Made by Google was this week, featuring a full range of reveals from Google’s biggest hardware event. Google unveiled its new lineup of Pixel 9 phones, including the $1,799 Pixel 9 Fold Pro; advanced AI-powered photo-editing tools; and the new Pixel Buds Pro 2, which are infused with Gemini AI. The company also announced Gemini Live, a conversational AI voice assistant to compete with OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode, though the live demo had a few hiccups.
Epic Games launched its rival iOS app store in the European Union. It’s launching with games like Fortnite, Rocket League, Sideswipe and Fall Guys, and is working with developers to launch their games on the Epic Games Store in the future. Fortnite’s return to iOS comes over four years after Apple first removed the game from its App Store, years of legal battles, and regulatory changes brought by EU’s Digital Markets Act.
X launched Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini in beta with improved reasoning. The new Grok AI model can now generate images on X, though access is currently limited to the social network’s Premium and Premium+ users. However, Grok’s image-generation feature doesn’t seem to have any guardrails around creating images of political figures like similar products do — and many users are taking advantage of it.
This is TechCrunch’s Week in Review, where we recap the week’s biggest news. Want this delivered as a newsletter to your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.
News
The “most epic fail” award goes to…: CrowdStrike accepted the award for Most Epic Fail at Def Con’s Pwnie Awards, just a few weeks after its software update triggered a global IT meltdown. At least they were a good sport about it. Read more
Waymo takes its driverless robotaxis to the freeway: Waymo will start testing its fully autonomous robotaxis on freeways in the San Francisco Bay Area after getting approval from California regulators to charge for autonomous rides on the freeway. Read more
20 years of competing with Google Maps: OpenStreetMap is a community-driven platform that serves companies and software developers with maps so they can rely a little less on proprietary products like Google — and it just celebrated its 20th birthday. Read more
Productivity your way: If you want to stay productive while distancing yourself from the usual Big Tech players, we put together some open source alternatives to popular productivity apps like Calendly, Zoom and Substack. Read more
The FBI goes after Radar: The FBI seized the servers of a ransomware and extortion gang called Radar (aka Dispossessor). It’s a rare win for the FBI, which has struggled to contain and curtail the rising threat from ransomware. Read more
Score shuts down: The dating app for people with good to excellent credit shut down in early August, the company told TechCrunch. What was only supposed to be a pop-up app received so much user interest that it stayed live for six months before finally shutting down. Read more
Apple goes after Patreon: Apple threatened to remove Patreon from the App Store if creators use unsupported third-party billing options or disable transactions on iOS, instead of using its in-app purchasing system for Patreon’s subscriptions. Read more
California supports digital IDs: Residents of California will soon be able to store their driver’s license or state ID in their Apple Wallet or Google Wallet apps, as the state works to launch support for digital IDs in the coming months. Read more
More bad news for Byju’s: India’s top court has put on hold a tribunal ruling that halted Byju’s insolvency proceedings — a win for U.S. creditors that are seeking to recover $1 billion from the once-celebrated edtech startup that has since fallen from grace. Read more
Make money on Telegram: Telegram announced new ways for creators to make money on its platform, including monthly paid subscriptions that users can purchase using the app’s digital currency in order to get access to a creator’s extra content. Read more
That’s a yikes from me: Palo Alto Networks is getting a lot of grief for a recent trade show event in which two women posed with lampshades on their heads. CEO Nikesh Arora apologized in a LinkedIn post, saying it was not “consistent with our values.” Read more
Analysis
Will AI change art as we know it? The latest AI models can produce great demos, but will they really change how people make movies and TV? A panel at SIGGRAPH explored the potential of generative AI and other systems to change the way media is created today. While filmmakers and VFX experts think the usefulness of these tools could pave the way for film in the short term, it could also change the medium beyond recognition in the long term. Read more
Pour one out for CrowdTangle: Journalists, researchers and politicians are mourning Meta’s shutdown of CrowdTangle, a tool used for tracking the spread of disinformation on Facebook and Instagram. Its replacement is less accessible and has fewer features, critics say, leading many people to question why the company axed the useful tool just three months before a contentious U.S. election that is already threatened by AI and misinformation. Read more