Author: Naveed Ahmad

Spotify is launching Audiobook Charts for the U.S. and U.Okay., the corporate announced on Friday. Much like the streaming big’s Music and Podcast Charts, the Audiobook Charts can be up to date weekly and spotlight the highest audiobooks general and by style. These rankings are based mostly on listening habits and engagement on the streaming service, the corporate says. The brand new charts are accessible to each free and paying customers inside the audiobooks hub. Yow will discover them by tapping the search button within the app and deciding on the “Audiobooks” tile to enter the hub. Then, it’s essential…

OpenAI has raised $110 billion in personal funding, the corporate announced Friday morning, commencing one of many largest personal funding rounds in historical past. The brand new funding consists of a $50 billion funding from Amazon in addition to $30 billion every from Nvidia and SoftBank, in opposition to a $730 billion pre-money valuation. Notably, the spherical stays open, and OpenAI expects extra buyers to hitch because it proceeds. “We’re coming into a brand new section the place frontier AI strikes from analysis into every day use at world scale,” OpenAI stated. “Management will probably be outlined by who can…

After years of appeals, Google has lastly acquired conditional approval to export high-precision geographic data out of South Korea, a transfer that opens the door to let the corporate present correct Google Maps providers within the nation, reminiscent of strolling and real-time driving instructions. The transfer reverses a long-standing coverage on knowledge restrictions that had primarily made Google Maps and Apple Maps non-functional within the nation. Google has to date offered maps providers in South Korea utilizing high-resolution, 1:5,000 scale map knowledge, however with out the power to export that knowledge to its servers, the corporate couldn’t provide options like…

An increase within the want for computer systems and knowledge facilities to energy AI is causing a massive shortage of RAM, driving reminiscence costs sharply higher. Now, analyst agency IDC predicts that this can trigger smartphone shipments to plummet by 12.9% this yr, making it the largest single-year dip in additional than a decade. Earlier this yr, IDC reported that producers shipped 1.26 billion devices in 2025. The agency predicts that determine will drop to simply 1.12 billion this yr. “The reminiscence disaster will trigger greater than a short lived decline; it marks a structural reset of all the market,…

Ultrahuman on Friday unveiled a brand new good ring with longer battery life and a redesigned kind issue, because the Bengaluru-based wearable maker seeks to revive its U.S. enterprise that was disrupted final 12 months by a patent dispute with rival Oura. The Ring Professional, Ultrahuman’s third-generation good ring, provides as much as 15 days of battery life — in contrast with 4 to 6 days on the Ring Air — and is priced at $479. It is going to be obtainable for pre-orders globally, excluding the U.S., with shipments starting in March. Ultrahuman’s U.S. enterprise was disrupted in October…

As area firms itch to push essentially the most superior chips into orbit, the issue of cooling these high-powered processors is high of thoughts. “It’s chilly in area … [but] there’s no airflow, and so the one technique to dissipate is thru conduction,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated when requested about space-based information facilities throughout his agency’s most up-to-date earnings name. Now, Sophia Area has raised $10 million from buyers, together with Alpha Funds, KDDI Inexperienced Companions Fund, and Unlock Enterprise Companions. The corporate plans to show out a brand new strategy to passively cooling area computer systems on the bottom,…

May Meta be getting ready to launch a Prada model of its Meta AI glasses? That’s the hypothesis after Mark Zuckerberg and his spouse, Priscilla, had been noticed sitting within the entrance row of Prada’s Fall/Winter 2026 Trend Week present in Milan on Thursday. The social media exec was seen chatting with his seatmate, Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada’s chief merchandising officer and son of head designer Miuccia Prada. Whereas Zuckerberg has been working to shine his picture lately, together with with upgraded threads, it’s seemingly that he wasn’t at Prada for the style, however quite due to an upcoming collaboration with…

PayPal is probably not pursuing an acquisition, Semafor reported, citing folks acquainted with the matter.  Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Stripe expressed curiosity in shopping for some or all of PayPal Holdings, which incorporates the flagship product PayPal and its companies, in addition to different firms like Venmo. Stripe declined to touch upon the information.  However unnamed sources inform Semafor that the corporate has been working with bankers in preparation for a potential activist investor marketing campaign or a hostile takeover. The bankers have been working with Alex Chriss, PayPal’s now-ousted CEO, the outlet reported. The corporate’s new CEO…

Plaid, an organization that connects monetary purposes to customers’ financial institution accounts, enabling funds and information verification, has allowed staff to promote a few of their shares at an $8 billion valuation, the corporate confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. The valuation represents a 31% enhance from the $6.1 billion valuation the 13-year-old firm achieved in April of final yr, when it raised a $575 million spherical led by Franklin Templeton for partly the identical function: buying shares from staff, together with to assist them cowl the taxes related to changing expiring restricted inventory items (RSUs, a type of fairness compensation)…

Silicon Valley constructed AI coding brokers that may deal with a lot of the grunt work. Now, essentially the most useful talent in tech is deciding what they need to do. Source link