Techcrunch blog!: PayPal works on offline payments as the Digital Markets Act looms

Thursday, February 08, 2024

Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to TechCrunch PM. It's been a busy day, so I won't delay. Today, PayPal has a plan for offline payments, and Google will make you regret anything you've typed into Gemini. Then say "good-bye" to those annoying AI-voiced robocalls and "hello" to Plaid's new president.

— Christine

Image Credits: Photo by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek / Getty Images (Image has been modified)

TechCrunch PM Top 3

PayPal wants to be a true pay pal: PayPal says it will be "ready" to take advantage of the new European Union's newest regulation, the Digital Markets Act, when it goes into effect next month. This includes a plan for offline payments, or those taking place in physical retail stores. Sarah Perez writes this is an area PayPal has unsuccessfully tried to expand into for years.

Write it, regret it: That's the message Google is sending in a new support document where it reveals that it saves conversations with its AI-powered Gemini apps for years.

"I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!": A fake app made to look like the password manager LastPass was removed from the Apple App Store. Apple isn't commenting yet, so we aren't sure who removed it. Learn what we do know.

Image Credits: Artur Widak/NurPhoto / Getty Images

More top reads

FCC hangs up on some robocallers: The Federal Communications Commission declared AI-voiced robocallers illegal. This comes a few days after New Hampshire residents received calls from someone who sounded like President Joe Biden. It might not be a permanent fix, but it's a step in the right direction.

Speaking of fake: The European Union is looking at draft election security mitigations with a goal to cut down on the amount of generative AI and deepfakes that are increasingly being posted on social media, imposing risks to democratic processes.

More on Ivanti: Here we go again — researchers say hackers have begun mass exploiting a third vulnerability affecting Ivanti's widely used enterprise VPN appliance.

Seeing is believing: Brilliant Labs is carving out a niche for itself in the augmented reality space with its glass that features multimodal AI. Investors love it, too, and gave them more money.

Closinglock wants to make sure you don't lose your house downpayment: The Austin-based startup grabbed another $12 million to continue developing its secure portal for wiring real estate transactions.

New hires: It was a day for brand-new roles. Over at General Motors, Kurt Kelty, a battery expert and ex-Tesla executive, is the automaker's new vice president of batteries. Meanwhile, Plaid snagged former Cloudflare chief product officer Jennifer Taylor, who steps into the role of the fintech startup's president.

Even more AI: It's everywhere, including all over this newsletter. Crux snagged $2.6 million to develop a generative AI platform to power business intelligence tools. Next, serverless data platform Upstash also has a new stack of cash and hit annual recurring revenue of $1 million just two years after its seed funding. And Glass is tapping into AI to supercharge smartphone cameras. Meanwhile, over on TechCrunch+, Alex says AI-powered software will be the stuff company dreams are made of.

Helmet head: Apparently Livall's smart ski and bike helmet had a security flaw that allowed silent location tracking.

Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

On the pods

On today’s episode of Chain Reaction, Jacquelyn interviewed Devin Finzer, the CEO of NFT marketplace OpenSea. Despite the NFT market's trading volume falling from all-time highs in late 2021 and early 2022, OpenSea is still pushing forward even though other NFT marketplaces have popped up and challenged their dominance.

You can now watch full-length episodes of Chain Reaction on YouTube.

Or keep it old school and listen here.