Is Microsoft's gaming division doubling down on AI?

As generative AI evolves, a Google VP warns that LLM wrappers and AI aggregators face mounting pressure, with shrinking margins and limited differentiation threatening their long-term viability.

Jesse Van Rootselaar's descriptions of gun violence were flagged by tools that monitor ChatGPT for misuse.

Lowest ticket prices to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 end February 27. Up to $680 off individual passes and up to 30% off group passes. Register before they go up to join 10,000 founders, tech operators, and VCs.

Researchers have mapped the genetic risk of hemochromatosis across the UK and Ireland for the first time, uncovering striking hotspots in north-west Ireland and the Outer Hebrides. In some regions, around one in 60 people carry the high-risk gene variant linked to iron overload. The condition can ta...

Living at high altitude appears to protect against diabetes, and scientists have finally discovered the reason. When oxygen levels drop, red blood cells switch into a new metabolic mode and absorb large amounts of glucose from the blood. This helps the body cope with thin air while also reducing blo...

Scientists may have spotted a long-sought triplet superconductor — a material that can transmit both electricity and electron spin with zero resistance. That ability could dramatically stabilize quantum computers while slashing their energy use. Early experiments suggest the alloy NbRe behaves unl...

Researchers tested whether generative AI could handle complex medical datasets as well as human experts. In some cases, the AI matched or outperformed teams that had spent months building prediction models. By generating usable analytical code from precise prompts, the systems dramatically reduced t...

For the first time, scientists have mapped Uranus’s upper atmosphere in three dimensions, tracking temperatures and charged particles up to 5,000 kilometers above the clouds. Webb’s sharp vision revealed glowing auroral bands and unexpected dark regions shaped by the planet’s wildly tilted mag...

OpenAI said the account's activity did not meet the threshold to flag it to authorities when it was identified.

Astronomers have uncovered one of the most mysterious galaxies ever found — a dim, ghostly object called CDG-2 that is almost entirely made of dark matter. Located 300 million light-years away in the Perseus galaxy cluster, it was discovered in an unusual way: not by its stars, but by four tightly...

Deepfakes showing grim taxpayer-funded waterparks have gone viral and drawn some racist responses.

A common bacterium best known for causing pneumonia and sinus infections may also play a surprising role in Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers found that Chlamydia pneumoniae can invade the retina and brain, where it sparks inflammation, nerve cell death, and the buildup of amyloid-beta—the hallma...

Sarvam's Indus chat app is currently available in beta.

The creator economy is evolving fast, and ad revenue alone isn’t cutting it anymore. YouTubers are launching product lines, acquiring startups, and building actual business empires. In fact, MrBeast’s company bought fintech startup Step, ...

About 100 customers affected PayPal has notified about 100 customers that their personal information was exposed online during a code change gone awry, and in a few of these cases, people saw unauthorized transactions on their accounts.…

The former HQ host Scott Rogowsky is back with TextSavvy, a live mobile game show that he's building on his own terms.

Dueling pro-AI PACs have centered around backing or targeting one New York congressional bid: Alex Bores, whose RAISE Act requires AI developers to disclose safety protocols and report serious system misuse.

Several updates are introduced in iOS 26.4, including an AI-powered playlist-generation feature in Apple Music, support for video content in the Podcasts app, end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for RCS messages, and more. 

The startup, founded by accountants who worked at Flexport, Miro, Hopin and Thrive Global, automates the difficulties of prepping financial statements.

What happens in Vegas… Las Vegas hotel and casino giant Wynn Resorts appears to be the latest victim of data-grabbing and extortion gang ShinyHunters.…

A new report from Business Insider reveals that high-level engineers at xAI were pulled off other projects to make sure Grok could answer detailed questions about the video game Baldur's Gate.

A Ukrainian man has been sentenced for helping North Koreans gain fraudulent employment at dozens of U.S. companies and funnel that money back to the regime to fund its nuclear weapons program.

"The grounds for relief that Tesla relies upon are virtually the same as those Tesla put forth previously during the course of trial."

The new Threads feature lets you share your posts — or anyone else's — to your Instagram Story without leaving the Threads app.

I'm working on a simple tool for a cleanroom. I'm looking to use an o-ring as a seal to keep any dust inside the tool from getting out. These will run at very low RPM <1. Heat and chem resistance aren't needed per se. The mating material will be plastic (nylon).   submitted by &...

Addictive, AI-enabled tablets are taking over, and also, Woody is balding in the new Toy Story movie, out June 19.

Meta said it's shifting focus for Horizon Worlds to be "almost exclusively mobile" and that it will separate its Quest VR platform from the virtual world.

The layoffs affect hundreds of full-time workers in the US, according to an internal memo obtained by TechCrunch.

AI expands access to filmmaking for resource-constrained creators. But as efficiency becomes the industry’s north star, creativity risks being overwhelmed by a deluge of low-effort, AI-generated content.

Nominations for TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200 are open. Pitch at Disrupt 2026 in October in front of top VCs and the full TechCrunch audience. Nominate your startup or for one that's deserving.

Exercise may sharpen the mind by repairing the brain’s protective shield. Researchers found that physical activity prompts the liver to release an enzyme that removes a harmful protein causing the blood-brain barrier to become leaky with age. In older mice, dialing down this protein reduced inflam...

Peak XV says most of its new capital will target India as the firm prioritizes AI, fintech and cross-border bets while navigating recent partner departures.

Quentin Griffiths co-founded Asos in 2000 and remained a significant shareholder after leaving the firm five years later.

Polish arrest leads to extradition and federal prison sentence Ukrainian national Oleksandr Didenko will spend the next five years behind bars in the US for his involvement in helping North Korean IT workers secure fraudulent employment.…

Human language may seem messy and inefficient compared to the ultra-compact strings of ones and zeros used by computers—but our brains actually prefer it that way. New research reveals that while digital-style encoding could theoretically compress information more tightly, it would demand far more...

Scientists at Stanford have unveiled the first-ever global map of rare earthquakes that rumble deep within Earth’s mantle rather than its crust. Long debated and notoriously difficult to confirm, these elusive quakes turn out to cluster in regions like the Himalayas and near the Bering Strait. By ...

But the head of the US delegation at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi says: "We totally reject global governance of AI."

A groundbreaking clinical trial is testing whether specially engineered stem cells can help the brain restore its own dopamine production in people with Parkinson’s disease. Because the condition is driven by the gradual loss of dopamine-producing cells—leading to tremors, stiffness, and slowed ...

Breathing polluted air may do more than harm your lungs — it could also increase your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. In a sweeping study of nearly 28 million older Americans, researchers found that long term exposure to fine particle air pollution was linked to a higher likelihood of developing Al...

For decades, scientists have believed that complex life began when two very different microbes joined forces, eventually giving rise to plants, animals, and fungi. But one major puzzle remained: how could these organisms have met if one depended on oxygen and the other supposedly lived without it? N...

Baroness Kidron tells the BBC the PM has being "late to the party" in regulating social media.

A giant virus discovered in Japan is adding fuel to the provocative idea that viruses helped create complex life. Named ushikuvirus, it infects amoebae and shows unique traits that connect different families of giant DNA viruses. Its unusual way of hijacking and disrupting the host cell’s nucleus ...

The agency released a critical report that puts the Starliner incident at same mistake level assigned to the fatal Columbia and Challenger shuttle disasters.

India's mango farmers are being urged to innovate as climate change makes cultivation "unpredictable".

$300 a month buys you a backdoor that looks like legit software Researchers at Proofpoint late last month uncovered what they describe as a "weird twist" on the growing trend of criminals abusing remote monitoring and management software (RMM) as their preferred attack tools.…

Clips of Deadpool and other film characters have sparked alarm within Hollywood over copyright infringement.

FBI warns these cyber-physical attacks are on the rise Thieves stole more than $20 million from compromised ATMs last year using a malware-assisted technique that the FBI says is on the uptick across the United States.…

The company says it has addressed the issue and it "did not provide anyone access to information they weren't already authorised to see".

A SpaceX Falcon 9 crashed to Earth last year. Now scientists have measured the pollution it caused.