Inside Apple's recycling facility: TechCrunch's Brian Heater took a trip down to Austin to meet Daisy, Apple's new recycling robot that can disassemble 1.2 million iPhones per year and extract valuable materials for reuse. Now if only Apple would make it easier for people who own iPhones to disassemble and repair their own stuff. Read More
The wild market of AI shares: VCs are willing to sell their first-borns to get stakes in hot AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, but it's a hard market to break into. Small, unknown investors, however, appear to be faring better: They're banding together to use special purpose vehicles, or SPVs, to buy stakes in all the sexy AI companies right now. Read More
Unity's co-founder is gaming the climate crisis: David Helgason, co-founder of game engine Unity, has moved into the early-stage climate tech space. His firm, Transition Ventures, is fueled by his philosophy that legacy industries will be outpaced by more sustainable solutions. Read More
Biden vetoes crypto bill: U.S. president Joe Biden has vetoed a bill that would have overturned the SEC's current approach to banks and crypto, which is for banks to treat crypto assets as liabilities. Banks say this makes it prohibitively expensive for them to handle crypto, but regulators say it's necessary to protect investors. Read More
Ashby brings AI to recruiting: Ashby wants to take the tedium out of recruiting by letting AI do all the boring work. The startup automates repetitive steps like creating job listings, sourcing candidates and sending calendar invites for interviews. Read More
Explain AI like I'm 5: WTF even is AI?! And what about machine learning? What are LLMs? TechCrunch is here to help with this non-technical guide for understanding how and why today's AI works. Read More
Spotify hikes subscription price in U.S.: Nevermind the fact that Spotify is crushing it with record-breaking profits, its users in the U.S. will now have to shell out more cash for access to the music-streaming service. I would hope some of that money is going back to musicians. Read More
Kobo's new e-readers are OK: TechCrunch's Devin Coldewey reports that Kobo's new e-readers, which feature color e-paper displays, are cool, but sadly aren't vibrant enough to really get into those comics. Read More
(Re)vive is a solution for fast fashion: Fast fashion dumped 9.5 billion pounds of returned items in landfill in 2022 alone. New York-based (Re)vive, which grew 10x last year, is taking on that problem to help companies find a better ending for their returned items. Read More
