Timef 03/08/2025

Those clicks and pops aren't supposed to be there! Give your music a bath with this handy guide.

Europe is waking up to the need to invest in defense, and so are European VCs. But with a painful history of Soviet occupations, Lithuania didn’t wait for the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to reach its third anniversary to commit 5% to 6% of its GDP to military spending — and fund […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Entertainment Editor Kristy Puchko weighs in on "Talking Pictures with Neil Rosen."

Kurt the CyberGuy recommends deleting 16 browser extensions immediately in response to a report saying over 3.2 million web users were affected by a security breach.

If the game you want to play is only available for Windows, here are three things you can try to get it running on your Mac.

I happened upon the budget brand at a chintzy souvenir shop in Maine. I've since sworn full allegiance to the cult of Comfort Colors.

The wildifires in the Carolinas have followed months of whiplash weather—drought, followed by hurricane-fueled floods, and then more drought.

If you and your partner have different sleeping styles and debate over how soft or firm a mattress should be, the answer is this split topper.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

In the lead up to the inauguration, the six largest US banks left a voluntary alliance with the UN to reach net zero by 2050. Now, critics are calling for new climate laws.

Plus: The world’s “largest illicit online marketplace” gets hit by regulators, police seize the Garantex crypto exchange, and scammers trick targets by making up ransomware attacks.

Tax credits range from employee retention to healthcare credits and can help small business owners save money.

Plus: Dell debuts affordable QD-OLED gaming monitors, Polaroid upgrades its instant cameras, and Circular has a new smart ring.

The Space Force's secretive X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-7 returned to Earth on March 7, 2025, after spending over a year in space.

Astronauts on board the International Space Station got a view of SpaceX's Starship blowing up in space during a flight test on Thursday.

Consecutive losses of the Starship rocket suggest that the company’s engineers are not as infallible as its fans may think.

A robotics firm in China claims a robot has performed the world's first humanoid robot front flip, which is significantly more difficult than a backflip.

Proton VPN is a privacy-forward VPN service that offers a free tier with no data limits. Here's Mashable's official review of it.

A total lunar eclipse will occur on March 13-14 in 2025. Here are tips on how to view it, and whether you should use your phone or telescope during the event.

Enjoy over 70,000 retro video games with the Kinhank Super Console, now just $89.97 (reg. $159) with free shipping through March 30.

Get a 3-pack of KeySmart SmartCards for $79.97 (reg. $119.97) — slim, rechargeable, and waterproof wallet trackers that work with Apple’s Find My app.

Ditch VPN fees for good — this router gives you lifetime security with no subscriptions. Save $69 this week only and get free shipping.

This MacBook Pro has 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD, a Touch Bar, and a low price of $409.97.

Everything from award-winning dramas to delightful romantic comedies, these are the best movies from women directors and creators you can watch on Netflix right now. "The Power of the Dog," "Always Be My Maybe," and "The Old Guard" are just a few.

As Tesla faces a global sales slump, and with shares down for the seventh consecutive week, could Elon Musk's antics really be to blame?

Answers to each clue for the March 8, 2025 edition of NYT's The Mini crossword puzzle.

Skip the monthly fees — get a lifetime Microsoft Office license for Mac or Windows for just $39.99 (reg. $229) while codes last.

Protect your family online for life with AdGuard's Family Plan, now just £12.37 (reg. £131.67). Block ads, malware, and more across nine devices.

Turn data into impactful visuals with Microsoft Visio 2021 Professional — the go-to tool for diagrams, charts, floor plans, and more.

Live stream Scotland vs. Wales in the 2025 Six Nations for free from anywhere in the world.

Live stream Ireland vs. France in the 2025 Six Nations for free from anywhere in the world.

On April 8, celebrate Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day 2025 by enjoying free ice cream at participating Scoop Shops worldwide.

The new version of Starship will be tested again in four to six weeks. A third consecutive failure could indicate fundamental problems with the updated design.

Seth Rogen, Catherine O'Hara, Kathryn Hahn, and more star in Hollywood satire "The Studio," premiering March 26 on Apple TV+.

The NYT Strands hints and answers you need to make the most of your puzzling experience.

Connections: Sports Edition is a New York Times word game about finding common sports threads between words. How to solve the puzzle.

Connections is a New York Times word game that's all about finding the "common threads between words." How to solve the puzzle.

Here's the answer for "Wordle" #1358 on March 8, as well as a few hints, tips, and clues to help you solve it yourself.

'The Rule of Jenny Pen' is set in a unique location for a horror film: a secluded rest home. Acting legends John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush divulge their own inspirations for their characters and what drew them to the roles.

Investor interest in AI-coding assistants is exploding. Anysphere, the developer of AI-powered coding assistant Cursor, is in talks with venture capitalists to raise capital at a valuation of nearly $10 billion, Bloomberg reported. The round, if it transpires, would come about three months after Anysphere completed its previous fundraise of $100 million at a pre-money […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

In its final proposed remedy filing in the Google antitrust case, the Department of Justice reiterated that Google should stop paying partners for search placement—and divest its dominant Chrome browser.

Elon Musk's DOGE team is automating tasks as it continues its purge of the federal workforce.

In a court filing on Friday, the government signaled a continuation of tough regulatory pressure on the search giant.

Tesla stocks are tanking due to Elon Musk and Donald Trump's relationship and the company's resulting falling sales.

The brain implant company cofounded by Elon Musk is moving to trademark several product names, including Telepathy and Telekinesis.

The design tech company is exploring a public offering after regulators stymied its $20 billion sale to the software giant Adobe in 2023.

Nokia's Lunar Surface Communications System was supposed to be the first 4G network deployed on the moon and a test for future crewed missions. Things didn't go to plan.

Microsoft is accelerating its push to compete with OpenAI, its longtime collaborator, by developing its own powerful AI models and exploring alternatives to power products like Microsoft’s Copilot bot. Microsoft has developed its own AI “reasoning” models comparable to models like OpenAI’s o1 and o3-mini, the The Information reports. OpenAI is said to have refused […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

TechCrunch will be on the ground at SXSW 2025 — the annual tech, music, comedy, and film conference that kicked off Friday in Austin — in search of the zeitgeist of this AI-centric era. Yup, we’re one sentence in and AI has already made its entrance. And why not? A quick scan of the massive […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Signal President Meredith Whittaker warned Friday that agentic AI could come with a risk to user privacy. Speaking on stage at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, the advocate for secure communications, referred to the use of AI agents as “putting your brain in a jar,” and cautioned that this new paradigm of computing — […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Intuitive Machines’ Athena lunar lander is dead, just one day after it touched down at the moon’s south pole and tipped over. Luckily, the company says it was able to “accelerate several program and payload milestones” and deploy a few of the experiments that were riding shotgun before Athena’s lander ran out of juice. The […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As of March 7, get the Apple AirPods Pro 2 for 32% off at Amazon.

As of March 7, get an M2 MacBook Air from Best Buy for $699.

Just over two months into 2025, the number of pending AI bills in the U.S. has grown to 781, according to an online tracking tool. The tool, maintained by consulting firm MultiState, shows that the number of pending U.S. bills pertaining to AI now exceeds the total number of AI bills proposed in all of […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The architects of projects like Próspera are drafting legislation to create US cities that would be free from federal regulations.

Discord is in early stage discussions with bankers to IPO. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Twitter alternatives — new and old — have found audiences willing to try out a newer social networks since Elon Musk took over the company in 2022. Mastodon, Bluesky, Spill and T2 are some of the social media platforms people are among them. So is Meta’s Threads platform. What is Threads? How do you create […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Meta’s Threads has begun testing a new feature that would allow people to add their interests to their profile on the social network. Instead of only advertising to profile visitors the sort of topics you might post about, the new interests feature will also direct users to active conversations about the topic. The company thinks […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Pentagon has flagged thousands of historical images and documents for deletion under DEI keyword purge, an AP investigation found.

In its apparent quest to cut government spending and improve efficiency, DOGE has fired entire tech teams devoted to those very things.

Just weeks after Google said it would review its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the Google for Startups Founders Fund webpage is peppered with changes. Most notably Google is now using past tense to describe all of its fund programs for underrepresented founders.  This is a change that took place after December, according to the internet […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google on Friday added a new, experimental “embedding” model for text, Gemini Embedding, to its Gemini developer API. Embedding models translate text inputs like words and phrases into numerical representations, known as embeddings, that capture the semantic meaning of the text. Embeddings are used in a range of applications, such as document retrieval and classification, […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, has acquired a one-million-square-foot property in Southwest Memphis to expand its AI data center footprint, according to a press release from the Memphis Chamber of Commerce. The new land will host infrastructure to complement xAI’s existing Memphis data center. “xAI’s acquisition of this property ensures we’ll remain at the forefront […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, has acquired a 1 million-square-foot property in Southwest Memphis to expand its AI data center footprint, according to a press release from the Memphis Chamber of Commerce. The new land will host infrastructure to complement xAI’s existing Memphis data center. “xAI’s acquisition of this property ensures we’ll remain at the […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Lately, I’ve noticed a surge of religious comments popping up under some of the more viral TikToks on my feed, and they’re quickly rising to the top.

On June 5, TechCrunch Sessions: AI will kick off — and you can be part of the industry-changing conversations that will be taking place. We have an open invitation for members of the AI community to lead breakout sessions and discussions with over 1,200 startup founders, VC leaders, and AI aficionados attending our newest event, which […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Apple is delaying the rollout of the “more personalized Siri” experience it promised as part of its rollout of Apple Intelligence. According to a statement from the tech giant published on Friday by Apple blog Daring Fireball, the company admits it will “take us longer than we thought to deliver” on these new Siri features. […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Find out how new and returning subscribers can get Disney+ and Hulu with ads for only $2.99 per month for four months.

As of March 7, get the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge for 21% off at Amazon.

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. Sometimes problems are just that: problems. But often, they are also fodder. This week brought us a mix of startups facing adversity, sometimes of their own doing, […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Rather than buy bitcoin directly, Donald Trump’s plan calls for holding the US government’s current bitcoin assets in reserve—and creates a separate stockpile for other crypto coins.

Nat and Shauna face off, and Coach Ben pays in "Yellowjackets" Season 3, episode 5.

As of March 7, you can pre-order the all-new 11-inch Apple iPad (128GB) for $329. That's a $20 discount.

As of March 7, B&H is hosting a big sale on gaming monitors this week. Save up to $500 on monitors from Samsung, LG, Asus, and other top brands for a limited time.

With the rise of AI companions who serve as online friends or romantic interests, experts are questioning how the technology affects our real-world social connections and relationships. According to Kasley Killam, author of the social health-focused book “The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

With the rise of AI companions who serve as online friends or romantic interests, experts are questioning how the technology affects our real-world social connections and relationships. According to Kasley Killam, author of the social health-focused book “The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Bob the Drag Queen has released a single entitled "Queen of the Underground," as a promotional tie-in to the upcoming novel "Harriet Tubman: Live In Concert."

The best Amazon deals on March 7 include the M2 MacBook Air, AirPods Pro 2, Bose SoundLink Flex, Apple Watch Series 10, and Bose Smart Ultra Soundbar.

We spring forward this weekend on Sunday, March 9. Here's when your devices will switch over.

Intuitive Machines released an image of its Athena lander lying on its side on the lunar surface, depicting a landing mishap near the moon's south pole.

DeepSeek has gone viral. Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week after its chatbot app rose to the top of the Apple App Store charts (and Google Play, as well). DeepSeek’s AI models, which were trained using compute-efficient techniques, have led Wall Street analysts — and technologists — to question whether the U.S. can maintain its […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As of March 7, you can get the SharkFlexstyle hair dryer and styling system for $249.99 at Amazon. That's a 22% discount.

The administrators of Garantex, Aleksej Besciokov and Aleksandr Mira Serda, allegedly knew their crypto exchange was used to launder money, according to U.S. prosecutors. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Google is testing a new AI-powered Gemini side panel within Google Calendar that lets users quickly and conversationally check their schedule, create an event, and look up event details. The feature is available as part of the tech giant’s early access testing program, Google Workspace Labs. You can access Gemini by clicking the “Ask Gemini” […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Amazon will likely revive its Big Spring Sale for 2025. Here's when we think it will happen and what sort of deals it might evoke.

From the Move to the Beam, we’ve tested nearly every speaker from the venerable brand. We like them all—but here are the best picks to fit your lifestyle.

Unidentified hackers breached NTT Com’s network to steal personal information of employees at thousands of corporate customers © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Prime members get Alexa+ free, which is $19.99/month otherwise. It's rolling out in March 2025.

"The Studio," starring Seth Rogen, Catherine O'Hara, and Ike Barinholtz, premieres March 26 on AppleTV+.

A new scam claiming to be the BianLian ransomware group is sending letters to corporate executives, the FBI warns.

"The Electric State" is a film directed by the Russo brothers and starring Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, inspired by Simon Stålenhag's illustrated novel of the same name. Review.