TechCrunch Mobility: Elon Musk’s threats worked
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for all things “future of transportation.”
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The tale of the Fire Phone, Amazon’s very strange smartphone
When Jeff Bezos decided Amazon needed to get in the smartphone game, he went all in. And the resulting device, the Fire Phone, wound up more densely packed with big ideas than just about any gadget you’ll find anywhere. There was just one tiny problem: they were mostly bad ideas. The Fire Phone shipped in […]
Deck out your tree with ornaments of retro consoles, movie moments, and more
Do the ornaments you adorn your Christmas tree with reflect you or your family’s interests? If not, maybe you should rectify that. We recently went hands on with Hallmark’s realistic Xbox 360 replica ornament, which plays a snippet of audio from Halo 3. As it turns out, there are many other ornaments available that are […]
65daysofstatic’s new No Man’s Sky album searches for humanity in an AI-filled world
It’s not often that a band returns to soundtrack the same game nine years after its release – then again, most games aren’t No Man’s Sky. Once demoed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and at splashy E3 press conferences, in 2016, No Man’s Sky was heralded as gaming’s future. And it was all […]
Ikea just took over your smart home
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 105, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, hope you’ve recovered from the clocks falling back, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about David Ellison and Common Crawl […]
The algorithm failed music
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on how to break free of the algorithm and discover things you love, follow Terrence O’Brien. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started I used […]
‘Breaking Bad’ creator’s new show ‘Pluribus’ was emphatically ‘made by humans,’ not AI
If you watched all the way to the end of the new Apple TV show “Pluribus,” you may have noticed an unusual disclaimer in the credits: “This show was made by humans.”
OpenAI asked Trump administration to expand Chips Act tax credit to cover data centers
A recent letter from OpenAI reveals more details about how the company is hoping the federal government can support the company’s ambitious plans for data center construction.
Apple helped kill netbooks. Will it bring them back?
Rumor has it, Apple is working on a low-cost MacBook. And not “low-cost for a Mac,” but a proper cheap laptop, possibly as low as $599. For a company that traditionally targets the more premium end of the market, this would be something of an about-face. Of course, Apple takes great pride in its design […]