Monarch Tractor this morning announced the delivery of its first MK-V unit. The “smart tractor” is electric and what the Bay Area-based company refers to as “driver optional” (terms like “autonomous” and “self-driving” come with their own unique baggage). We’ll just refer to it as a “robot tractor” from here on. The system was unveiled…
Motional, the Aptiv-Hyundai joint venture developing autonomous vehicle technology, cut its workforce this week — the latest example of layoffs in the AV industry and more broadly in the tech sector. Employees were told of the layoffs Wednesday, according to sources who asked not to be named because they are not authorized to speak for…
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. There is officially only 8.3% left of the year. You know what that means! Holidays, cheer, and daydreaming about what shenanigans we’ll get ourselves into in 2024. Yes, 2024, because clearly we’re…
While artificial intelligence long ago surpassed human capability in chess, and more recently Go — and let us not forget Doom — other more complex board games still present a challenge to computer systems. Until very recently, Stratego and Diplomacy were two of those games, but now AI has become table-flipping good at the former…
The technological advances happening within the space industry are nothing short of dramatic — from propulsion systems, heavy-lift rockets and increased payload capabilities to building commercial space stations to fill the gap when the International Space Station ceases operations in 2030. These are thrilling times, and TC Sessions: Space 2022, which takes place on December…
Released two years ago, OpenAI’s remarkably capable, if flawed, GPT-3 was perhaps the first to demonstrate that AI can write convincingly — if not perfectly — like a human. The successor to GPT-3, most likely called GPT-4, is expected to be unveiled in the near future, perhaps as soon as 2023. But in the meantime,…
In the older days of the web, an app called Trillian emerged to solve the problem of allowing users to connect to their friends across multiple messaging services, like AIM, Jabber, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC and others. Lately, I’ve been longing for a Trillian-like service that would allow me to keep up with Twitter’s fleeing user…
Launch provider Rocket Lab is establishing a subsidiary to handle its sensitive U.S. government business, like launching spysats and experimental military spacecraft. Rocket Lab National Security LLC will handle most of the Defense Department stuff going forward to save the rest of the company a bit of grief. The main arm of Rocket Lab, or…
Menstrual cups (sometimes known as “moon cups”) have been around since the 1930s, and it’s been a bloody long period since we’ve seen much innovation in that category. Emm just closed a $1 million round of funding to add some smarts. The company adds an applicator and an app tracking feature to help keep an…
The right-wing social media platform Parler says that controversial rapper Kanye West is no longer buying the company. On Thursday, West appeared on InfoWars, the program hosted by far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as part of a media tour pertaining to West’s claim that he is running for president in 2024. (Jones, as you might…