The Brutalist Report

TechCrunch

• Snappy aquires swag-gifting startup Covver as it seks to roll-up players [11d]
• Microsoft accuses group of developing tool to abuse its AI service in new lawsuit [11d]
• Mark Zuckerberg defends Meta’s latest pivot in three-hour Joe Rogan interview [11d]
• These startups are making smarter canes for people with visual impairments [11d]
• A drone punched a hole into an LA firefighting plane [11d]
• Bench customers are now being forced to hand over their data or risk losing it, they say [11d]
• Amazon curbs some DEI programs [11d]
• TikTok ban: How both sides made their case to the Supreme Court and what the justices asked [11d]
• New OpenAI job listings reveal its robotics plans [11d]
• How OpenAI’s bot crushed this seven-person company’s web site ‘like a DDoS attack’ [11d]
• VCs say AI companies need proprietary data to stand out from the pack [11d]
• Lenovo’s latest form factors prove PCs can still be fun [11d]
• How to delete Facebook, Instagram, and Threads [12d]
• Riding in a Zoox robotaxi at CES 2025: Everything that went right and wrong [12d]
• Hugging Face settles suit with AI startup FriendliAI, which had accused it of patent infringement [12d]
• Meet the Chinese ‘Typhoon’ hackers preparing for war [12d]
• Shein is still looking to IPO [12d]
• Meta eliminates DEI programs [12d]
• January almost had its first pentacorn, and other startup news [12d]
• EU approves $35B Synopsys and Ansys merger, subject to divestment conditions [12d]
• Overhaul raises another $55M to help companies like Dyson and Microsoft fight supply chain theft [12d]
• The new Atari handheld knows its market [12d]
• TikTok pleads its case against sell-or-ban law before Supreme Court [12d]
• US government charges operators of crypto mixing service used by North Korea and ransomware gangs [12d]
• China hacked US Treasury’s CFIUS, which reviews foreign investments for national security risks [12d]
• Cannabis company Stiiizy says hackers accessed customers’ ID documents [12d]
• Gumloop, founded in a bedroom in Vancouver, lets users automate tasks with drag-and-drop modules [12d]
• Automattic says it will reduce its contribution to WordPress core project to match WP Engine [12d]