by Happy Friday folks. It’s Kyle again, Greg’s deputy for Week in Review. (He’ll be back in a few weeks, don’t worry.) If you’re a WiR newbie, this newsletter is where we round up the last five days of tech news. I may be biased but I would say it’s the best way for the busy person to keep up to date. We do our best to serve you, dear reader, here at TC.
A few plugs before the news:
TechCrunch Early Stage is fast approaching – taking place in Boston on April 20th this year. If you haven’t been there yet, expect an annual incubator summit with sessions from top experts and opportunities to meet fellow entrepreneurs.
Looking further down, there’s Disrupt, TechCrunch’s annual flagship conference, taking place September 19-21. Excitingly, there will be new stages with industry-specific programming tracks in climate, mobility, fintech, AI and machine learning, enterprise, privacy and security, and hardware and robotics. Don’t miss it.
Now to WiR.
mostly read
Silicon Valley Bank implodes: Silicon Valley Bank Financial, the publicly traded holding company of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), is in crisis. Venture firms advised portfolio companies to withdraw funds from SVB after the bank announced it was posting a $1.8 billion loss related to securities sales. Then, after halting trading and asking staff to work from home – ostensibly as SVB was looking for a buyer – customers struggled to transfer funds from the bank. And on Friday, the SVB was shut down by regulators, who are now in charge of the bank’s deposits. There’s undoubtedly a lot more to come, so stay tuned – the entire TC editorial team has been killing it with coverage.
Decentralize all things: Meta is working on a decentralized text-based app, Ivan writes. As first reported by MoneyControl, the new app, codenamed P92, allows users to log in using their Instagram credentials. Not coincidentally, according to Platformer, the project is being led by Instagram boss Adam Mosseri and is widely perceived as Meta’s attempt to build a Twitter alternative or mastodon competitor.
Malware hides in the woodwork: The US government announced on Thursday that it had seized a website that sold malware used to spy on computers and cell phones. Lorenzo writes. The malware in question, NetWire, was reportedly promoted on hacking forums and marketed on a website that made it appear as a legitimate remote management tool.
Apple is launching a new service: Sarah writes that Apple is launching a music streaming service focused solely on classical music. Based on Apple’s 2021 acquisition of Amsterdam-based streamer Primephonic, the new Apple Music Classical app gives Apple Music subscribers access to more than 5 million classical music tracks, including new releases in high-quality audio, as well as hundreds of curated playlists. Thousands of exclusive albums and other features like composer bios and deep dives on key works.
Display sporty HomePod: Speaking of Apple, the company could be working on a new HomePod device with a built-in display for 2024. The rumor comes from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who says the new product could look like a speaker with a small tablet – similar to the Amazon Echo Show or Google’s Nest Hub.
Arrival towards bust: Arrival, the commercial EV company that went public in 2021, released its preliminary fourth-quarter and full-year earnings reports on Thursday. The essentials? Arrival burns cash and is on the hunt for more. As Kirsten The company has reportedly not yet generated any revenue and jaclyn writes that this is not expected before 2024. Factoring in the company’s spending, Arrival’s cash position — $205 million — won’t be enough to keep the wheels turning for the rest of the year.
No data protection guarantee: Cerebral has revealed it has shared the private health information, including mental health ratings, of more than 3.1 million patients in the US with advertisers and social media giants including Facebook, Google and TikTok. The telemedicine startup, whose popularity has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, disclosed the vulnerability in a filing with the federal government this week. Zack reports.
ChatGPT becomes company: ChatGPT, OpenAI’s viral AI-powered chatbot technology, is now available in a more enterprise-friendly package. Microsoft announced this week that ChatGPT is generally available through the Azure OpenAI Service, the company’s fully managed, enterprise-focused offering designed to give organizations access to OpenAI’s technologies with additional governance and compliance capabilities. Customers who are already required to be Microsoft Managed Customers and Partners can now request special access.
Discord embraces AI: Discord announced this week that it is rolling out a suite of new AI experiences across a range of servers. Most notably, the platform plans to update its Clyde bot with ChatGPT, allowing users to have enhanced, more realistic conversations with the chatbot. Additionally, Discord is updating its moderation tool to harness the power of large language models and introduce AI-generated conversation summaries.
audio
Are you looking for high-quality audio material from experts in their field? Look no further than TechCrunch’s podcast collection, which is growing significantly by the day. This week on Equity, Alex, Maria Ann And Natasha M gathered to go through the week’s biggest startup and venture news, starting with the situation at SVB. Over at Found, TC’s Founders and Company Building Show, Frosted, darrellAnd becca spoke to Matt Rogers, an entrepreneur dedicated to solving food waste — starting in the kitchen. on chain reaction, Jaquelyn interviewed Jack Mallers, the founder and CEO of Strike, a bitcoin-based payments network and finance app trying to expand cross-border payments and remittance markets. The TechCrunch podcast covered the proposed bipartisan bill that could ban TikTok in the US and the dangers of startups selling our data. And on TechCrunch Live, Matt spoke to Trulioo co-founder Tanis Jorge and Blumberg Capital’s David Blumberg about finding a co-founder, building partnerships and steering the stock split.
TechCrunch+
TC+ subscribers get access to the in-depth commentary, analysis, and polls you’ll know if you’re already a subscriber. If not, you should sign up. Here are a few highlights from this week:
SVB and the funding dilemma: Alex writes about the nightmare that the SVB situation has become for many startup founders. His attitude? This crisis will kill a multitude of startups, either quickly or by simply adding enough operational friction to bring them to their knees.
Computer vision, disturbed: Computer vision could be much faster and better if we skip the concept of still images and instead directly analyze a camera’s data stream. At least that’s the theory under which Ubicept – the latest idea to emerge from the MIT Media Lab – operates. hey has the full report.
Crypto continues its downward spiral: Jaquelyn reports that another massive crypto-centric firm kicked the bucket this week, prompting some analysts to forecast bigger problems for the entire ecosystem. Silvergate Capital, a publicly traded crypto bank, announced on Wednesday that it was “winding up and voluntarily liquidating” its banking division.
