February 18, 2026

TechCrunch Top 3

World Labs lands $1B, with $200M from Autodesk, to bring world models into 3D workflows: The partnership will see the two companies exploring how World Labs' models can work alongside Autodesk's tools, and vice versa, starting with a focus on entertainment use cases. Read More

Amazon halts Blue Jay robotics project after less than 6 months: Amazon said Blue Jay's core tech will be used for other robotics projects and the employees who worked on it were moved to other projects. Read More

Mastodon, a decentralized alternative to X, plans to target creators with new features: Mastodon is looking to grow its open source, decentralized social network with new features aimed at creators. Read More

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Afternoon Must-Reads

Hacking conference Def Con bans three people linked to Epstein: The Def Con hacking conference banned hackers Pablos Holman and Vincenzo Iozzo, as well as former MIT Media Lab director Joichi Ito, from attending the annual conference after their reported connections with Jeffrey Epstein. Read More

Google adds music-generation capabilities to the Gemini app: Users will be able to use text, images, and videos as a reference to generate music. Read More

Microsoft says Office bug exposed customers' confidential emails to Copilot AI: Microsoft said the bug meant that its Copilot AI chatbot was reading and summarizing paying customers' confidential emails, bypassing data-protection policies. Read More

Snapchat+ tops 25M subscribers, driving company's direct revenue ARR to $1B: The revenue milestone comes as Snap has added additional paid offerings outside of its core Snapchat+ subscription over the past year to diversify its revenue streams. Read More

Etsy sells secondhand clothing marketplace Depop to eBay for $1.2B: The deal comes nearly five years after Etsy purchased Depop for $1.62 billion, at a time when secondhand clothing apps were gaining traction during the pandemic. Read More

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Last but Not Least

This former Microsoft PM thinks she can unseat CyberArk in 18 months: Though crowded, the identity management market seems eager for new solutions, and Venice is finding traction. Read More