Waze adds new AI-powered features and customization updates

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories to start your morning

View this email online in your browser  July 13, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 Waze adds new AI-powered features and customization updates: Some of the new features are powered by Google's Gemini AI assistant, which reflects the the tech giant's broader push to integrate Gemini across its products while also better positioning Waze to compete with rival services such as Apple Maps. Read More SpaceX cleared to fly Starship again after booster failure in May: This will be the first Starship test flight for SpaceX as a public company, testing the market's appetite for the company's "fly, fail, fix" approach to rocket development, which often ends in fireballs. Read More Uber’s robotaxi lobbying effort puts it on a collision course with Waymo: Washington, D.C. has become a battleground for Uber and Waymo's competing views. Read More A message from General Compute General Compute is making a $300m bet against GPUs General Compute raised $15m to build the worlds first ASIC cloud. By removing the GPU bottleneck, it runs frontier LLMs up to 16x faster than standard GPU clouds. ASIC silicon is also far more energy efficient, so it deploys in air-cooled data centers, making growth and expansion dramatically easier. Learn more here Morning Must-Reads LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire, citing 'serious concerns' over civil liberties and privacy: The LAPD, one of Flock's biggest government customers, is ending its contract with the company citing civil liberties concerns. Read More TechCrunch Mobility: A robotaxi ultimatum: Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation and now, more than ever, how AI is playing a part. Read More Reed Jobs would rather talk about curing cancer than his last name: When we last sat down with Jobs at TechCrunch Disrupt nearly three years ago, his firm Yosemite was brand new and biotech was still reeling from its post-pandemic crash. Now, the venture outfit has a team of 17; a cluster of blockbuster drugs are all losing patent protection in roughly the same window, creating all kinds of new opportunities; and AI has gone from a curiosity to, in Jobs' words, a huge part of what Yosemite does. "I didn't expect Yosemite to be moving this fast," he said. Read More Smart glasses without a camera? Even Realities bets productivity beats recording everyone: The glasses are targeted at people who might be constantly in meetings, giving presentations, and traveling to countries where different languages are spoken.  Read More This slushie machine was a lifesaver during NYC's heat wave: Ninja's latest slushie machine builds on the popularity of the original Slushi, but with a big upgrade. Read More Last but Not Least : Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107

Reed Jobs would rather talk about curing cancer than his last name

Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories this weekend

View this email online in your browser  July 12, 2026 TechCrunch Top 3 Reed Jobs would rather talk about curing cancer than his last name: When we last sat down with Jobs at TechCrunch Disrupt nearly three years ago, his firm Yosemite was brand new and biotech was still reeling from its post-pandemic crash. Now, the venture outfit has a team of 17; a cluster of blockbuster drugs are all losing patent protection in roughly the same window, creating all kinds of new opportunities; and AI has gone from a curiosity to, in Jobs's words, a huge part of what Yosemite does. "I didn't expect Yosemite to be moving this fast," he said. Read More A new app, HyperTexting, turns the open web into a scrollable social media-like feed: HyperTexting's new app aims to make the open web feel more like social media by turning websites, blogs, newsletters, and podcasts into a scrollable feed, while also making it easier to post to your own website. Read More Apple sues OpenAI over alleged trade secret theft: Apple alleges the misconduct was directed by OpenAI's senior leadership, including a longtime former employee. Read More Sunday Must-Reads Meta removes controversial AI feature on Instagram after backlash: "Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool and to give people control over whether their public content could be referenced in this way," the company said in a blog post. "We've heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it's no longer available." Read More OpenAI bets on families as ChatGPT goes deeper into households: ChatGPT is hiring a dedicated product manager to build experiences for families, caregivers, and older adults, according to a job posting. Read More Phia accused of 'cookie stuffing,' taking affiliate credit on purchases it didn't earn: Phia, the shopping startup founded by Bill Gates’ daughter, Phoebe, and her friend Sophia Kianni is under fire for a practice known as “cookie stuffing,” which helped the product receive commissions and credit for sales it did not actually generate, per a Bloomberg investigation.  Read More US cybersecurity agency CISA had to build its incident playbook during the incident, agency reveals: Independent cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs reported in May that a security researcher with cyber firm GitGuardian alerted him to reams of exposed passwords stored in a publicly accessible GitHub repository, which an employee of a CISA contractor had uploaded. Read More Filing: College app Fizz accuses VC of sharing confidential startup information with rival Sidechat: Fizz has expanded its lawsuit against rival Sidechat, alleging that a Maveron VC shared its confidential information obtained during a fundraising meeting with the competing startup. Read More A message from TechCrunch Events Your PC refresh strategy is already behind - free webinar, July 29 Thinking about stretching your PC fleet to wait out the price spike? The research says that's backward. Organizations that handle AI PC transitions best refresh consistently — not with a one-time buy. Join us for a free online webinar on July 29th at 10am PT/1pm ET to learn how to spec smarter for what's coming. Register Now Disrupt 2026: Where deals and ideas ignite Oct 13–15 at San Francisco's Moscone West, 10,000 founders, investors, and operators gather for high-signal insights, curated connections, and real momentum. Register Now! Last but Not Least Smart glasses without a camera? Even Realities bets productivity beats recording everyone: The glasses are targeted at people who might be constantly in meetings, giving presentations, and traveling to countries where different languages are spoken.  Read More Check out some of our other newsletters: StrictlyVC TechCrunch Events TechCrunch Mobility Want to adjust your daily newsletter schedule? You can do it right here Got a tip? Get in touch securely. Want to advertise on TechCrunch? advertise@techcrunch.com Has this been forwarded to you? Click here to subscribe to this newsletter. Unsubscribe Member Center Privacy Policy Copyright © 2026 TechCrunch Media LLC 501 2nd Street, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94107