Mission Everywhere

Flags of European Union member countries. Shutterstock.com The EU will try to implement a "price corridor" as talks of a price cap on natural gas ended without an agreement. Just 15 of 27 nations approved the price cap, but the bloc needs unanimous approval to pass the measure. Opponents say that the price cap could prevent some nations from getting any gas at all.  The European Union announced it will try to implement a "price corridor" to rein in soaring energy costs, after talks to cap natural gas prices ended without an agreement. In a meeting on Friday, the bloc scrambled to approve profit levies on energy companies , which will tax profits and redistribute them to households to help cover the soaring cost of energy. It also approved a mandatory 5% cut on electricity demand during peak hours. But just 15 nations in the 27-country bloc approved the proposal to cap gas prices, Reuters reported, and the EU needs unanimous approval for the measure to pa...

Everyone knows membership has its privileges. And that adage holds true at TechCrunch Disrupt , which takes place on October 18–20 in San Francisco. How so? Disrupt attendees who hold one- or two-year subscriptions to TC+ receive exclusive access to the TC+ Lounge at the show. Let’s back up a moment. If you’re not familiar with TC+, it’s our members-only community that receives access to articles offering extensive market analysis, expert advice from experienced entrepreneurs, deep-dive interviews with investors and founders, plus live weekly coaching, Q&A sessions and more. Now, what will you find in the TC+ Lounge? First, it’s a place to step away from the crowds and recharge with snacks and refreshing beverages. It’s also where you’ll enjoy exclusive Q&As with event speakers on all three days of the show. Here are just three examples, but you can hit up the Disrupt agenda and filter on TC+ Lounge to see who’s presenting — and when — on each day. Meet the Speaker: How t...

Emily Baker-White / Forbes : Web novel apps backed by ByteDance and Tencent are running hundreds of Facebook and Instagram ads showing sexual assault, violent erotica, and acts of self-harm   —  Some of the ads include descriptions of sexual violence, paired with images of battered women and photos of male fitness influencers, which were used without permission. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/LktJzfi

The One Bel Air mansion at night Marc Angeles Mega mansions cost their owners between $10,000 and $50,000 in electric bills, reports say. Residents across the country report higher electricity rates due to supply cost issues.  A/C expert says residents should check their HVAC system if they want to cut down on power usage. Record-breaking heat waves mean California residents are spending more to keep homes cool – and some are paying thousands to do so. Multi-million dollar mansions require more electricity to power their sprawling layouts than the average home, and owners are shelling out more than $10,000 each month to cover the bill, the LA Times reports. A record-breaking $141 million mansion known as "the costliest house sold at auction," has monthly electric bills estimated at around $50,000. According to the LA Times, mega mansions like this one may have up to 50 HVAC systems compared to one system for a regular-sized home. "In theory, a 100,000-square...

Tesla AI Day is here — the company’s second annual event designed to show off its progress in AI and robotics. Viewers should expect demos and updates on the Optimus robot, the Dojo supercomputer as well as its ‘Autopilot’ advanced driver assistance system,  along with the $15,000 upgrade known as FSD, or “Full Self Driving.” (Tesla vehicles are not self-driving.) CEO Elon Musk has billed Tesla AI Day as a recruitment event. And what better way to reach the 80-hour workweek ride-or-die for Tesla crowd then scheduling this for a Friday evening? Note, this event is meant for recruiting AI & robotics engineers, so will be highly technical https://t.co/BcxAEv6qJd — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 29, 2022 Tesla AI Day is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. PT September 30 (that’s today). If past is prologue then Tesla AI Day will not start promptly at 5 p.m. — Elon tends to run late. Like the company’s other events, Tesla AI Day 2022 should be live streamed on the Tesla YouTub...

Is Tumblr porn making a comeback? No, it’s not — and Amanda Silberling joins me on this week’s TechCrunch podcast to explain why, and why people thought it might be. Devin Coldewey also joins us to talk about NASA’s DART mission, which saw the US space agency throw a little spacecraft at a big asteroid moon. Yes it’s all real and it all makes sense, I promise. And of course, we run down the biggest stories in tech this past week that you need to know about. By the way, if you recently were laid off, TechCrunch is offering a free expo pass to Disrupt (Oct. 18-20) in San Francisco. No strings attached. These tickets get you access to the expo floor, breakout sessions, and plenty of networking opportunities like partner roundtables and parties. For more info, check out this page . Articles from the episode: No, Tumblr is not bringing back porn Watch the asteroid-smashing DART spacecraft make its 6-million-mile shot today NASA’s DART anti-asteroid satellite successfully smashes into ...

India’s market regulator has tightened disclosure norms for firms looking to file for an initial public offering after lackluster performance of more than half a dozen tech startups in the past year and a half. Firms looking to raise funds from public offers will now be required by law to disclose their key performance indicators and issuing pricing based on past transactions and private funding rounds in their offer documents, the Securities and Exchange Board of India said in a statement. The regulator said the new step is aimed at bringing parity between retail and private equity investors. It said retail investors haven’t had adequate access to key indicators of a firm whose shares they are buying whereas private equity backers have been able to monitor and act on those data internally for years. India gets its S-1 Startups are also getting an option to pre-file their offer documents and get a review from the regulator, similar to the S-1 filings the U.S. and Canadian startups ...

Rohan Goswami / CNBC : Court records: FTX's winning bid for Voyager Digital includes a $51M cash payment, and $60M in earnouts and incentives for Voyager users that onboard with FTX   —  - FTX's winning bid for bankrupt crypto firm Voyager Digital includes a $51 million cash payment, with an additional $60 million in earnouts and incentives. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/sLc2uMg

Twitter is adding new features to make it easier for users to watch and discover videos on its platform, the social network announced on Thursday. Most notably, the company is launching a scrollable TikTok-like scrollable video feed. In the coming days, users on iOS will be able to click on a video in their feed to enter the new scrollable video feed. Once you finish watching the video you clicked on, you will be able to scroll up to start browsing more video content. You’ll then be in a scrollable feed of videos, which is similar to the browsing experience on TikTok. If you want to exit the viewer and go back to the original tweet, you can click the back arrow in the top left corner. Twitter says the purpose of the new immersive media viewer is to make it easier for users to discover engaging videos. The social network didn’t say when the immersive media viewer will roll out to users on Android. In addition, Twitter is launching a new video carousel within its Explore tab. Users w...

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg : Source: Zuckerberg told staff in a weekly Q&A that Meta will freeze hiring, restructure some teams, and reduce budgets across teams, citing economic conditions   —  Meta Platforms Inc., the owner of Facebook and Instagram, said it will freeze hiring and restructure some teams in an effort to cut costs and shift priorities. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/iWph8YV

President Joe Biden. JIM WATSON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images Six Republican states are suing the Biden administration over student loan relief, the AP reported. The states are claiming that some of them will lose out on tax revenue from the relief. They also cite Biden calling the pandemic "over" since relief is hinged on an ongoing crisis. Six Republican-led states are suing over President Joe Biden's plan to relieve $10,000 to $20,000 in student loan debt for some federal borrowers. Arkansas, South Carolina, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri filed the lawsuit jointly, with Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge leading the effort, according to the Associated Press's Seung Min Kim . The suit claims that Biden's student loan relief , which cancels $10,000 in debt for borrowers making under $125,000 and $20,000 for borrowers under the same income cap who received Pell Grants, will negatively impact states' revenues, and is impairing Missouri's...

Here’s a question for you: How seriously should we take Amazon’s home robotics play ? Perhaps a better way of framing it is: When do we take Amazon’s home robotics play seriously? I realize these sound like pointed questions, and I should specify that they’re not really specific to Amazon. They’re more a result of having been burned in the past. The road to the home robot is littered with fine intentions from companies large (Sony) and small (Anki, etc.). For decades, robots have been a kind of industry shorthand for forward-thinking innovation. Want the world (and, more importantly, shareholders) to know you’re focused on the future? Roll a robot out at your press conference, and who cares if it ever comes out? Amazon’s obviously addressed that last bit of potential criticism. Astro came out. Announced a year ago this week, the company launched the robot as part of its “Day One Edition” program, offering it up with limited availability at a steep price ($1,500). During a call before...

Tesla’s second AI Day is fast approaching, and with it a flurry of speculations as to what will be discussed at the event — a phenomenon that we at TechCrunch are certainly not above. AI Day is the luxury electric vehicle maker’s annual event to hype up its artificial intelligence capabilities across different business segments, with the ultimate goal of recruiting the brightest minds and engineers. Even without Tesla’s star head of AI Andrej Karpathy, who left the company in July , expect this event to be full of technical jargon and big promises from Tesla’s executives, including the big dog himself, CEO Elon Musk. We’ll talk about what we’re expecting to hear about based on recent news, as well as last year’s AI day event . But first, how to watch. Tesla’s AI Day is scheduled for September 30 and should begin around 5 p.m. PT, although Tesla’s events are often notorious for running late. Remote viewers can watch it livestreamed on Tesla’s YouTube channel  or on its website...

Eviation’s Alice electric aircraft took off for the first time yesterday , teasing a future in which regional flights of hundreds of miles will be done with zero emissions and a lot less noise. It’s still a ways off, but today’s demonstration shows it’s at least just a matter of time and money. The Alice is a prototype of what will eventually be a passenger plane capable of carrying around 2,500 pounds total, which equates to 9 people and their luggage (just don’t pack any bricks). It’s powered by a pair of MagniX engines — that company just scooped up $74 million from NASA to develop more of them — and a hefty battery system from AVL. It has a max air speed of about 260 knots. For the test flight, it took off from an airport in central Washington, ascended to 3,500 feet, then landed again, for a total flight time of 8 minutes. That’s just about enough to show that the aircraft can do what it’s meant to do, but it’s still a long ways to full passenger flights. “Today’s first fligh...

When UiPath announced in April that it was bringing on veteran enterprise executive Rob Enslin as co-CEO, it was a big surprise. UiPath had gone public the prior year , while Enslin was leaving Google Cloud after only two years, just as it was beginning to find its footing . But at the time, UiPath faced some harsh realities in the public markets. Perhaps that’s why co-founder and CEO Daniel Dines was ready to bring in an industry leader who understood the enterprise market. Dines led UiPath through some heady times, topping out with a private valuation of $35 billion in early 2021. At that point, the markets were strong, an IPO was in sight, and the future looked bright. But since then, the company has had to deal with a market that’s been particularly unforgiving to SaaS companies . Today, UiPath’s stock price sits around $12.60 per share, down from a 52-week high of almost $60. Its market cap has plunged to less than $7 billion, a fifth of its final private valuation. Ensli...

Abner Li / 9to5Google : Google unveils search results with a “Discussions and forums” section, rolling out on mobile in the US, and with machine-translated news coverage, in early 2023   —  At Search On 2022, Google announced that “Discussions and forums” will be getting their own sections in results … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/kfRPQFm

Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images The drop in the pound and the loss of confidence in policy makers is part of a larger paradigm shift, Mohamed El-Erian said. The economist reiterated that the era of high-liquidity and low-interest rates was over.  But it could be painful for economies to dig themselves out of overly-iquid conditions, possibly resulting in stagflation. The swift drop in the value of the pound against the dollar and the loss of confidence in UK policy makers is a historic moment – and points to a larger paradigm shift in global financial markets, Mohamed El-Erian said on Wednesday. The top economist pointed to volatility spurred by the UK's new budget plan, which involves cutting taxes for the wealthy and slashing planned corporate tax hikes. It caused the pound to plunge to a 37-year-low on Friday , and to sink another 2% on Monday , with analysts projecting that the UK currency could sink below parity with the dollar next year.  The plan was criticize...

Amazon released Wednesday the second-generation version of Echo Auto, a smaller and slicker device aimed to broaden the e-commerce giant’s reach by bringing its Alexa voice assistant into more vehicles. Echo Auto, which first came to market in 2018 , connects to a vehicle’s infotainment system to bring the Alexa assistant into the vehicle. A driver can either plug the device into the vehicle’s auxiliary port or via a smartphone’s Bluetooth connection and the Alexa app. The most notable changes in the second-generation version, which costs $54.99, is its smaller size and slicker styling as well as a new adhesive mount to allow drivers some flexibility in where they might want to secure the device. Image Credits: Amazon The Echo Auto now has five microphones to ensure a driver’s request is heard over typical background road noise or even music, according to Amazon. It also comes with a Quick Charge 3.0 certified adapter that can be used to fast charge a phone. On the feature fro...

Jay Peters / The Verge : Google says its multisearch tool, which lets users search using both images and text, will expand to more than 70 languages in the next few months   —  Google's impressive multisearch tool, which lets you search using both an image and some text, will be expanding to more than 70 global languages … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/szV3H4k

Marriott International Travel, whether for business or leisure, isn't always all it's cracked up to be. Sure, you get to see new places, and often rack up air miles in the process, but it can also mean long airport queues, lonely hotel rooms, and disruption to your carefully honed routine. And for travelers away for five nights or longer, it can be even harder to feel at home. That's where longer-stay hotels can help. Specifically designed to make travelers feel at home when on the go, longer-stay options — such as global leader Residence Inn® by Marriott — bring home comforts to the classic hotel experience, helping you maximise your stay. Residence Inn is ideal for family leisure trips, relocations to a new city, or travelers just wanting more space to spread out. And for business travelers, one-third of global business hotel stays are for five nights or longer; so with more than  875 locations worldwide — including hotels in the UK, Germany, Belgium, and the UAE —...

If you love a great comeback story, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more dramatic one than Parker Conrad, the former CEO of Zenefits. A legendary Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur, Conrad took Zenefits on a meteoric rise to a $4.5 billion valuation just three years after launching the company in 2013. But there is rarely gain without pain. After the company ran afoul of compliance issues, Conrad stepped down as CEO in 2016 . Undeterred, Conrad founded a new startup within months of leaving Zenefits. Rippling, a promising, high-flying HR and IT software company, hit a valuation just slightly north of $11 billion last May after raising $250 million in Series D funding. The round, co-led by Bedrock and Kleiner Perkins, included participation from existing investors Y Combinator, Sequoia Capital and others. We love a comeback story, too, which is why we’re thrilled that Parker Conrad will join us onstage for a fireside chat at TechCrunch Disrupt on October 18–10 in San Francisco. ...