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The California Public Utilities Commission has approved Waymo’s request to expand its commercial robotaxi service area, opening the door for the Alphabet company to bring its driverless ride-hailing vehicles into more communities south of San Francisco. The company said in a post on X the approval won’t change its plans in the near term. Today, Waymo operates a commercial robotaxi service in all of San Francisco as well as parts of the Peninsula. It also provides driverless rides to paying customers throughout several Silicon Valley cities, including parts of Mountain View, Palo Alto, Los Altos, and Sunnyvale. In all, the company’s service area is about 85 square miles covering San Francisco and Silicon Valley. We’re very excited to share that the CPUC has approved our application to operate our fully autonomous commercial ride-hailing service in the South Bay and nearly all of San Jose! While this won’t change our operations in the near-term, we’re looking forward to bringing the… — Waymo (@Waymo) May 19, 2025 The company is also aiming to unlock access to the San Francisco International Airport, although those plans are on a much longer timeline. Waymo was given permission in March to map roadways at SFO via a temporary permit. Waymo vehicles will not operate autonomously in the airport; employees will manually drive the vehicles to map the area. But the permit signals the beginning of a phased approach to Waymo eventually operating commercially there. Waymo provides 250,000 paid trips each week across its operations, which extends to Los Angeles, Phoenix, and more recently Austin.

Last year, Klarna announced a significant initiative to leverage its internally developed AI systems, powered by OpenAI, across its operations. This wasn’t empty talk for the buy now, pay later giant. The company not only ended its pricey contract with Salesforce CRM, but also curtailed its hiring efforts, allowing AI to do some of the work previously performed by humans. Klarna announced Monday its reliance on AI is driving significant efficiency for the company, and it’s on track to reach $1 million in revenue per employee, up from $575,000 per worker a year prior, according to the company’s latest financials. While the company claims most functions became more efficient thanks to its AI efforts, the largest financial impact was the significant reduction in customer service costs. Klarna said last year it planned to replace nearly 700 full-time customer service contractors with AI chatbots. However, last week, the company said customers would again have the option to speak with a human agent. In March, the Swedish company filed paperwork for its highly anticipated U.S. IPO. Klarna postponed those plans last month due to the volatility in the stock market triggered by President Trump’s tariff announcement. Despite a 13% revenue increase to $701 million in Q1 2025, the company provided no timeline for resuming its IPO plans.

Waymo and Uber will start offering robotaxi rides in Atlanta to select customers who earlier this year signed onto a waitlist. The move comes ahead of the companies’ public robotaxi launch this summer. Customers selected for early access will be notified in the Uber app and via email. Those who opt for the robotaxi rides will be encouraged to provide feedback during and after the ride. As an extra incentive, riders will receive $10 worth of Uber credits after their first Waymo ride. Atlanta is the second city to get the so-called “Waymo on Uber” service. The companies launched the service, which matches riders with a Waymo via the Uber app, in Austin this spring. Uber and Waymo last September announced plans to offer a robotaxi service in Austin and Atlanta in early 2025 as part of an expanded partnership. Under the partnership, only Uber users can hail Waymo’s fleet of autonomous Jaguar I-PACE vehicles. Like every other city that Waymo has launched in — a list that includes Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco — the service area in Atlanta will grow over time. Waymo and Uber have agreed to initially offer robotaxi rides in a 65-square-mile area in Atlanta, including downtown, Buckhead, and Capitol View neighborhoods. The “Waymo on Uber” service splits the responsibilities of owning and operating a fleet of driverless vehicles: Uber handles the charging, maintenance, and cleaning of the autonomous vehicles, as well as managing access to the robotaxis via its app, while Waymo monitors the tech and the autonomous operations, including rider assistance. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

Austin Russell, who became a billionaire after his lidar startup Luminar went public, appears to be out as CEO, according to the company’s board. Luminar’s board announced Wednesday — the same day of its first-quarter earnings report — it had replaced Russell and appointed Paul Ricci to the role. Ricci is the former chairman and CEO of Nuance. The press release states that Russell resigned as president and CEO and as the chairperson of the board, effective immediately. The board said in the press release the resignation followed a code of business conduct and ethics inquiry for the audit committee of Luminar’s board. Russell will remain on the board and be “available to the incoming Chief Executive Officer on transition and technology matters,” according to the release. A day after the leadership change was announced, board member Jun Hong Heng also resigned, according to a regulatory filing, which stated his decision was not due to any disagreements with the company on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies or practices. It’s not clear if Russell was forced out or if he resigned willingly. Russell could not be reached for comment. Heng could not be reached for comment. The board did not provide further details of this ethics inquiry except that it “does not impact any of the company’s financial results.” In a further twist, the company’s earnings report and slide presentation makes no mention of the change of leadership. The first-quarter press release even includes an upbeat statement from Russell that outlines the company’s strategy to drive down cost with its new Halo product. “In a world of macro uncertainty and adversity, we’re firing on all cylinders to ramp up production, ramp down costs, and capitalize on the future, as evidenced by our announcements today,” Russell said in the statement. “This kicks off our new operating plan for Luminar with a unified product platform, enabling radical focus and streamlining of the business, as well as unlocking value throughout our organization.” Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Meanwhile, the press release from the board tells another story. “We are excited to announce Paul as our next CEO,” board member Matt Simoncini said in a statement. “His track record speaks for itself. He is a visionary leader with a rare combination of technical insight and operational excellence. His commitment to innovation, his ability to scale organizations, and his instinct for anticipating where technology is heading make him the ideal person to lead us into our next chapter of growth. The Board has full confidence in his leadership, and we are excited about what lies ahead.” Simonici, who retired as CEO of Lear in 2018, is chair of the board’s audit committee, which also includes Jun Hong Heng, who is the founder and chief investment officer of technology investment firm Crescent Cove Advisers, Evergreen Capital Partners founder Dominick Schiano, and Daniel Tempesta, who served as executive VP and CFO at Nuance. Luminar burst onto the autonomous vehicle scene in April 2017 after operating for years in secrecy. Russell, who was just 22 years old at the time, was thrust into the spotlight and became a Silicon Valley success story. Luminar was founded by Russell in 2012, but it would be years before his company would be known by the public. He worked on the Luminar technology as a Thiel fellow, which gives young people $100,000 over two years to drop out of college and pursue their ideas. In 2021, Luminar merged with special purpose acquisition company Gores Metropoulos Inc., with a post-deal market valuation of $3.4 billion. Luminar raised $250 million prior to the SPAC announcement. This article originally published May 14. It has been updated to include information about a board member resigning.

Spotify announced on Monday that Apple has approved a new app update, allowing iPhone users in the U.S. to purchase individual audiobooks directly within the app. Users can also view audiobook prices and easily buy additional listening hours beyond the initial 15 hours. “This change lowers the barriers for more users to embrace their first — or tenth — audiobook, while allowing publishers and authors to reach fans and access new audiences seamlessly,” the company wrote in the announcement. This long-awaited update follows a recent U.S. court ruling that ordered Apple to stop charging fees on purchases made outside of the App Store. The ability to buy audiobooks directly within the iOS app and see pricing will be a nice improvement for users who previously had to buy audiobooks on the web before they could access them within the app. Spotify removed audiobook purchases back in 2022 due to Apple’s strict rules around in-app purchases. Now, users can purchase an audiobook with just a few taps. Additionally, iPhone users were previously required to visit the web to purchase more listening hours, referred to as “top-ups.” With the new update, they can now make these purchases directly within the app. Each top-up costs $13 for 10 additional hours. Earlier this month, Spotify began allowing iPhone users to purchase subscriptions outside the App Store, as Apple approved an update enabling access to pricing information and external payment links.

A federal judge is asking Apple to approve Fortnite’s submission on the U.S. App Store or return to court to explain the legal basis as to why it has not done so. In a new filing, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers confirms the court has received Epic Games’ latest motion, where it demands that Apple approve Fortnite for distribution on the App Store. The clearly annoyed judge asks Apple to show the court the “legal authority upon which Apple contends that it can ignore this Court’s order.” Rogers also suggests that Apple will need to return to court to explain if the situation is not addressed. “Apple is fully capable of resolving this issue without further briefing or a hearing,” Rogers reminds the tech giant, before adding that Apple name the company official who’s responsible for ensuring compliance with the court’s decision. pic.twitter.com/PUwvX8fgGe — Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) May 19, 2025 Reading between the lines, the demand for the name of the Apple official in the new filing suggests that Rogers is not above considering contempt charges for failing to comply with the court’s injunction. This follows her earlier ruling, where the judge skewered Apple for attempting to route around the court’s orders and accused the tech company of lying under oath. After winning the right to include links to external payment mechanisms in its app, Epic Games resubmitted Fortnite to the U.S. App Store. However, Apple told the game maker that it decided not to take action on Epic Games’ submission until after the Ninth Circuit rules on Apple’s pending request for a partial stay of the new injunction. (In other words, Apple said it didn’t have to approve the app until the legal proceedings around its appeal fully played out.) Epic Games on Friday filed a motion to compel the court to enforce the injunction, given Apple’s decision. The latest legal threat follows a years-long court battle over Apple’s App Store policies, which had long denied app developers the right to link to external payment options without paying Apple a commission. Apple originally complied with the court’s decision in the lawsuit by allowing U.S. developers to apply for an exception to its App Store rules, but it still collected a 27% commission on those alternative purchases, down from the usual 30%. Apple also required developers to use “scare screens” that warned consumers when they were clicking through to make a purchase outside its App Store. In a major victory for developers, Rogers ruled Apple was in “willful violation” of the court’s injunction on anticompetitive pricing and commissions, which would have seemingly allowed Fortnite to return to the App Store. But Apple sat on the submission for a week instead, neither approving or denying the game’s publication, while its lawyers crafted a response. What happens next could be significant for Apple, as it may inspire similar legal action or regulation in other global markets. Apple was the victor in Epic’s original antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant, as the court declared it was not a monopolist. However, Epic Games carved out a win in one area when Rogers agreed that iPhone users should have access to alternative payment options if a developer wanted to use its own website for in-app purchases, like those for virtual goods or subscriptions. Following the decision, Apple updated its App Store policies for the U.S., and apps including Spotify, Amazon Kindle, and Patreon quickly rolled out new versions of their apps to take advantage of the new functionality. Epic Games declined to comment. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. Apple appeals court decision that forced it to allow links to external payments in apps Read the juiciest bits from the Apple-Epic court ruling

With the current economic uncertainties and geopolitical challenges, securing funding for startups in Asia has recently become more difficult. Venture capital firms have also been impacted by the downturn, leading to a decrease in the number of funds being closed. The VC market is “going through [one of its] cyclical winters marked by high interest rates, tightened liquidity, and cautious LP sentiment,” Akio Tanaka, a co-founder of and partner at Headline Asia, a Tokyo- and Taipei-based VC firm, told TechCrunch in an interview. Yet funds are still closing. Headline Asia said Tuesday it had completed one of its largest funds to date, Headline Asia Fund V, at $145 million to invest in tech startups across Asia-Pacific. (Headline previously said that it was targeting $180 million for the fund.) Headline’s latest fund is earmarked for startup founders building companies targeting digital transformation and cross-border operations in Japan, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia, with selective investment in South Korea. Headline invests in early-stage — seed to Series A — with check sizes ranging from $1-5 million in e-commerce, logistics, fintech, IP, and AI. Backers of Headline Asia’s fifth fund include a mix of public and private entities, including Japan Investment Corporation (JIC), the National Development Fund of Taiwan (NDF), Korea Venture Investment Corporation (KVIC), and SME Support Japan. Headline’s new fund has already invested in 17 companies, including Newmo, a Japanese taxi and ride-sharing startup; Jenfi, a Singapore-based company providing revenue-based financing for digital businesses and startups in Southeast Asia; and Pi-xcels, a Tokyo- and Singapore-based startup that delivers NFC-enabled tech for merchants to send receipts to their customers. Certain investors in Southeast Asia prefer to make safe investments that generate profits instead of investing in high-growth, high-risk tech startups in a challenging funding climate, according to Tanaka. Headline aims to make investments that these investors won’t. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW “Early-stage valuations are still where the most outsized returns are made,” Tanaka said, “especially in today’s exit environment, where later-stage valuations have compressed and liquidity remains limited.” Tanaka told TechCrunch that the firm is particularly excited about opportunities in Japan. In the past, most Japanese startups have focused on business in their local market, according to Tanaka. There were numerous IPO deals, although they were relatively small in size. “Many startup founders in Japan found it low-hanging fruit to go public with a relatively small offering,” Tanaka added. “We are very much interested in global startups coming out of Asia, whether it’s Japanese startups going international, or maybe Southeast Asia or North Asian startups going global.” Headline Asia is part of the Headline global network, with regional offices in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. The VC has about $4 billion in assets under management. Founded in 2008, Headline Asia, which has backed over 100 startups, manages approximately $420 million in assets across its five funds. The firm employs 10 investment professionals in Tokyo, Taipei, and Singapore. The closure of Headline’s newest fund comes on the heels of other Asia-focused VC fundraises. Antler closed a $72 million Southeast Asia fund in August, and MindWorks Capital, a Hong Kong-based VC firm, completed a fourth Pan-Asia fund at $220 million in October. In November, Indonesia VC firm Intudo secured $125 million across two funds, including $50 million for a fund to invest in downstream natural resources and renewable energy.

Google is buying another 600 megawatts of solar power to supply electricity to its data centers. The new deal covers solar and storage projects being developed in South Carolina by EnergyRe. The company says it has 16 gigawatts under development; most projects listed on its site have deployed around 60 MW to 75 MW of solar, though some are larger. Google has been investing heavily in renewables recently. Last year, it pledged to invest $20 billion with Intersect Power and TPG Rise Climate to build enough zero-carbon power plants to provide electricity for several gigawatts worth of data centers. And in January, the company signed a contract to buy over 700 megawatts of solar projects in Oklahoma from Leeward Renewable Energy. Like many tech companies, Google has said it will eliminate its carbon footprint from energy by 2030. After years of steady investment in renewables, Google and its peers had been marching steadily toward that goal. But the growth of AI and the compute needed to run it has complicated that math, forcing Google and others to step up their purchases. The company contracted 4 gigawatts of clean power in 2023, the last year for which Google has made data available. Google isn’t alone: Microsoft has added hundreds of megawatts of solar this year alone, including a 475 megawatt purchase in March. Meta signed deals for 595 megawatts and 505 megawatts of solar in January and February, respectively.

President Donald Trump signed the Take It Down Act on Monday, a bipartisan law that enacts stricter penalties for distributing nonconsensual explicit images, including deepfakes and revenge porn. The bill criminalizes the publication of such images, whether they’re authentic or AI-generated. Whoever publishes the photos or videos can face criminal penalties, including fines, imprisonment, and restitution. Under the new law, social media companies and online platforms must remove such material within 48 hours of notice from the victim. The platforms also have to take steps to delete duplicate content. Many states have already banned sexually explicit deepfakes and revenge porn, but this will be the first time federal regulators step in to impose restrictions on internet companies. First Lady Melania Trump lobbied for the bill, which was sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). Cruz said he was inspired to act after hearing that Snapchat refused for nearly a year to remove an AI-generated deepfake of a 14-year-old girl. Free speech advocates and digital rights groups have raised concerns, saying the law is too broad and could lead to censorship of legitimate images, like legal pornography, as well as government critics.

Semiconductor giant AMD followed through with its plan to spin out ZT Systems’ server-manufacturing business. AMD announced on Monday that it was selling ZT Systems’ server-manufacturing business to electronic manufacturing services company Sanmina. The $3 billion deal is a mix of cash and stock: $2.25 billion in cash, a $300 million premium including 50% cash and 50% equity, and a $450 million contingent payment based on financial performance over the next three years, according to Reuters. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2025, subject to regulatory approval. After this divesture, AMD will maintain control of ZT Systems’ rack-scale AI solutions design business. This announcement isn’t a shock. When AMD announced its intent to acquire ZT Systems, an AI and cloud infrastructure company, for $4.9 billion in August 2024, the company said at the time that it planned to divest that part of ZT Systems’ business after the deal formally closed. AMD’s acquisition of ZT Systems officially closed in March 2025, according to Reuters. Alongside this announcement, AMD said that Sanmina will become a “preferred” new product introduction manufacturing partner for AMD cloud rack and cluster-scale AI solutions. ​​“By combining the deep experience of our AI systems design team with our new preferred NPI partnership with Sanmina, we expect to strengthen our U.S-based manufacturing capabilities for rack and cluster-scale AI systems and accelerate quality and time-to-market for our cloud customers,” said Forrest Norrod, executive vice president and general manager, data center solutions business unit at AMD, in the company’s announcement. TechCrunch reached out to AMD for comment. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

Google has officially released the NotebookLM app for Android, a day before Google I/O 2025 and a day before the company said it would roll out. Since its launch in 2023, the AI-based note-taking and research assistant has only been accessible via desktop. Google has now made the service available on the go. The iOS app is expected to launch Tuesday. NotebookLM is designed to help people better understand complex information through features like smart summaries and the ability to ask questions about documents and other materials. Image Credits:Google The Android app gives access to Audio Overviews, which are NotebookLM’s AI-generated podcasts based on the source material. There is background playback and offline support for Audio Overviews. The Android app also allows people to create new notebooks and view the ones they’ve already created. Users can also upload new sources from their device and view those that have already uploaded in each of the notebooks. The app features a light and dark mode that is applied based on the device’s system settings. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Given the timing of the launch, Google may share more about the app during the company’s I/O keynote Tuesday.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign the Take It Down Act today, a bipartisan law that enacts stricter penalties for distributing non-consensual explicit images, including deepfakes and revenge porn. The bill criminalizes the publication of such images, whether they’re authentic or AI-generated. Whoever publishes the photos or videos can face criminal penalties, including fines, imprisonment, and restitution. Under the new law, social media companies and online platforms must remove such material within 48 hours of notice from the victim. The platforms also have to take steps to delete duplicate content. Many states have already banned sexually explicit deepfakes and revenge porn, but this will be the first time federal regulators step in to impose restrictions on internet companies. First Lady Melania Trump lobbied for the bill, which was sponsored by Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). Cruz said he was inspired to act after hearing that Snapchat refused for nearly a year to remove an AI-generated deepfake of a 14-year-old girl. Free speech advocates and digital rights groups have raised concerns, saying the law is too broad and could lead to censorship of legitimate images, like legal pornography, as well as government critics.

Microsoft on Monday became one of the first hyperscalers to provide managed access to Grok, the AI model developed by billionaire Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI. Available through Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry platform, Grok — specifically Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini — will “have all the service-level agreements Azure customers expect from any Microsoft product,” says Microsoft. They’ll also be billed directly by Microsoft, as is the case with the other models hosted in Azure AI Foundry. When Musk announced Grok several years ago, he pitched the AI model as edgy, unfiltered, and anti-“woke” — in general, willing to answer controversial questions other AI systems simply won’t. He delivered on some of that promise. Told to be vulgar, for example, Grok will happily oblige, spewing colorful language you likely wouldn’t hear from ChatGPT. According to SpeechMach, a benchmark comparing how different models treat sensitive subjects, Grok 3 is among the more permissive models. Grok, which powers a number of features on X, Musk’s social network, has been the subject of much controversy lately. A recent report found that Grok would undress photos of women when asked. In February, Grok briefly censored unflattering mentions of Donald Trump and Musk. And just last week, an “unauthorized modification” caused Grok to repeatedly refer to white genocide in South Africa when invoked in certain contexts. The Grok 3 and Grok 3 mini models in Azure AI Foundry are decidedly more locked down than the Grok models on X. They also come with additional data integration, customization, and governance capabilities not necessarily offered by xAI through its API.

At its Build 2025 conference, Microsoft open-sourced a number of apps and tools, including a new command-line text editor for Windows called Edit. Open source software may not earn the company direct revenue, but it can serve as a form of market research — and a funnel to paid applications and services. By contributing to the open-source community, Microsoft gains valuable knowledge and product suggestions, as well as ideas for future directions. Edit, which will be installed by default on Windows via the Windows Insider Program beginning this summer, will allow developers to edit files directly in the command line by running the command “edit.” The goal is to minimize unnecessary context switching and let developers stay in their current flows, says Microsoft. Elsewhere, Microsoft is open-sourcing GitHub Copilot in VS Code, its assistive coding extension for Visual Studio Code. Over the next few months, AI-powered capabilities from the GitHub Copilot extension will migrate to the VS Code open-source repository, says Microsoft. Lastly, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), the feature in Windows that allows users to run a Linux environment directly on their Windows system, will be open-sourced, says Microsoft. This will allow developers to access the source code and make any changes they may need for a particular use case.

Microsoft is getting rid of developer onboarding fees for the Microsoft Store on Windows, the digital distribution platform for its flagship operating system, the company announced Monday during its Build 2025 conference. Starting June 2025, individual developers will be able to sign up and publish apps to the Microsoft Store without having to pay to register an account. Previously, Microsoft charged around $19 for registration. The waiving of the Microsoft Store’s app publishing fees comes as Microsoft rival Apple faces intense legal pressure to eliminate certain developer fees it charges in the App Store. Those fees are commissions, however — Apple still levies an annual fee of $99 on developers publishing to the App Store. Meanwhile, Google charges a one-time $25 fee for Google Play, the app store on Android. Microsoft says that it will continue to charge developers with apps on the Microsoft Store who use its commerce platform a 12% fee for games and a 15% fee for apps. Developers who use their own commerce system keep 100% of the revenue for non-gaming apps.

A trio of phone surveillance apps, which was caught spying on millions of people’s phones earlier this year, has gone offline. Cocospy, Spyic, and Spyzie were three near-identical but differently branded stalkerware apps that allowed the person planting one of the apps on a target’s phone access to their personal data — including their messages, photos, call logs, and real-time location data — usually without that person’s knowledge. Stalkerware apps, like Cocospy and its clones, are designed to stay hidden from device home screens, making the apps difficult to detect by their victims but all the while making the phone’s contents continually available to the person who planted the app. In February, a security researcher told TechCrunch that the apps share the same security flaw that allowed anyone to access the personal data of any device with one of the apps installed. The flaw also revealed the scale of the spying operations behind these apps by exposing the email address of every user who signed up to these spyware services with the intention of planting the spyware on someone’s phone. The researcher used the bug to scrape 3.2 million email addresses of Cocospy, Spyic, and Spyzie customers who had signed up, and provided those email addresses to the data breach notification site Have I Been Pwned. Following our reporting on the breach, the stalkerware apps have since stopped working, their websites disappeared, and their Amazon-hosted cloud storage was deleted, TechCrunch has found. It’s not clear for what reason the stalkerware operations were shuttered. The operators could not be reached for comment. Consumer-grade phone surveillance operations are known to shut down (or rebrand entirely) following a hack or data breach, typically in an effort to escape legal and reputational fallout. LetMeSpy, a spyware developed out of Poland, confirmed its “permanent shutdown” in August 2023 after a data breach wiped out the developer’s servers. U.S.-based spyware maker pcTattletale went out of business and shut down in May 2024 following a hack and website defacement. Cocospy, Spyic, and Spyzie are among the most recent apps in a growing list of dozens of phone surveillance operations that have been hacked or otherwise exposed their victims’ data as a result of shoddy coding or poor security practices. By TechCrunch’s count, at least 25 stalkerware operations have been breached since 2017, with at least 10 of those operations — including Cocospy — shutting down in the wake of a breach. Phone monitoring apps like Cocospy are often sold under the guise of parental control or tracking software, but are also referred to as “stalkerware” (or spouseware) for their propensity to be misused — or explicitly marketed — for spying on a person’s spouse or partner without their consent, which is illegal. As such, stalkerware apps are banned from app stores and are not allowed to advertise on search engines. Web hosts like Amazon, which hosted the stalkerware operations’ cache of stolen victims’ phone data, also claim to prohibit surveillance operations from using its platform. Although the trio of Cocospy apps now appears non-operational and its servers are offline, affected individuals should still take action to remove the spyware from their phones. To detect Cocospy, Spyic, and Spyzie on your Android phone, you can generally enter ✱✱001✱✱ on your phone app’s keypad and then press the “call” button. This backdoor feature prompts the hidden stalkerware apps to appear on-screen if they are installed. From here, you can delete the malicious app, which appears as a generic-looking app called “System Service,” from your device. — If you or someone you know needs help, the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) provides 24/7 free, confidential support to victims of domestic abuse and violence. If you are in an emergency situation, call 911. The Coalition Against Stalkerware has resources if you think your phone has been compromised by spyware.

GitHub and Microsoft, GitHub’s corporate parent, are joining the steering committee for MCP, Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to the systems where data resides. The announcement, which was made at Microsoft’s Build 2025 conference on Monday, comes as MCP gains steam in the AI industry. Earlier this year, both OpenAI and Google said they would support MCP in their respective AI products. MCP lets models draw data from sources like business tools and software to complete tasks, as well as from content repositories and app development environments. The protocol enables developers to build two-way connections between data sources and AI-powered applications, such as chatbots. Developers can expose data through “MCP servers” and build “MCP clients” — for instance, apps and workflows — that connect to those servers on command. Microsoft and GitHub say that they’ll deliver “broad first-party support” for MCP across their platforms and services, including Microsoft Azure and Windows 11. For example, in the next few months, Windows will gain MCP integrations that allow developers to expose the functionality of apps to MCP-enabled models. “Developers will be able to wrap desired features and capabilities in their apps as MCP servers and make them available […] for Windows,” explains Microsoft in press materials provided to TechCrunch. “This will include Windows system functionalities like File System, Windowing, and Windows Subsystem for Linux as MCP servers for [models] to interact with.” GitHub and Microsoft are also making several contributions to the MCP standard. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Microsoft says that its identity and security teams collaborated with Anthropic, the MCP steering committee, and the broader MCP community to design an updated authorization spec that allows MCP-connected apps to more securely connect to MCP servers. The spec enables people to use “trusted sign-in methods” to give AI-powered apps access to data and services including personal storage drives and subscription plans. Meanwhile, GitHub says that it and the MCP steering committee collaborated to design a registry service for MCP servers. The service allows developers to implement public or private, centralized repositories for MCP server entries and enable the discovery and management of various MCP implementations with their associated configurations.

Microsoft is launching new APIs for Edge, its web browser, to let developers incorporate AI functionality into web apps using models built into Edge. Unveiled at Build 2025, the AI APIs mirror some of the functionality in Google Chrome, which also offers “built-in AI” that developers can tap to power their web applications. Microsoft’s move suggests that it’s keen to offer a competitor — one that might sway devs to its side. Edge’s new APIs give websites and Edge browser extensions access to Phi 4 mini, an AI model that Microsoft released in late February. Around 3.8 billion parameters in size, Phi 4 mini excels at math problems, Microsoft says, thanks to a training data set that includes a mix of human-crafted and synthetic data (i.e. data generated by AI models). Parameters roughly correspond to a model’s problem-solving skills, and models with more parameters generally perform better than those with fewer parameters. Small models have the advantage of being more efficient, however, particularly on less powerful hardware like that found in laptops and mobile devices. Edge is also gaining other AI APIs, including a set of writing assistance APIs for generating, summarizing, and editing text. In a few months, Microsoft plans to release a translator API to serve AI-powered language translations via Edge, the company says. “These experimental APIs are intended as potential web standards and will work across platforms, browsers, and with other AI models,” writes Microsoft in a press release provided to TechCrunch. “For developers dealing with sensitive data or working in regulated industries, these APIs offer the privacy and security of on-device processing, eliminating the need to send data to external cloud services.” All of the new AI APIs are available in the Edge Canary and Dev channels. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW In related news, Microsoft is bringing a translation tool for PDFs to Edge. With support for over 70 languages, the tool lets users open a PDF in Edge, click the “Translate” icon in the Edge address bar, and create a new doc translated into the language of their choice. PDF translation will be generally available next month, and Canary users can try it starting today.

As part of an effort to make building AI-powered chatbots on the web simpler, Microsoft is launching an open project called NLWeb. Announced at Build 2025, NLWeb lets websites provide a “conversational interface” — i.e. a text field and a submission button — for their users with a few lines of code, the AI model of their choice, and their own data. A retailer could use NLWeb to create a chatbot that helps users choose clothing for specific trips, for example, while a cooking site could use it to build a bot that suggests dishes to pair with a recipe. Webpages built using NLWeb can optionally make their content discoverable and accessible to AI platforms that support MCP, Anthropic’s standard for connecting AI models to the systems where data resides. “[W]e believe [NLWeb] can play a similar role to HTML for the agentic web,” writes Microsoft in press materials provided to TechCrunch. “[It] allows users to interact directly with web content in a rich, semantic manner.” Microsoft didn’t say either way, but NLWeb may have its origins in tech from ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Microsoft’s close collaborator. The Information reported last November that OpenAI was working with partners including Condé Nast, Redfin, Eventbrite, and Priceline on an early version of NLWeb. Back then, OpenAI was pitching the tech as a way for brands to bring ChatGPT-like conversational features to their websites, but the project faced several delays due to technical hurdles. Months later, it seems NLWeb is ready for prime time — albeit perhaps in a different form than OpenAI originally envisioned. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

Can AI speed up aspects of the scientific process? Microsoft appears to think so. At the company’s Build 2025 conference on Monday, Microsoft announced Microsoft Discovery, a platform that taps agentic AI to “transform the [scientific] discovery process,” according to a press release provided to TechCrunch. Microsoft Discovery is “extensible,” Microsoft says, and can handle certain science-related workloads “end-to-end.” “Microsoft Discovery is an enterprise agentic platform that helps accelerate research and discovery by transforming the entire discovery process with agentic AI — from scientific knowledge reasoning to hypothesis formulation, candidate generation, and simulation and analysis,” explains Microsoft in its release. “The platform enables scientists and researchers to collaborate with a team of specialized AI agents to help drive scientific outcomes with speed, scale, and accuracy using the latest innovations in AI and supercomputing.” Microsoft is one among many AI labs bullish on AI for science. Earlier this year, Google unveiled an “AI co-scientist,” which the tech giant said could help scientists with creating hypotheses and research plans. Anthropic and its chief rival, OpenAI, along with outfits like FutureHouse and Lila Sciences, have asserted that AI tools could massively accelerate scientific discovery, particularly in medicine. But many researchers don’t consider AI today to be especially useful in guiding the scientific process, largely due to its unreliability. Part of the challenge in developing an “AI scientist” is anticipating an untold number of confounding factors. AI might come in handy in areas where broad exploration is needed, like narrowing down a vast list of possibilities, but it’s less clear whether it can do the kind of out-of-the-box problem-solving that leads to bona fide breakthroughs. Results from AI systems designed for science have so far been mostly underwhelming. In 2023, Google said around 40 new materials had been synthesized with the help of one of its AIs, called GNoME. But an outside analysis found not even one of those materials was, in fact, new. Meanwhile, several firms employing AI for drug discovery, including Exscientia and BenevolentAI, have suffered high-profile clinical trial failures. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Microsoft no doubt hopes that its effort will fare better than those that’ve come before it.

Microsoft wants to make it easier for developers to build AI-powered apps on Windows devices. On Monday during its Build 2025 conference, Microsoft announced Windows AI Foundry, a rebranding and expansion of the Windows Copilot Runtime service the company launched last May. Microsoft describes Windows AI Foundry as a “unified platform for local AI development” — a way to fine-tune, optimize, and deploy the AI models underpinning Windows apps. Microsoft increasingly sees AI, whether running locally or in the cloud, as a major profit driver, despite the high costs associated with developing tentpole models. In January, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the tech giant has $13 billion in annualized AI revenue, in part thanks to its partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Microsoft might not profit directly from third-party AI-powered apps on Windows. Still, by providing resources to make it easier to build AI software on the tech giant’s flagship operating system, Microsoft aims to foster a flourishing ecosystem at the expense of rivals. Hence, Windows AI Foundry. According to a press release shared with TechCrunch, Windows AI Foundry can automatically detect a Windows machine’s hardware and fetch the necessary software components to run a particular AI model. Windows AI Foundry will also keep these components up to date as new devices are released, Microsoft says, and deliver tools designed to simplify the process of prepping models. Windows AI Foundry also includes Foundry Local, a new service that “bring[s] the power of [AI] models […] to client devices,” explains Microsoft in the press release. Foundry Local, which supports macOS in addition to Windows, comes with a set of modules to run AI models and tools directly on-device, leveraging the ONXX Runtime, an open source project aimed at accelerating AI across platforms. Foundry Local also ships with command-line interface support, letting developers use prompts like “Foundry model list, Foundry model run” to browse, test, and interact with models running on a local server. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW “Foundry Local will automatically detect device hardware — CPU, GPU, and NPU — and list compatible models for developers to try,” Microsoft writes. “Developers will be able to leverage the Foundry Local SDK to easily integrate Foundry Local in their app.”

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