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  WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that he would prefer for House Republicans to refuse to fund the federal government than for them to get behind a funding bill that does not contain a debt ceiling increase. “Republican obstructionists have to be done away with,” Trump posted, referring to members of the House…

  Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Twitch, is launching a new AI startup, TechCrunch has learned. The startup, called Stem AI, is currently in stealth. But public documents show it was incorporated in June 2023, and filed for a trademark in August 2023. Shear is listed as CEO on an incorporation document filed with…

  TuSimple has completed its pivot away from autonomous trucking to AI animation and gaming with a rebrand. The company shall henceforth be known as CreateAI. The rebrand comes as TuSimple is embroiled in controversy over the company’s plans to move its remaining U.S. assets to China to fund the new business, which it initially…

  A team of engineers at Toyota have spent years iterating on CUE6, the basketball-shooting robot. CUE6 uses machine learning to adjust his posture and arm movement in order to take the perfect shot nearly every time. The robot holds the Guinness World Record for most consecutive basketball free throws by a humanoid robot after…

  Accounting firms are struggling to adopt high-tech solutions. That’s according to a survey earlier this year from Rightsworks, which found that, while 88% of firms believe tech has had a positive impact on their efficiency, 60% are suffering from disconnected systems, inconsistent processes, and a lack of standardized workflows. Startups like Aiwyn are trying…

  Logistics is the name of the game during the holiday season: Companies that can seal the deal and get people and things to the places they need to be, on time, rake it in this time of year. But behind that demand lies a huge amount of inefficiency and fragmentation. Are logistics businesses ready…

  AI-powered search engine Perplexity has reportedly closed a $500 million funding round, valuing the startup at $9 billion. Bloomberg, citing sources familiar, reports that the round was led by Institutional Venture Partners and that it closed earlier in December. In an email to TechCrunch, a Perplexity spokesperson declined to comment. The mammoth tranche comes…

  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sat before Congress in 2023 to testify about the dangers of AI. He told American lawmakers at the time that he owns no equity in OpenAI, something he’s said many times, claiming he just runs the company because he loves it. However, Altman recently said he actually did have some…

  Rapido, a popular ride-hailing platform in India, has fixed a security issue that exposed personal information associated with its users and drivers, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The flaw, discovered by security researcher Renganathan P, was related to a website form meant to collect feedback from Rapido auto-rickshaw users and drivers. The form exposed the…

  The writing was on the wall, seemingly. Sequoia Capital partner Matt Miller announced on Wednesday that he’s leaving the powerhouse outfit after a 12-year career to build his own new firm focused on European founders. He added he will remain a venture partner with Sequoia and maintain his board seats while fleshing out the…