Friday, May 24, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we have a quick newsletter for you so we can all race off to enjoy our Memorial Day weekends. We have notes on yet more tech layoffs; a cybersecurity incident at drug giant Cencora; memes on AI mishaps; Biden’s call to shut down abusive AI images, and more. Have a great weekend! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Lucid

1. Lucid Motors slashes 400 jobs: One of the hordes of struggling EV companies that went public via blank-check companies, Lucid Motors is laying off about 400 employees. The restructuring comes ahead of the launch of its first electric SUV later this year. Last year, the company laid off 1,300 employees as it struggled to find customers for its sedan, Air. Read More

2. More Americans’ health data compromised in new breach: The healthcare industry just can’t get a break: Drug developer Cencora is the latest to reveal that it suffered a data breach some time ago, and apparently “patient names, their postal address and date of birth, as well as information about their health diagnosis and medications” have been stolen. Cencora accounts for about 20% of the pharmaceuticals sold and distributed in the U.S., and more than half-a-million people have been affected. Read More

3. Europe gets spacey: The European Space Agency is giving Thales Alenia Space and The Exploration Company €25 million to advance concept vehicles that can transport cargo to and from stations in low-Earth orbit. This would establish the continent’s first sovereign access to space — a necessity in the face of the impending deorbit of the International Space Station and the rise of privately owned space stations. Read More

A MESSAGE FROM DELINEA

Rising Challenges in Cyber Insurance: What Companies Must Know

A comprehensive survey sheds light on the critical aspects of cyber insurance, revealing more than just a 'check-the-box' necessity for organizations.

Learn More

Morning Must Reads

Image Credits: franckreporter / Getty Images

Layoffs hit Foursquare: Foursquare is laying off 105 employees, which, a source tells TechCrunch, is about 25% of its workforce. The usual reasons are at play: Streamlining operations on the path to “more sustainable financial footing.” Read More

That Car Thing is dead: Remember when Spotify made a weird hardware play and came out with Car Thing? Well, it discontinued the thing in 2022, and the music streaming service has now alerted customers that the devices will stop working at the end of this year. Some users, who spent $90 on the device, are demanding refunds. Read More

Google buys into e-commerce in India: Google is investing nearly $350 million in Indian e-commerce startup Flipkart, which will also get some of Google’s cloud products as part of the deal. The investment is part of a nearly $1 billion funding round that Flipkart has been raising since last year. Read More

France is buzzing: The French government has selected a new cohort of 120 high-potential startups – dubbed French Tech 120 – as well as 40 private companies deemed most promising – the Next40. The top 120 cohort altogether had net revenue of €10 billion in 2023, and they cover areas like AI and deep tech. Read More

Bringing speech therapy into the home: Speech therapy can be highly effective, but it’s also a lot of work to train patient caregivers in such therapeutic techniques. Expressable wants to bridge that gap with its service, through which patients can get one-on-one virtual sessions with speech language pathologists. Read More

Around the Web

Meta wants to monetize its AI already: Meta is working on a paid version of its AI assistant, The Information reports. The plan makes sense, since running AI can be a tad expensive — even though it feels a bit too early in the day. Read More

OpenAI wants former employees to know it’s not evil: It came to light recently that OpenAI had implemented draconian nondisparagement agreements for its ex-employees. Now, the company has reversed course and said it won’t cancel staffers’ vested equity if they speak out about the company, reports Bloomberg. (If you have any tips for TechCrunch, send us an encrypted email to tips@techcrunch.com.) Read More

White House wants to shut down market for abusive AI images: The Biden administration wants tech companies to volunteer to commit to stopping the creation, spread and monetization of nonconsensual, sexually-explicit AI images, reports AP. There are currently no federal laws banning deepfake porn, although several bills are slowly working their way through Congress. Read More

A MESSAGE FROM ESPER

Overcoming Challenges with Operationalizing AI
at the Edge

Bridging the gap from an AI pilot to real-world impact is challenging, but not if you have the right tools to optimize deployment, reduce costs, and update with fluidity. It’s not impossible — it’s reality. Let’s break it down.

Before You Go

Image Credits: efenzi / Getty Images

Red-teaming AI for fun and memes: Google may have released its AI snippets feature a little too early: People are having fun with memes about how Google’s AI is giving out ridiculous responses to prompts despite the company having tons of resources. While it’s funny to make memes clowning on these companies, Google’s devs would likely be happy about the free feedback they’re getting as they test and develop AI. Read More