This week, AT&T confirmed it will begin notifying around 110 million AT&T customers about a data breach that allowed cybercriminals to steal the phone records of “nearly all” of its customers. The stolen data contains phone numbers and AT&T records of calls and text messages during a six-month period in 2022, the company says. If you’re an AT&T customer, here’s what the breach could mean for you.
Samsung is getting into the wearables game. The company had its annual Galaxy Unpacked event this week, where it debuted new models of its Galaxy Z Flip and Galaxy Z Fold phones and its new generation of wireless earbuds. It also unveiled more details about its $399 wearable smart ring to compete with Oura.
Tesla is apparently not ready to reveal its “robotaxi” design next month as intended, according to Bloomberg, and is instead pushing the event to October. The company reportedly needs more time to build the prototypes. Following the report, Tesla shares fell more than 6%.
This is TechCrunch’s Week in Review — TechCrunch’s newsletter recapping the week’s biggest news. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.
News
Fisker drops his salary to $1: Henrik Fisker and Geeta Gupta-Fisker are lowering their salaries to $1 to keep the failed EV startup’s bankruptcy case alive as lawyers work to complete a sale of its remaining inventory. Read more
Elon Musk doesn’t have to pay more Twitter severance: Musk defeated one of several lawsuits spawned out of firing more than 6,000 Twitter employees, as a federal judge ruled that X Corp. doesn’t owe the ex-employees any more severance. Read more
Humane execs form new startup: Former Humane execs have left the company to start Infactory, an AI-powered fact-checking search engine. The founders spoke to TechCrunch about their plans. Read more
How Apple Intelligence will change Siri: Siri is getting a slew of new features and updates thanks to the addition of Apple Intelligence and a partnership with OpenAI. Here’s a look at all the new features that will change how you use your iPhone. Read more
Here’s a cool robot: As part of a new project, Google’s DeepMind Robotics implemented Google Gemini 1.5 Pro to teach a robot to respond to commands and navigate around an office. Read more
OpenAI ditches observer seats: Months after Microsoft gained an observer seat on OpenAI’s board, the company is leaving the position of the non-voting seat. OpenAI says there won’t be any more observers on the board — likely ruling out reports of Apple gaining a seat. Read more
Ask Rufus: Amazon’s AI-powered shopping assistant Rufus is now live for all U.S. customers in the Amazon mobile app. Rufus will offer help with finding products, performing product comparisons, and getting recommendations on what to buy. Read more
FTC finds “dark patterns” in subscription services: Does it feel like it’s harder than it should be to cancel a subscription service? As part of a new study, the FTC found that subscription services use dark patterns that make it difficult for users to cancel. Read more
Whataburger to the rescue? In the wake of Hurricane Beryl, some Houstonians got creative with their attempts to track the power outages by using the Whataburger app to see which of the chain’s locations were open. Read more
Lucid Motors sets a new record: Lucid Motors delivered 2,394 EVs in the second quarter of 2024, a new record for the company and a positive sign amid its struggle to establish a foothold in the EV market. Read more
Your late-night Wikipedia deep dives just got better: Wikipedia has finally started implementing dark mode for its mobile website to ease your eyes while you go down a 3 a.m. rabbit hole about the Roman Empire. Here’s how to turn it on. Read more
Analysis
Spotify is a social network now: With Spotify’s recent launch of comments on podcasts, Sarah Perez explores how the music streamer is taking yet another step toward building a social networking experience. Combined with the app’s 2023 revamp, which added a TikTok-like discovery feed and the ability to post to stories, Spotify is shaping up to be a social network centered around all things audio, not just a music-streaming app. Read more
Can visual AI models really see? The latest round of language models are touted as able to understand images and audio as well as text. But a study by researchers at Auburn University and the University of Alberta tested the biggest multimodal models on a series of very simple visual tasks and found that they don’t see the way you might expect. In fact, as Devin Coldewey writes, visual AI models may not see at all. Read more
Comment