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Apple Maps has never been considered the crème de la crème of navigation apps (that honor obviously goes to Google Maps) and now, if reports are correct, its user experience is about to get ads, Bloomberg reports. Apple is gearing up to introduce the change later this year, with an official announcement about it as soon as this month, sources tell Bloomberg. Ads could start showing up in the iOS Maps app at some point this summer. Under the arrangement, companies would bid for the opportunity to promote their businesses inside the app in conjunction with relevant word searches. Maps…
London’s Air Street Capital has raised a $232 million Fund III with eyes set on backing early-stage AI companies across Europe and North America, the firm announced Monday. Check sizes will range from $500,000 to $15 million, with select growth investments reaching up to $25 million. Led by Nathan Benaich, this raise makes Air Street one of Europe’s largest solo VC funds. It’s already backed notable AI unicorns like Black Forest Labs and ElevenLabs, and has seen exits from companies like Adept (sold to Amazon) and Graphcore (sold to SoftBank). The firm now has $400 million in assets under management,…
Swish, a Bengaluru-based food delivery startup, has raised $38 million in a new funding round, as the 18-month-old company continues to draw investor interest for its 10-minute fresh food delivery service. The Series B round, led by Hara Global and Bain Capital Ventures, also saw participation from Accel, Stride Ventures, and Alteria Capital. It values Swish at $139 million post-money, more than double its valuation a year ago, and brings total funding to $54 million. The funding comes as ultra-fast food delivery remains a challenging business to sustain in India. Larger platforms such as Swiggy, Zepto, and Zomato have in…
Emil Michael, who serves as a senior technology official at the Department of Defense, is back in the spotlight over the government’s ongoing battle with Anthropic, and a newly released podcast interview offers one of the most detailed looks yet into his thinking on that dispute — as well as an unguarded settling of old scores from his Uber days. The interview, released Monday and conducted last month by Joubin Mirzadegan, a partner at Kleiner Perkins who leads the venture firm’s portfolio operating team, covered a range of topics including policy and personal history — and was recorded before the…
European countries are racing to bring new data centers online as AI labs across the globe continue to demand more compute. The primary limiting factor is energy—and specifically the ability to move it.Though Europe is on track to generate enough energy, utilities experts say, grid operators broadly lack the infrastructure needed to transport it to where it needs to go. That’s throttling grid capacity and, by extension, the number of new power-hungry data centers that can connect without risking blackouts.National Grid, which operates the transmission network in England and Wales, says that proposed data centers representing more than 30 gigawatts…
Like the champagne in the Bachelor mansion, Disney may be putting the latest season of The Bachelorette on ice. But as the Mouse House weighs the decision, millions in ad dollars hang in the balance.Disney and ABC made a shocking call last week to remove The Bachelorette from the network’s lineup days before it was set to air. The decision comes amid allegations of domestic violence against this season’s star, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives personality Taylor Frankie Paul, as well as a leaked video of an incident between Frankie Paul and her ex, Dakota Mortensen, from 2023.In a statement, Disney…
Few rivalries in the startup ecosystem are as intense (and occasionally bitter) as the race between Polymarket and Kalshi for dominance in the rapidly growing prediction market arena. Despite their fierce competition, the CEOs of both companies are investing in 5(c) Capital, a new prediction market-focused VC firm launched by former Kalshi employees, Fortune and Bloomberg reported. 5(c) Capital, a name that references a regulatory clause governing prediction markets, is raising $35 million for its first fund. Besides Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour and Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, notable investors in the fund reportedly include Marc Andreessen, through his investment in…
Walz was criticized for hyperbole after his remarks comparing Minneapolis to Fort Sumter. But what happens if tensions between state and federal forces do continue to increase, more protesters and ICE agents are injured and killed, and the security forces on each side clash directly with each other? A 2024 simulation run by the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania concluded that this is exactly how a civil conflict in America could start.Any number of events could continue to escalate polarization, distrust, and political violence in America. But a full-blown secessionist crisis would…
The main takeaway:On Monday, LG Ad Solutions and LG Electronics touted new ad capabilities for brands and content exclusives during the first day of this year’s IAB NewFronts. During the presentation, LG said these new offerings are designed to expand how brands connect with viewers across the LG TV experience. The electronics giant unveiled an “Own the Outcome” framework to support marketers across the LG ecosystem, enabling them to gain a deeper understanding of how responsive their CTV campaigns are, particularly regarding post-exposure actions and on-screen conversions. The biggest announcements:Among the offerings showcased at the NewFronts presentation, LG revealed a new, seamless…
U.S. autonomous drone delivery and logistics startup Zipline has raised another $200 million, adding to a recent funding round originally announced in January. “Things have moved a little faster than we expected,” founder and CEO Keller Cliffton said in a video message posted on X that provided a broader update on the company. The additional funds, which included participation from crypto investment firm Paradigm, has pushed Zipline’s recent Series H round to $800 million. Fidelity Management & Research Company, Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners, and Tiger Global participated in the initial tranche that valued the drone delivery startup at $7.6…
The grand opening of Polymarket’s “Situation Room” bar—a three-day pop-up experience billed as the world’s first brick-and-mortar destination for monitoring global prediction markets—should have had its own betting market on whether or not it would be a disaster. Someone could have walked away with a decent chunk of change.“Welcome to the Situation Room, everyone. We view this as our real coming-out party in DC,” Neil Kumar, Polymarket’s chief legal officer and former Commodity Futures Trading Commission counsel, said at the event. “We’ve proven that the concept of prediction markets exists, and we’ve proven that the concept is here to stay,…
Last week, cybersecurity researchers uncovered a hacking campaign targeting iPhone users that used an advanced hacking tool called DarkSword. Now, someone has leaked a newer version of DarkSword and published it on the code sharing site GitHub. Researchers are warning that this will allow any hacker to easily use the tools to target iPhone users running older versions of Apple’s operating systems who have not yet updated to its latest iOS 26 software. This likely affects hundreds of millions of actively used iPhones and iPads, according to Apple’s own data on out-of-date devices. “This is bad. They are way too…
As the Trump administration phases out the use of animal experimentation across the federal government, a biotech startup has a bold idea for an alternative to animal testing: nonsentient “organ sacks.”Bay Area-based R3 Bio has been quietly pitching the idea to investors and in industry publications as a way to replace lab animals without the ethical issues that come with living organisms. That’s because these structures would contain all of the typical organs—except a brain, rendering them unable to think or feel pain. The company’s long-term goal, cofounder Alice Gilman says, is to make human versions that could be used…
For the first time, Vizio and Walmart are giving a joint pitch to advertisers, laying out what the retail giant’s acquisition of the TV company means for brands.During a NewFronts presentation, Walmart and Vizio execs will talk up up a new login process that will help advertisers more accurately measure streaming TV ads. Walmart is also rolling out a new product placement format that appears within Vizio’s operating system.The event, titled “Content to Commerce,” will include a fireside chat with Shaquille O’Neal, as well as execs from Walmart, Vizio, NBCUniversal, Universal Pictures, and L’Oréal. Retail moves to streamingWalmart and Vizio…
Paywall bypass website Archive.today and several of its associated domains (including .is and .ph) have been blocked by Russian authorities, according to error pages that appeared when loading its websites. The pages appear blocked as of Monday when TechCrunch visited the websites from the U.S. East Coast. A page in Russian said: “Access to the Internet resource Blocked by decision of the public authorities,” citing the Russian government agency responsible for internet censorship, Roskomnadzor. According to Roskomnadzor’s listing for Archive.is, authorities confirmed that “access is limited to the page,” but did not give a reason at the time of publication.…
“Tavajoh! Tavajoh! Tavajoh!” a man’s voice announces, before going on to narrate a string of numbers in no apparent order, slowly and rhythmically. After nearly two hours, the calls of “Attention!” in Persian stop, only to resume again hours later.The broadcast has been playing twice a day on a shortwave frequency since the start of the US-Israel attack on Iran on February 28.According to Priyom, an organization which tracks and analyses global military and intelligence use of shortwave radio, using established radio-location techniques, the broadcast was first heard as the US bombing of Iran began. It has since played on…