Thursday, July 11, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch PM! Today we bring you news about Tesla’s robotaxi; how Apple Intelligence will improve Siri; new creator features on YouTube; a first look at a new documentary that’s out of this world; and a number of funding rounds. Let’s go!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Marc Piasecki / Getty Images

Tesla’s not ready for its reveal: Tesla reportedly needs more time to build its robotaxi prototypes and is pushing its planned August unveiling to October. Employees are surprised, too. Read more

Formlabs acquires Micronics: A look behind this deal includes a two-man startup, a rather quick agreement, and a few parallels between the two companies. Read more

How Apple Intelligence is changing Siri: From ChatGPT integration to the ability to type instead of speak to Siri, there are many ways Siri will change in the coming months. Here’s a look at what the introduction of Apple Intelligence will allow you to do with the revamped digital assistant. Read more

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

mSpy data breach: mSpy, a phone surveillance app, was hit with a data breach that affected not only millions of its customers who bought access over the past decade, but also the Ukrainian company behind it. Read more

Robots do the darndest things: In a series of videos, Google’s DeepMind employees work with a smart assistant-style “OK, Robot” before asking the system to perform different tasks around the 9,000-square-foot office space. Read more

YouTube shares the love with creators: The streaming service has a suite of new features designed to make its short-form video product, YouTube Shorts, more compelling. Six to be exact, including one that will automatically transform longer videos into Shorts. Read more

Are visual AI models actually blind? That’s what a new study is saying. Read more

“Wild Wild Space”: The new HBO documentary premieres Wednesday and follows the early days of the new space race by focusing on three of its most colorful companies: rocket makers Rocket Lab and Astra, and Earth observation company Planet Labs. Read more

Copy cats: You know you’ve made it as a startup when the Big Tech companies start ripping you off. That appears to be the case with Retro, the popular photo-sharing app that’s gained a following among those who appreciate the ability to share photos and videos more privately with friends and family. Read more

What’s up with WhatsApp?

📱 WhatsApp Business is changing its per-conversation rates for businesses — a conversation is a 24-hour thread between sellers and users. It’s also reducing rates for utility messages and raising rates for marketing messages. Read more

🇮🇳 WhatsApp is also enabling businesses to send authentication and login codes through its API to users in India. Read more

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY 💰

Helsing raises $487M Series C: Defense AI startup Helsing plans to expand its presence in European nations bordering Russia. Read more

Alma raises $5.1M seed: Company co-founder Aizada Marat had such a bad immigration experience, she founded a legal AI startup to fix it. Read more

Medal raises $13M: Medal is best known for its video game clipping product; however, with this new round of funding, it unveiled Highlight, a new cross-platform desktop app that acts as a contextual AI assistant for users. Read more

HerculesAI raises $26M Series B: HerculesAI has been working at automating professional services since 2017, originally concentrating on the legal industry. In fact, it has actually been building large language models for several years, long before it was cool and long before ChatGPT. Read more

Exein raises $15M Series B: What would happen if a robotic arm on a production line was hacked and instructed to kill its human co-worker? That “device security” is the kind of thorny problem that Rome-based startup Exein is tackling. Read more

TechCrunch Minute 🕒

Unpacking Samsung Unpacked: At Samsung’s Unpacked 2024 event, the company debuted new phones, headphones and even a wearable ring. As expected, Samsung also emphasized its Google-enabled AI features. And then there’s the new earbuds. Hit play and let’s chat!

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Around the web 🌐

Is there such a thing as good inflation? It’s been a hot minute since someone told us that prices have leveled off. Bloomberg takes a look at what this means — the good and the bad. Read more

Inside the Biden administration’s plan to help the EV industry: The government came up with $1.7 billion to charge the electric vehicle industry, including funds for traditional automakers to build EVs and parts for EVs. Part of the focus is on factories that won’t do well without federal help, The Washington Post reports. Read more