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After five years of building an edtech company, Nathan Nwachuku, 22, realized that Africa was at a crossroads. The continent is undergoing rapid industrialization, he told TechCrunch. There is money, opportunity, and a young, driven population. He figured, soon enough, the continent was on the “edge of an industrial revolution.”  “At the same time,” he said, he felt the continent still struggled to address what was one of its biggest Achilles heels. “Terrorism and insecurity.” Africa has more terror-related deaths than any region in the world, and it is this problem that could slow down — or even stop completely…

Sunday’s 83rd Golden Globes on CBS sought to build off the awards show’s growing audience from last year, delivering several award-worthy moments. But, as shown by the show’s widely derided ads for betting platform Polymarket, the odds weren’t always in the program’s favor.The 2026 ceremony featured Nikki Glaser returning for a second year to host the show at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, bringing another critically acclaimed monologue, a sketch poking fun at podcasts, and even a KPop Demon Hunters and Marty Supreme mashup, which was reminiscent of her “Pope-ular” Wicked-Conclave mashup from last year.Among the big winners,…

Known for its bidding-based approach to fares, inDrive is deepening its push beyond ride-hailing by rolling out advertising across its top 20 markets and expanding grocery delivery to Pakistan, executing on a “super app” strategy outlined last year to build new revenue streams and boost engagement while sustaining growth in price-sensitive markets. The latest move by the Mountain View, California–headquartered firm comes as ride-hailing platforms face intensifying competition and tighter margins across emerging markets, pushing companies to look beyond transport for growth. Advertising offers a high-margin revenue stream that scales with usage, while grocery delivery increases how frequently users open…

Instagram says that although some users received suspicious-looking password reset requests, it has not been breached. That seemingly contradicts a Friday Bluesky post from antivirus software company Malwarebytes, which shared a screenshot of an email from Instagram informing users of a request to reset their password. The post claimed, “Cybercriminals stole the sensitive information of 17.5 million Instagram accounts, including usernames, physical addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and more.” This data, Malwarebytes added, “is available for sale on the dark web and can be abused by cybercriminals.” However, Instagram subsequently posted (on X, rather than Instagram or Threads) that it…

Nearly two years ago, Motional was at an autonomous vehicle crossroads.  The company, born from a $4 billion joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv, had already missed a deadline to launch a driverless robotaxi service with partner Lyft. It had lost Aptiv as one of its financial backers, prompting Hyundai to step up with another $1 billion investment to keep it going. Several layoffs, including a 40% restructuring cut in May 2024, had whittled the company from its peak of about 1,400 employees to less than 600. Meanwhile, advancements in AI were changing how engineers were developing the…

Sergey Brin and Larry Page appear to be reducing their presence in the state where they co-founded Google. The New York Times reports that in December, 15 limited liability companies overseeing Brin’s investments and interests were terminated or converted into Nevada entities. Those include LLCs that manage one of his superyachts and his interest in a private terminal at the San Jose International Airport. Similarly, 45 LLCs associated with Page have recently become inactive or moved out of state, and a trust associated with Page bought a $71.9 million mansion in Miami this week, according to the NYT. Clearly, moving…

Wing, the Alphabet-owned company that delivers groceries, over-the-counter medicine, and hot lattes, is expanding its partnership with Walmart for the second time in less than a year. The two companies announced on Sunday plans to bring the on-demand drone delivery service to an additional 150 Walmart stores. The rollout, which builds off existing services at stores in Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta, will occur throughout this year and into 2027, Wing’s new chief business officer Heather Rivera told TechCrunch. The expansion suggests customers are using Wing’s drone delivery service enough to warrant growth. Rivera said its top 25% customers are using…

Google’s and Walmart’s leaders are both betting the future of retail on AI and technologies like drone delivery.Google CEO Sundar Pichai and incoming Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner — who will become the company’s next CEO in February — revealed how AI is reshaping search and shopping during a Sunday keynote at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show in New York City. The annual event is one of the most important retail conferences for marketers and retailers.Google and Walmart will partner closely, the CEOs revealed. One of the biggest reveals is that shoppers will be able to purchase Walmart and…

Following an investigation by the Guardian that found Google AI Overviews offering misleading information in response to certain health-related queries, the company appears to have removed the AI Overviews for some of those queries. For example, the Guardian initially reported that when users asked “what is the normal range for liver blood tests,” they would be presented with numbers that did not account for factors such as nationality, sex, ethnicity, or age, potentially leading them to think their results were healthy when they were not. Now, the Guardian says AI Overviews have been removed from the results for “what is…

Google today announced a new open standard, called the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) for AI agent-based shopping, at the National Retail Federation (NRF) conference. The standard, developed with companies like Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart, lets agents work across different parts of customer buying processes, including discovery and post-purchase support. The core idea is that the standard could facilitate these various parts of the process instead of requiring connections with different agents. Google said that it also works with other agentic protocols, such as Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) — which Google announced last year — Agent2Agent (A2A), and Model…

The nuclear industry is in the mist of a renaissance. Old plants are being refurbished, and investors are showering startups with cash. In the last several weeks of 2025 alone, nuclear startups raised $1.1 billion, largely on investor optimism that smaller nuclear reactors will succeed where the broader industry has recently stumbled. Traditional nuclear reactors are massive pieces of infrastructure. The newest reactors built in the U.S. — Vogtle 3 and 4 in Georgia — contain tens of thousands of tons of concrete, are powered by fuel assemblies 14 feet tall, and generate over 1 gigawatt of electricity each. But…

Officials from Indonesia and Malaysia have said they are temporarily blocking access to xAI’s chatbot Grok. These are the most aggressive moves so far from government officials responding to a flood of sexualized, AI-generated imagery — often depicting real women and minors, and sometimes depicting violence — posted by Grok in response to requests from users on the social network X. (X and xAI are part of the same company.) In a statement shared Saturday with the Guardian and other publications, Indonesia’s communications and digital minister Meutya Hafid said, “The government views the practice of non-consensual sexual deepfakes as a…

MattressMattress typeMaterialsFirmnessHeightCertificationsTrial PeriodShippingWarrantyNolah EvolutionHybridOrganic cotton or GlacioTex cover, AirFoam Luxe memory foams, gel memory foam, AirBreath border gusset, pocketed coilsPlush, luxury firm, firm15 inchesCertiPur-US, GreenGuard Gold120 nights; 30-day break in period required before initiating return ($99 shipping fee)Arrives in a box as part of standard shipping; white-glove delivery available (mattress setup and old bed removal) for $225Limited lifetimeHelix Midnight LuxeHybridTencel cover, memory foams, pocketed coilsOne option is 6.5/1013.5 inchesCertiPur-US, GreenGuard Gold120 nights; 30-day break-in period required before initiating returnFree for customers in the contiguous USLimited lifetimeBear Elite HybridHybridPhase change material (PCM) cooling cover, copper-infused memory foam, dynamic memory foam, pocketed…

The second big upgrade is in ISO. I am one of those people who will shoot up to 25,000 ISO if I need to to maintain my shutter speed and aperture where I want them. Maybe this is an old-guy film-shooter thing, but changing ISO still seems like a miracle to me, and it’s my favorite thing about digital photography—when it works. With the A7V, I was completely comfortable pushing ISO as high as 32,000. With the noise-reduction algorithms in postproduction software these days, the images still look great even at these insane ISOs. And yes, I try to keep…

Honorable MentionsPhotograph: Kat MerckSutra Heat Guard Blowout Cream for $24: I love Sutra’s IR2 hair straightener, so I had high hopes. This thick and almost fragrance-free cream is meant to protect up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and reduce drying time, but my hair felt dried out after use.Mane Temp Check for $26: “Smell cute, feel cuter” goes the slogan for this line of hair products and tools from celebrity hairstylist Jen Atkin, founder of Ouai. This pink spray immediately cheers up any bathroom counter with its handwritten-style cartoon letters, happy clouds, and lychee/rose/vanilla scent. Though I loved how it worked…

If you’re looking for a top-notch Dolby Atmos soundbar, it’s hard to beat the Sonos Arc Ultra. But Sonos is still recovering from its self-imposed 2024 software fiasco, and many of its once-loyal customers have sought refuge with the company’s competitors. Chief among these is Bluesound, a wireless, multiroom audio ecosystem from the Great White North.With a collection of speakers, subwoofers, and music streamers that closely mirrors Sonos’ lineup, Bluesound is especially popular with audiophiles who value the company’s support of lossless, hi-res audio formats and have been willing to pay a premium for it (Bluesound devices typically cost 30…