in court and Deel chose to be formally served via representatives in Ireland. Read More 🤙 How can AI help you? Yelp is deploying "voice agents" to help restaurants and service providers handle some customer service tasks, like answering calls or adding people to waitlists. Read More 🍀 Playing matchmaker: London-based startup Dex wants to make companies' lives easier by using AI to find them talent. It's raised a $3.1 million pre-seed from names like a16z's Speedrun fund, Meta board member Charlie Songhurst, and Deliveroo COO Eric French. Read More 🤗 Why give your data only to Meta? A company called Grouphug is looking to add some AI magic to WhatsApp chats. GroupHug can take a WhatsApp chat and generate memes and other funny content from the text right now, but the company plans to launch a platform to generate more value out of WhatsApp groups using generative AI. Read More 🇮🇳 Reddit takes on another language: Reddit users can now automatically translate posts and comments into Hindi, and they'll soon be able to do that in Bengali, too. The social platform is really trying hard to woo users in India, which boasts one of the world's largest internet user base. Read More   A Message from TechCrunch Events StrictlyVC talks tech with Greece's PM in Athens StrictlyVC lands in Athens on May 8 — our first event in Greece! Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis joins Europe's tech leaders like Dimitrios Kottas (Delian Alliance Industries), Haris Pylarinos (Hack the Box), and more to talk about Greece's tech momentum. Join the conversation. Register Now   Around the Web 🤑 Gotta have skin in the game: The New York Times has a deep dive on President Trump's crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, which seemingly blurs the lines between private business and government policy. Read More 🔋 An unlikely source: Authorities have ruled out the possibility of a cyberattack for the blackouts in Spain and Portugal, the worst Europe has seen in 20 years. But, some think it might have been caused by a disruption to their solar power supply, per Financial Times. Read More Before You Go 🦙 Meta is hosting its first AI developer event, LlamaCon, today. The company will livestream some big keynotes and firesides, so we've put together a list of what you can expect. Read More Featured jobs from CrunchBoard Software Engineer, Revive Health (Boston, MA) IT Finance Assistant, Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (Middletown, PA) Technical Business Systems Analyst, Air Line Pilots Association (Tysons, VA) Partnerships Manager, Clearscope (Remote) Sr. IT Security Engineer - Computing Services, Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $349 per month.   Check out some of our other newsletters: Startups Weekly TechCrunch AI TechCrunch Mobility Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Update your preferences here at any time Copyright © 2024 TechCrunch, All rights reserved.Yahoo Inc. 680 Folsom Street,San Francisco,CA Privacy Policy