Chinese search engine Baidu has launched two new AI models — Ernie 4.5, the latest version of the company’s foundational model first released two years ago, as well as a new reasoning model, Ernie X1. According to Reuters, Baidu claims that Ernie X1’s performance is “on par with DeepSeek R1 at only half the price,”, … Read more

GTC, Nvidia’s biggest conference of the year, will return this week, with the biggest announcements probably coming Tuesday. If you can’t make it in person, don’t sweat it. TechCrunch will be on the ground covering the major developments. Many of the biggest presentations, talks, and panels will be livestreamed as well. The conference starts Monday, … Read more

Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician turned whistleblower who exposed mass surveillance by the U.S. government, has died at age 79. Klein went public in 2006 with documents revealing that the NSA was using a secret room in an AT&T hub in San Francisco to tap into the backbone of the internet. Behind the door … Read more