Friday, May 16, 2025

CarPlay Ultra at last

Thursday, May 15, 2025

Welcome to TechCrunch PM! Today we learn that the long-awaited update to Apple CarPlay is finally coming; we dig into a troubling hallucination by Anthopic's Claude model; and we meet a new startup looking to use generative AI to build new AI chips. Far out!

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Image Credits: Apple

🙌 Aston Martin owners rejoice? Three years after it was announced, Apple is launching the next generation of its CarPlay infotainment software. This new version, CarPlay Ultra, will start rolling out to Aston Martin cars first for some reason. Subarus next, though, right?

🤦‍♀️ Oops! An Anthropic lawyer had to admit that he used an erroneous citation in the company's ongoing legal battle with music publishers. Naturally, this erroneous citation was hallucinated by Anthropic's Claude AI model. Not a great look!

😴 From scroll to sleep: TikTok is launching in-app guided meditation exercises. The company claims this feature will help encourage users, especially teens, to stop scrolling late at night and log off. This will be turned on by default for its under-18 users.

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Cognichip

🧠 Chip intelligence: Cognichip has a bold strategy — to revitalize the U.S. semiconductor market. The company wants to build a foundational model that uses generative AI to speed up the process it takes to bring new chips to market, giving a foundation for more semiconductor companies to launch.

🧵 Link in bio: Meta's Threads launched a new feature in its continued attempt to lure creators to the platform. It allows creators to add up to five links — for their other social profiles or interests — to their bio. It also gives them the tools to track engagement with said links.

🦾 Accessibility for all: Yesterday, we covered Apple's new accessibility features. Today, we learned Google is rolling out more accessibility features, too, to Android and Chrome. Most notably, Google's TalkBack, which describes images to people when there is no alt text, got a Gemini-infused upgrade. People can now ask follow-up questions and get more-detailed answers about the images.

📈 Lucid's lift: Lucid Motors reported a record quarter for deliveries in Q1 2025. Now we have some intel on the nature of these deliveries. A new company car program, and sales to rental fleets, helped Lucid secure its impressive delivery total.

🛍️ AI avatars: Doji is a new app that creates an AI avatar of its users and then shows users the avatar in different outfits to inspire them to buy more clothes. The app is already gaining traction among users and just raised a $14 million seed round.

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Around the web

👀 Surveillance state: The latest episode of NPR's Close All Tabs podcast focuses on how U.S. residents are under an unprecedented level of surveillance today that they can't opt out of.

😬 A little off: AI startup Cohere, which licenses AI models to enterprises, may be in for a very different year than it originally thought. Back in 2023, the company predicted it would make $450 million in 2025. It's reportedly on track to hit $70 million, which is a very different number.