Amazon outage breaks much of the internet

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image via techcrunch.com

An outage affecting web hosting giant Amazon Web Services (AWS) has taken out vast swathes of the web, including websites, banks and some government services. The internet giant blamed the outage, which began around 3 a.m. on the U.S. east coast, on DNS, a system that converts web addresses into IP addresses so that customer apps and websites can load.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/20/amazon-dns-outage-breaks-much-of-the-internet/

OpenAI launches ChatGPT Pulse to proactively write you morning briefs

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image via techcrunch.com

OpenAI is launching a new feature inside of ChatGPT called Pulse, which generates personalized reports for users while they sleep. Pulse offers users five to ten briefs that can get them up to speed on their day, and is aimed at encouraging users to check ChatGPT first thing in the morning — much like they would check social media or a news app.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/25/openai-launches-chatgpt-pulse-to-proactively-write-you-morning-briefs/

Meta unveils new smart glasses with a display and wristband controller

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image via techcrunch.com

Meta on Wednesday unveiled a new pair of Ray-Ban branded smart glasses with a built-in display for apps, alerts, and directions on the right lens. The smart glasses are controlled by a wristband that picks up on subtle hand gestures, called Meta Neural Band, the same one it unveiled at last year’s Connect as part of its Orion demo.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/17/meta-unveils-new-smart-glasses-with-a-display-and-wristband-controller/

Vibe coding has turned senior devs into ‘AI babysitters,’ but they say it’s worth it

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image via techcrunch.com

Carla Rover once spent 30 minutes sobbing after having to restart a project she vibe coded. She called vibe coding a beautiful, endless cocktail napkin on which one can perpetually sketch ideas. But dealing with AI-generated code that one hopes to use in production can be “worse than babysitting,” she said, as these AI models can mess up work in ways that are hard to predict.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/14/vibe-coding-has-turned-senior-devs-into-ai-babysitters-but-they-say-its-worth-it/

Vimeo to be acquired by Bending Spoons in $1.38B all-cash deal

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image via techcrunch.com

Founded in 2004, Vimeo spun off from IAC (InterActiveCorp) in 2021, becoming an independent, publicly traded company. Since then, the company has lost almost 90% of its market value, prompting leadership to consider strategic options, according to Bloomberg. Bending Spoons has a pattern of acquiring companies, then laying off staff and cutting features. For example, Bending Spoons acquired note-taking and task management app Evernote in 2022, after which the company laid off most of its U.S. and Chile staff and moved operations to Europe in 2023. Evernote then shut down the Linux and older legacy versions of the app, and then proceeded to place heavy restrictions on the app’s free tier in 2024.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/10/vimeo-to-be-acquired-by-bending-spoons-in-1-38b-all-cash-deal/

College social app Fizz expands into grocery delivery

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image via techcrunch.com

Founded in 2021, Fizz is available at more than 620 campuses across the United States, with over 27 million posts shared to date. The social platform allows students to connect anonymously with others at their university. Fizz also features a marketplace where users can buy and sell items locally. The partnership will allow students to order anything from late-night snacks to weekly groceries directly within the Fizz app in as fast as 15 minutes, Fizz says.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/03/college-social-app-fizz-expands-into-grocery-delivery/

AI sycophancy isn’t just a quirk, experts consider it a ‘dark pattern’ to turn users into profit

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image via techcrunch.com

Experts say that many of the AI industry’s design decisions are likely to fuel episodes of AI psychosis. Many raised concerns about several tendencies that are unrelated to underlying capability.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/25/how-chatbot-design-choices-are-fueling-ai-delusions-meta-chatbot-rogue/