TechCrunch Top 3

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1. Making money off someone else's work: Elon Musk agreed with AI experts that companies have "now exhausted basically the cumulative sum of human knowledge…in AI training." Now, it's time for synthetic data, says Musk. Others have said better AI is the solution. Read More

2. AI slop IRL: TC's Kyle Wiggers spent the week in the AI jungle of CES 2025, and he reckons companies still don't know what AI is good for. Startups slapping "AI" onto products unnecessarily abounded, from baby cribs and spice dispensers to an air fryer that can scan cookbooks. This is really getting out of hand. Read More

3. VLC on the rise: Popular open-source media player VLC has hit 6 billion downloads. It also teased an AI-powered subtitle feature that automatically generates real-time subtitles for any video using open-source AI models that run locally on users' devices. Read: No need for internet or cloud connectivity. Read More

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Morning must-reads

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🤠 Boys being boys: XAI's Grok may soon get an "Unhinged Mode," which will provide responses "intended to be objectionable, inappropriate, and offensive." I'm imagining every answer being delivered in Cartman's voice and style. Read More

🌊 Mapping the ocean: Marine robotics startup Xocean has raised $119 million to expand the remit of its uncrewed surface vessels that capture data around ocean depth and seafloor topography – necessary information if we're to learn how to regulate the Earth's climate and build things like floating offshore wind farms. Read More

🥂 Sherlock strikes again: Apple might be working on an "Invites" app that would be a competitor to Evite or Partiful. The app would let users share a link to a page that shows event details in a visually compelling way, plus a list of invitees. Read More

💰 Using data to make money: A new early-stage VC firm focused on B2B SaaS and fintech came out of stealth today. Named Defiant, the firm has secured $30 million already and aims to rely heavily on data to find promising investments. To do that, it's building its own suite of products for its investment team. Read More

🔥 Watch out for wildfires: Watch Duty, an app to track wildfires with live maps and alerts, has surpassed ChatGPT to claim the number one spot on Apple's App Store as devastating fires continue to sweep across Southern California. Read More

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Around the web

🍆 Hypocrisy abounds: A 404 Media report details how Instagram, Facebook, and Threads are removing sexually explicit posts while allowing advertisers to spread pornographic ads promoting "dubious sexual enhancement products." Meta is also reportedly removing 404 Media's stories about this issue, citing "nudity." Read More

🚀 To the moon: A California court has given the U.S. government approval to liquidate the largest federal seizure in crypto history, closing a four-year battle over $6.5 billion in bitcoin assets tied to the Silk Road marketplace, reports Decrypt. Read More

Before you go

Image Credits: Yukai Engineering

🥄 Never a dull moment at CES: The show is still going on, but we've put together our collection of the weirdest tech we spotted at CES, including an electronic spoon that makes your food taste salty, a gaming chair that warms and cools your butt, and the latest Enron prank. Read More