TechCrunch Industry News

The United Kingdom’s NHS — the world’s largest public health service — is working on creaking IT infrastructure. In any sector, that’s a ticking time bomb. But when you consider that the NHS holds medical records for nearly 67 million people, a breach of that system could become a meltdown; Sophia Tung set up a livestream this past summer, showing self-driving Waymo cars honking from the San Francisco parking lot near her apartment at all hours of the night; Meta’s X rival Threads is rolling out a new “activity status” feature that will let you see when someone on the social network is online. Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced the feature on Tuesday in a Threads post, noting that it’s meant to act as “a way to help you find others to engage with; and if you like open-source, decentralized social networks that put the power in the hands of the people instead of billionaires, you can now support that cause…by buying toys. On Tuesday, Mastodon, a decentralized alternative to X, began selling its own merchandise in the form of cute, plushie mastodons – the proto-elephants with long tusks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

During Tesla’s much-hyped robotaxi reveal event last week, CEO Elon Musk said he expects Tesla to release an “unsupervised” version of FSD, the automaker’s advanced driver assistance system, in Texas and California in 2025 on certain Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

During Tesla’s “We, Robot” event last week, which TechCrunch covered late into the night,, sources on the ground sent me a handful of videos of the automaker’s Optimus humanoid robots walking around the party, dancing, mixing drinks, and talking to guests. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the deal, Google joins Microsoft and Amazon in turning to nuclear power to satiate its thirst for electricity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The telecom industry is undergoing its greatest period of disruption since the telegraph, as companies work to open up space as the next frontier for communications. French startup Constellation hopes to take part by repurposing 5G tech to provide a Starlink-like satellite broadband that uses telecoms’ existing assets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A ransomware and extortion racket called Underground has claimed responsibility for the breach on its dark web leak site, which TechCrunch has seen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Interlagos, the venture capital firm started by former senior SpaceX leaders, is looking to raise $550 million for its first venture fund, according to regulatory filings and a confidential deck sent to prospective LPs and viewed by TechCrunch.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social networking startup Bluesky is seizing the moment. Amid ongoing moderation issues affecting X rival Instagram Threads, the decentralized X competitor Bluesky has created an account on Meta’s newest platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

AI is spamming up job applications. 404 Media’s Jason Koebler writes about how he used a free tool, AI Hawk, to apply for 17 jobs in an hour while working a restaurant shift — only stopping when he’d reached 2,843; The Internet Archive, the nonprofit organization that digitizes and archives materials like web pages, came under attack Wednesday; The startup, which already monitors the climate impact of digital advertising, is expanding to include artificial intelligence; Opera browser has a new AI-powered feature that lets you take action on tabs through natural language queries. Things you can do include grouping, pinning, bookmarking and closing tabs with these commands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A multi-year competition challenge to Facebook (aka Meta), which saw Germany’s antitrust authority become a pioneering champion for privacy rights in 2019 after it sought to block the social media giant’s ‘superprofiling’ of users on the grounds that consentless cross-site tracking of users is an “exploitative abuse” of Facebook’s monopoly position, finally concluded Thursday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices