Two more nuclear companies have been awarded large grants by the Trump administration. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Holtec will each receive $400 million from the Department of Energy to build small modular reactors based on existing nuclear fission technology. The TVA will build one 300-megawatt reactor from GE Vernova Hitachi in Tennessee, while … Read more
Fintech company Marquis is notifying dozens of U.S. banks and credit unions that they had customer data stolen in a cyberattack earlier this year. Details of the cyberattack emerged this week after Marquis filed data breach notices with several U.S. states confirming its August 14 incident as a ransomware attack. Texas-based Marquis is a marketing … Read more
Tonight, at Playground Global in Palo Alto, some very smart people who are building things you don’t understand yet will explain what’s coming. This is the final StrictlyVC event of 2025, and truly, the lineup is ridiculous. Image Credits:Aaron V Barrera Photography The series has traveled around the globe under the auspices of TechCrunch: Steve … Read more
Vulcan Elements, a rare-earth magnets startup backed by Donald Trump Jr.’s VC firm 1789 Capital, has secured a $620 million contract from the U.S. Department of Defense, as reported by the Financial Times. The contract is part of a $1.4 billion partnership with the U.S. government and ReElement Technologies to expand and boost the domestic … Read more
Earlier this year, home goods maker Kohler launched a smart camera called the Dekoda that attaches to your toilet bowl, takes pictures of it, and analyzes the images to advise you on your gut health. Anticipating privacy fears, Kohler said on its website that the Dekoda’s sensors only see down into the toilet, and claimed … Read more
In early October, DualEntry, an AI enterprise resource planning (ERP) startup, announced a $90 million Series A round led by Lightspeed and Khosla Ventures, valuing the one-year-old business at $415 million. The company seeks to replace legacy software like Oracle NetSuite with its offering that can automate routine tasks and provide predictive insights. The massive … Read more
WordPress’s experimental AI development tool, Telex, has already been put to real-world use, only months after its September debut. At the company’s annual “State of the Word” event on Tuesday in San Francisco, WordPress project co-founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg shared several examples where Telex had been used within a working WordPress shop to … Read more
The Trump administration announced plans Wednesday to lower fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks sold in the United States. With CEOs from Ford and Stellantis in attendance, President Donald Trump proposed rolling back fleet-wide fuel economy to 34.5 miles per gallon for 2031 model-year cars. The previous fuel economy standard, set under the … Read more
Can any company, big or small, really topple Nvidia’s AI chip dominance? Maybe not. But there are hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue for those who can even peel off a chunk of it for themselves, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said this week. As expected, the company revealed at the AWS re:Invent conference the … Read more
The online gaming platform Roblox has been banned in Russia, according to a report from Russian state media. Roblox is a user-generated content platform where players can create and share their own games and experiences, similar to Minecraft. The platform hosts various interest-based and affinity communities, including military roleplaying games and LGBTQ solidarity groups. But … Read more