TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Gerald Herbert / AP

1. Halliburton confirms data breach: The oil and fracking giant today said intruders had stolen data in a cyberattack that took some of its systems offline last week. Halliburton is still assessing the extent of the damage, but ransomware gang RansomHub appears to have taken credit for the cyberattack. Read More

2. Leading from the middle: Palantir is slowly becoming the driving force behind the next wave of defense tech startups, a sector that's seen over $129.3 billion in venture money invested since 2021. The company's CTO, Shyam Sankar, has started a program to guide defense tech startups to greatness. Read More

3. Clearview gets fined again: Clearview AI has been hit with its largest GDPR fine yet, about $34 million, by Dutch regulators for building a facial-recognition database of people's selfies without their consent. Dutch authorities are concerned, however, that the company is ignoring previous fines in the EU, and have warned they will hold Clearview's executives personally liable. Read More

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Morning Must-Reads

Image Credits: a16z

🎮 AI and Discord are the future of video games, feels A16z's Joshua Lu. The investor helped launch the firm's Speedrun accelerator for gaming startups, and he thinks AI will make it infinitely easier to ship new games fast. He also thinks it's a good idea for game studios to build games on top of Discord. Read More

🤖 Home robots still suck: We all want robots to do our laundry and dishes so we can attend to our hobbies. Alas, most robots can still mostly only perform simple tasks, like cleaning floors. Brian Heater walks us through why that is. Read More

💪 The reverse acqui-hire trend is going strong: Amazon has poached hired Covariant's founders and "about a quarter" of its employees, and signed a non-exclusive license to use the startup's foundation models meant for use with robots. Read More

🧑‍⚖️ CrowdStrike is getting flooded with lawsuits: This was bound to happen after CrowdStrike's faulty software update caused millions of Microsoft devices to shut down, taking down infrastructure around the world. We've got the rundown, including Delta's suit against the company for $500 million. Read More

✍️ To sign or not to sign? California's controversial AI bill, SB 1047, is headed to the governor's desk. The bill aims to prevent AI from resulting in catastrophic damage, like large-scale cyberattacks or events that lead to loss of life, but its opponents feel it might put the brakes on the advancement of AI technology. Read More

🇮🇳 Building semiconductors for India: BigEndian Semiconductors is tapping into the government's efforts to establish India as a semiconductor producer. And the startup's setting out by developing surveillance chips for cameras. Read More

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Around the Web

💰Doing a 180 is hard: Ever since ChatGPT took off, OpenAI has been trying hard to turn into a profit-driven company and leave behind its non-profit roots. But the transition is proving especially tough as old executives leave and new employees flood in, sources told The New York Times. Read More

🧑‍💻 How AI snippets are changing SEO: It seems Google's AI Overviews are here to stay, and they're already changing the way people search, according to Nieman Lab. The site polled seven audience directors about how they are shifting their SEO strategy to account for this change in user behavior. Read More

🤠 Going founder mode: Brat summer is coming to an end, and being mindful and demure is out. Paul Graham questions why founders are being pushed to run large companies like managers, rather than getting in on the ground floor. Read More

Before You Go

Image Credits: RoJDesign / Getty Images

🔎 Branch out from Google: Google became a household name because it had the best search engine. But lately it's been a little…sponsored ad-y. So why not start exploring your options? We've got a list of promising contenders for the best search engine title. Read More