Posts

WhatsApp will curb the number of messages people and businesses can send without a response

Image
 WhatsApp is attempting to solve its spam problem by curbing how many messages individual users and businesses can send to unknown people without getting a response. While the app started as an easy way to send messages to personal contacts, over time, it has become more complex with groups, communities, and business messaging. With those changes, people are getting more messages than ever, and it is hard to catch up with all of them. All messages users and businesses send to others will count against this new per-month limit, unless they get a response. For instance, if you meet someone at a conference and send three messages, that counts against the limit. WhatsApp hasn’t said what the limit will be, as it’s testing different limits during this time. However, when a business or an individual is about to hit the limit, the app will display a warning to those users with a pop-up showing the count, so they can avoid getting blocked from sending messages. The company told TechCrunch ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Less than 24 hours to spotlight your startup at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 in front of 10,000 tech leaders and VCs

Image
You’re looking for big ways to grow your startup, whether that means securing investors, landing enterprise deals, or generating a nonstop pipeline of leads. This is your final moment.  You have less than 24 hours  and only a couple of tables left  to lock in the most valuable growth opportunity of the year at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.  Picture this: More than 10,000 tech leaders, investors, decision-makers, and innovators walking through the Expo Hall. They stop at your table. They see your brand across the venue. They connect with you in multiple ways. Book now before a competitor takes the final tables. Exhibit tables close tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT. What you lose if you don’t exhibit at Disrupt 2025  Visibility where it counts: No table means no chance to showcase your product to thousands of investors, partners, and press walking the Expo Hall.  Access to key decision-makers: Without passes, your team misses direct connections with high-level founders, i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trump DOE decides to keep at least one Biden-era energy program

Image
 The Department of Energy said Thursday that it had finalized a $1.6 billion loan guarantee to upgrade around 5,000 miles of transmission lines. The grid upgrades would ease the flow of electricity in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. The project, which will address lines owned by American Electric Power (AEP), won’t add any new routes, but it will help existing ones carry more power. AEP is one of the largest utilities and transmission line owners in the U.S., with operations spanning 11 states. The 5,000 miles that will be upgraded represent around 13% of the company’s total network. The loan guarantee was initiated under the Biden administration just days before President Trump was inaugurated. Previously, the Trump administration has cited approvals occurring between Election Day and Inauguration Day as justification for canceling projects. It’s unclear what distinguished this grid modernization project from others that the Trump administration is considerin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Your AI tools run on fracked gas and bulldozed Texas land

Image
 The AI era is giving fracking a second act, a surprising twist for an industry that, even during its early 2010s boom years, was blamed by climate advocates for poisoned water tables, man-made earthquakes, and the stubborn persistence of fossil fuels. AI companies are building massive data centers near major gas-production sites, often generating their own power by tapping directly into fossil fuels. It’s a trend that’s been overshadowed by headlines about the intersection of AI and healthcare (and solving climate change), but it’s one that could reshape and raise difficult questions for  the communities that host these facilities Take the latest example. This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that AI coding assistant startup Poolside is constructing a data center complex on more than 500 acres in West Texas  about 300 miles west of Dallas  a footprint two-thirds the size of Central Park. The facility will generate its own power by tapping natural gas from the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trump admin’s basis for deporting Guatemalan kids ‘crumbled like a house of cards,’ judge rules

Image
  A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump has blocked the administration’s bid to deport hundreds of   Guatemalan children   to their home country, concluding that U.S. officials’ claims about the operation had “crumbled like a house of cards.” U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a preliminary injunction Thursday, extending  a block on the deportations  first issued by Biden-appointed Judge Sparkle Sooknanan last month. Sooknanan, who was the emergency judge on call over Labor Day weekend, raced to block the operation after immigrant rights’ lawyers sued in the middle of the night as the children were being picked up from startled caregivers and loaded onto planes. A Justice Department attorney told Sooknanan at the time that the lawsuit to block the deportations was “outrageous” because parents of the children had requested their return and some were waiting at an airport in Guatemala for them. After Sooknanan’s ruling, Trump allies — including...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trump says US ‘trying’ to get Afghan airbase back

Image
  President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the U.S. is trying to reclaim the Afghanistan airbase that American troops abandoned in 2021 during their withdrawal from the country. Trump has repeatedly attacked former President Joe Biden for handing over Bagram Airfield, the largest American military base in the country and a logistics hub for the 20-year international war effort there. “We’re trying to get it back,” he said during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, adding that it’s “about an hour away from where China is developing its nuclear weapons.” Trump did not elaborate as to whether his administration was speaking with the Taliban or how reclaiming the base tied into the Chinese nuclear program. The U.S. in 2021  unceremoniously handed over Bagram  — the hub of its post-9/11 war effort to oust the Taliban and target al-Qaeda — to Afghan forces. It was the most visible step to that point in the U.S. military withdrawal. Trump has...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trump administration asks supreme court to allow firing of Fed’s Lisa Cook

Image
  The Trump administration asked the US supreme court to allow it to fire the   Federal Reserve   governor   Lisa Cook , as it continues its extraordinary attack on the central bank’s independence. Related:  The Federal Reserve’s independence is about to be tested like never before In a filing on Thursday, Donald Trump’s officials requested an emergency order to remove Cook from the Fed’s board of governors, after an appeals court refused to go along with efforts to oust her. The request sets the stage for an historic test of presidential power. Trump has sought to fire Cook – citing  unconfirmed allegations of mortgage fraud  – while he pursues greater control of the Fed, which has for decades operated without political interference. But lawyers for Cook, who has denied wrongdoing, have argued that the US president has no authority to fire her. Related:  ‘Pattern of lawfare’: Trump is targeting opponents with mortgage fraud claims The administrat...
Post a Comment
Read more