TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Waymo

🚙 On the road again: Waymo kicked off two of its branded "road trips" to Philadelphia and New York today, marking its interest in expanding to those cities. The road trips don't necessarily mean a commercial launch in those cities is imminent, and Waymo plans to start several other road trips this year.

🪚 A hack: A ransomware attack is the cause of an ongoing outage at tech distribution giant Ingram Micro, the company said. The hack started Thursday, and no major ransomware group has yet taken credit for the breach.

💰 Drastic transformation: Big Tech is on a data startup shopping spree, hoping these acquisitions will cross the biggest hurdle to enterprise AI adoption: fragmented, messy data systems. But it's unclear whether buying companies built for a pre-ChatGPT world will really deliver the AI breakthroughs they're looking for or just add more complexity.

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Apple

💧 Glass half full? At WWDC 2025, Apple showed off Liquid Glass, a new design language that will launch with iOS 26, but the beta versions have already started rolling out. After users complained that the "liquid" element of the design was making it hard to read notifications, the new beta 3 dials that back. Now some people are calling it "Diluted Glass" or "Frosted Glass."

⏰ Tick, tock: TikTok might be working on a new version of its app that could be released in the weeks ahead of September 17, the deadline for a potential ban. U.S. users would have to download a new app to continue using the social network.

🎾 Not a grand slam: This is the first year that line judges have been replaced by AI at Wimbledon, and players aren't happy. The technology may not be as accurate as some had hoped, leading to some bad calls. In one instance, a player was told he needed to speed up the game because the sun was going down and the AI doesn't do well without a lot of light.

📈 Creeping up: Threads has nearly the same number of mobile users as X, according to data from Similarweb. In June, Threads' app for iOS and Android saw 115.1 million daily active users, and X reached 132 million daily active users in the same month.

🤨 Sure, sounds good: Jack Dorsey said over the weekend that he created a new messaging app, called Bitchat, that runs through Bluetooth mesh networks. This kind of app generally works well at a range of around 100 meters, meaning it's great for concert venues or other places where you might be looking to meet up with friends.

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Around the web

💸 Fintech fail: Meta once looked like it would dominate India's booming digital payments market through WhatsApp, which is its most-used app in the country. But despite finally clearing regulatory hurdles, WhatsApp Pay has barely made a dent.

😬 I can't tell if this is good or bad: Some people are turning to AI chatbots, not therapists, to guide them through psychedelic trips. Apps like Alterd and even ChatGPT are being used as digital "tripsitters," helping people prepare for, navigate, and reflect on intense drug experiences.