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Daily Crunch: Apple launches new iPhone 14, a rugged Apple Watch, and more

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Apple iPhone 14 Pro
Image Credits: Apple

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It’s Wednesday, which today is known as Apple iPhone 14 (here’s all our stories from the Apple event) and Y Combinator Demo Day…day. As you can see, our team was at one or the other, and some decided to split themselves in half and do both, to bring you the latest and greatest. Enjoy every.last.morsel.  — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Hot in here: One of the new Apple Watch features that readers found most appealing is the new temperature sensors, two of them, in fact, Haje writes. If you run hot in your sleep, imbibed too much the night before or want to know the best time to conceive, the watch will let you know what’s up. You can see more on Apple’s iPhone 14 event in the Big Tech section.
  • Long-awaited editing rights: For those of you who make spelling errors or remember something just after you’ve already hit “tweet,” Twitter will let you edit that tweet up to five times within a 30-minute period once its editing feature drops, Ivan reports. Sorry, six edits is one too many.
  • Fintech frenzy: Natasha M and Anita dive into the fintech pool at Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 batch to find out which trends are making waves. Demo Day started today and goes through tomorrow — our team is standing by.

Startups and VC

In startup land, it’s been a lot of Y Combinator goodness. Dominic-Madori and Natasha M wrote about the YC’s diversity data, and Anita and Natasha M observed that the accelerator is doubling down on crypto founders despite market volatility.

It’s been a wildly busy day on the site today, and the following only scrapes the surface. We’ve done our best to pick some of the most interesting reads, but don’t forget to give our homepage a skim today — it’s a veritable cornucopia of techy goodness.

Dear Sophie: Can I start a company or a side hustle on a TN visa?

lone figure at entrance to maze hedge that has an American flag at the center
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

Dear Sophie:

I’m a Canadian citizen working under a TN visa as a software engineer in the U.S. I want to start my own company or at least earn money through a side hustle.

Is this possible on my TN, or is the only way I can do that via a green card? If so, is it possible to get permanent residence since the TN is for non-immigrant intent?

— Clever Canadian

Dear Sophie: Can I start a company or a side hustle on a TN visa?

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Big Tech Inc.

We’re going to rename this section “Big Apple” just for today because half of the stories came from our team’s hustle to cover the Apple iPhone 14 event. Brian, Kyle, Haje, Amanda, Ivan, Romain and Sarah are bringing you the good stuff about SIM cards, AirPods and so, so many details about the Apple Watch. It’s too much to list here, but you can read all of the stories from our dedicated Apple iPhone 14 event hub.

More TechCrunch

In a series of posts on X on Thursday, Paul Graham, the co-founder of startup accelerator Y Combinator, brushed off claims that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was pressured to resign…

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In its three-year history, EthonAI has amassed some fairly high-profile customers including Siemens and chocolate-maker Lindt.

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Biotech startup Valar Labs has built a tool that accurately predicts certain treatment outcomes, potentially saving precious time for patients.

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Archer Aviation is partnering with ride-hailing and parking company Kakao Mobility to bring electric air taxi flights to South Korea starting in 2026, if the company can get its aircraft…

Archer, Kakao Mobility partner to bring electric air taxis to South Korea in 2026

Space startup Basalt Technologies started in a shed behind a Los Angeles dentist’s office, but things have escalated quickly: soon it will try to “hack” a derelict satellite and install…

Basalt plans to “hack” a defunct satellite to install its space-specific OS

As a teen model, Katrin Kaurov became financially independent at a young age. Aleksandra Medina, whom she met at NYU Abu Dhabi, also learned to manage money early on. The…

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ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved…

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A surge of battery recycling startups have emerged in Europe in a bid to tap into the next big opportunity in the EV market: battery waste.  Among them is Cylib,…

Cylib wants to own EV battery recycling in Europe

Amazon has received approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly its delivery drones longer distances, the company announced on Thursday. Amazon says it can now expand its…

Amazon gets FAA approval to expand US drone deliveries

With Plannin, creators can tell their audience about their latest trip, which hotels they liked and post photos of their travels.

Former Priceline execs debut Plannin, a booking platform that uses travel influencers to help plan trips

Amazon is rolling out its AI voice search feature to Alexa, which lets it answer open-ended questions about content.

Amazon is rolling out AI voice search to Fire TV devices

Redpanda has already integrated Benthos into its own service and has made it the core technology of its new Redpanda Connect service.

Redpanda acquires Benthos to expand its end-to-end streaming data platform

It’s a lofty goal to take on legacy payments infrastructure, however, Forward’s model has an advantage by shifting the economics back to SaaS companies.

Fintech startup Forward grabs $16M to take on Stripe, lead future of integrated payments

Fertility remains a pressing concern around the world — birthrates are down in many countries, and infertility rates (that is, the ability to conceive at all) are up. And given…

Rhea reaps $10M more led by Thiel

Microsoft, Meta, Intel, AMD and others have formed a new group to design next-gen interconnects for AI accelerator hardware.

Tech giants form an industry group to help develop next-gen AI chip components

With JioFinance, the Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani is making his boldest consumer-facing move yet into financial services.

Ambani’s Reliance fires opening salvo in fintech battle, launches JioFinance app

Salespeople live and die by commissions. It’s no surprise, then, that Salesforce paid a premium to buy a platform that simplifies managing commissions.

Filing shows Salesforce paid $419M to buy Spiff in February

YoLa Fresh works with over a thousand retailers across Morocco and records up to $1 million in gross merchandise volume.

YoLa Fresh, a GrubMarket for Morocco, digs up $7M to connect farmers with food sellers

Instagram is expanding the scope of its “Limits” tool specifically for teenagers that would let them restrict unwanted interactions with people.

Instagram now lets teens limit interactions to their ‘Close Friends’ group to combat harassment

Agritech company Iyris helps growers across eleven countries globally increase crop yields, reduce input costs, and extend growing seasons.

Iyris makes fresh produce easier to grow in difficult climates, raises $16M

Exactly.ai says it uses generative AI to help artists retain legal ownership of their art while being able to reproduce their designs faster and at scale.

Exactly.ai secures $4M to help artists use AI to scale up their output

FintechOS competes with other companies such as Ncino, Meridian Link, Abrigo and Backbase.

Romanian startup FintechOS raises $60M to help old banks fight back against neobanks

After two years of preparation and four delays over the past several months due to technical glitches, Indian space startup Agnikul has successfully launched its first sub-orbital test vehicle, powered…

India’s Agnikul launches 3D-printed rocket in sub-orbital test after initial delays

Struggling EV startup Fisker has laid off hundreds of employees in a bid to stay alive, as it continues to search for funding, a buyout or prepare for bankruptcy. Workers…

Fisker cuts hundreds of workers in bid to keep EV startup alive

Chinese EV manufacturers face a new challenge in their pursuit of U.S. customers: a new House bill that would limit or ban the introduction of their connected vehicles. The bill,…

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With the release of iOS 18 later this year, Apple may again borrow ideas third-party apps. This time it’s Arc that could be among those affected.

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