Welcome friends to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s regular newsletter summarizing the week in technology. This issue is a bit bittersweet for me; It will be the last (at least for a while). I’ll soon be turning my attention to a new AI-focused newsletter, which I’m super excited about. Stay tuned!
Now, let’s get to the news: this week Google laid off staff from its Flutter, Dart and Python teams weeks before their annual I/O developers conference. A total of 200 people were laid off across Google’s “core” teams, which included those working in app platforms and other engineering roles.
On the other hand, Tesla CEO Elon Musk gutted the company team responsible for overseeing its Supercharger network in a new round of layoffs, despite recently winning over major automakers such as Ford and General Motors. The cuts are so comprehensive that Musk suggested in an email that they will force Tesla to slow the expansion of the Supercharger network.
And UnitedHealthcare CEO Andrew Witty told a House subcommittee that the ransomware gang that hacked US healthcare technology giant Change Healthcare, a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare, used a set of stolen credentials to access Change Healthcare systems that were not protected by multi-factor authentication. Last week, UnitedHealthcare said hackers stole health data from a “substantial proportion of people in the United States.”
Many more things happened. We summarize it all in this edition of WiR, but first, a reminder to register to receive the WiR newsletter in your inbox every Saturday.
News
Hallucinations, hallucinations: OpenAI faces another privacy complaint in the EU. This one, brought to you by a nonprofit organization that defends privacy rights noyb on behalf of an individual whistleblower – points to the inability of its AI chatbot ChatGPT to correct the misinformation it generates about people.
Just leave… Sam’s Club: Sam’s Club customers who pay at a register or through the Scan & Go mobile app can now leave the store without having their purchases checked twice. The technology, sleepless at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, it has already been rolled out in 20% of Sam’s Club locations.
TikTok circumvents Apple rules: TikTok presents some users with a link to a website to purchase the coins used to tip digital creators on the platform. Typically, these coins must be purchased through in-app purchases, which requires paying a 30% commission to Apple, suggesting that TikTok could be trying to circumvent Apple’s App Store rules.
NIST GenAI Platform: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Department of Commerce agency that develops and tests technology for the U.S. government, businesses, and the general public, launched NIST GenAI, a new program to evaluate generative AI technologies, including text and image-generating AI.
Getir takes out: Fast commerce giant Getir has pulled out of the US, UK and Europe to focus on Turkey, its home country. The company, once valued at about $12 billion, said the move would affect thousands of full-time and full-time workers.
Analysis
Inside the Techstars “cold war”: A glowing report from Dom pulls back the curtain on a year of financial losses and staff cuts at startup accelerator Techstars, whose CEO Maëlle Gavet has been a controversial force for change.
AI-powered coding: This attentive one actually takes a look at Copilot Workspace, a sort of evolution of GitHub’s AI-powered Copilot coding assistant into a more general tool, based on recently introduced capabilities like Copilot chatwhich allows developers to ask questions about the code in natural language.