Monday, July 29, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we're looking at Stripe's latest acquisition; a federal ruling that protects the privacy of travelers crossing the U.S. border; and how one successful YouTube star is lobbying for creators' interests. We've also got notes on a cool startup making expandable space habitats; Musk tweeting deepfakes; WazirX pushing losses onto its customers; Nuro's comeback, and more. Let's get to work! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Scott Olson / Getty Images

1. You got a warrant for that? U.S. border agents will now need a warrant to search the devices of Americans and international travelers crossing the country's border. I didn't even know that before this federal court ruling, border agents could just look through people's phones and computers if they wanted to. Read More

2. Easy peasy: Stripe has acquired a 4-year-old competitor Lemon Squeezy to scale merchant of record selling "in a big way," per Stripe's CEO. Lemon Squeezy adds to Stripe's lineup of acquisitions over the past year. In March, there was Supaglue, and last summer it bought Okay as it sought to become an even bigger fintech powerhouse. Read More

3. From YouTube star to creator lobbyist: MatPat was the first big YouTuber to successfully exit his company, Theorist Media. Now, he's using his position to educate legislators about what creators need as small business operators. As a former freelancer, I sincerely hope ditching the 15% "self-employment tax" is one of the policies being promoted. Read More

Morning Must-Reads

Image Credits: Max Space

🧑‍🚀 Space yurts: What will the next generation of space habitation look like? For Max Space (a company; not a person with a made-up name), the answer is expandable habitats that offer safety and room to stretch your legs. The first of these looks like a giant balloon (or even a yurt), and is going up in 2026. Read More

🧪 Testing for AI risk: A federal agency has re-released a testbed to measure how malicious attacks might degrade AI systems' performance. The tool is called Dioptra, and is modular, open-source and runs on a browser, and focuses on attacks that "poison" AI model training data. Read More

💰 WazirX wants customers to absorb its losses: The Indian crypto exchange suspended trading activities on its platform last week following a cyber attack. Now, to resume operations quickly, WazirX has introduced a strategy to distribute the impact of the $230 million loss "equitably" among its entire user base — even those unaffected by the hack. Understandably, that strategy is not being received well. Read More

🤖 Nuro is revving its engines: After two big rounds of layoffs over the past couple of years, the autonomous driving startup is back with a new robotic goods delivery vehicle. It will test the new vehicle this year in expanded areas in San Francisco and Houston, and claims its AI is better than ever. Indeed, it'll need to be good if Nuro ever wants to commercialize at scale. Read More

🛵 Zapp forays into India: The U.K.'s Zapp Electric Vehicles is gearing up to launch its two-wheelers in India, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. It's part of Zapp's mission to be a global EV company, and where better to start selling electric motorbikes than India, one of the largest markets for two-wheelers in the world? Read More

👻 Ghostery turns 15: Ghostery's free and open-source ad blocker and privacy browser has been downloaded 100 million times since 2009. For the company's 15th birthday, we sat down with CEO Jean-Paul Schmetz to discuss Ghostery's strategy, the state of ad tracking, and why he thinks regulation isn't the best path to protecting online privacy. Read More

Around the Web

🎭 Elon Musk posts a deepfake of Kamala Harris: The billionaire owner of X reposted an edited campaign video that was digitally manipulated to make Kamala Harris' voice say that President Biden is senile, reports The New York Times. Deepfakes are going to be everywhere as we near the election, but X should be working to stop the spread of misinformation, not promote it. Read More

📉 Twitch is still losing money: Another case of an Amazon bet that went awry: The retail giant paid almost $1 billion for Twitch in 2014, but 10 years later, the live streaming platform is still losing money, The Wall Street Journal reports. And broader trends, like consumer preferences for short-form videos, don't appear to be in Twitch's favor. Read More

⌛ Apple Intelligence delayed: Apple's upcoming AI features will come to iPhones and iPads later than anticipated, reports Bloomberg. The company will start rolling out Apple Intelligence as part of software updates by October, rather than its initial target of September. This could give Apple a bit more time to iron out some bugs at least. Read More

Before You Go

Image Credits: Google

🤦 Dear Google, no one wants AI to write a fan letter: Google's latest commercial shows its AI bot Gemini helping a father and his daughter write a fan letter to Olympic sprinter Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. I'm glad TC's Anthony Ha picked this one up, because it felt exceptionally out of touch to me, as well. Because really, what communicates heartfelt inspiration less than asking an AI to tell them on your behalf? Read More