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Daily Crunch: Startup says it has received $1M in preorders for its $60K hydrofoiling personal watercraft

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riderless personal watercraft sitting on a serene body of water at sunset. or maybe sunrise.
Image Credits: Boundary Layer (opens in a new window)

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Hey, folks, welcome back! Below we’ve got some 2022 roundups and even some news. I suspect it’ll get even leaner as the week wears on, but no matter! There will always be stories to share. Now, here is your Wednesday edition of the Daily Crunch. — Hank

The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Sports on Amazon: The tech giant wants to continue its march into broadcasting live sports, adding to its current lineup of Thursday Night Football, Premier League soccer and the like, Aisha reports. Pro tip, Amazon: Add cricket to your plans.
  • Ring true: Movano beat the CES rush and launched Evie, a smart ring focused on women’s health, Brian reports.
  • In the water: Earlier this month, Boundary Layer pivoted to producing personal watercraft that will run interested parties upward of $60,000 once they’re ready. Haje reports that the company has more than $1 million worth of orders.

Dear Sophie: Do employees have to stop working until they get their EAD?

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

Dear Sophie,

One of our employees is on an H-4 visa and has an Employment Authorization Document. It’s been five months since he filed to renew his EAD, which will expire next month. Is there any way to expedite this process? Does he have to stop working if he doesn’t receive his new EAD card before his old one expires?

Because it’s taking so long to get EAD cards, we’re worried about another of our employees, who has an L-2 visa with an EAD scheduled to expire early next year.

In addition, the H-4 visa employee wants to visit his family in India because it’s been more than three years since he last went. Will he and his family be able to return to the U.S. after four weeks?

— Mindful Manager

Dear Sophie: Do employees have to stop working until they get their EAD?

We also rounded up the best of our climate coverage on TC+ this year. And Tim had a couple more favorites:

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech, Inc.

  • Twitter trimming: A Norway-based developer told Ivan that she created a tool to help you cull the list of accounts you follow, because she was reaching the follow limit on the platform.
  • Political … tick tock: The U.S. House of Representatives has ordered all staff and lawmakers to delete TikTok from their gov-issued phones, citing “security issues,” Carly writes.
  • Bitcoin mining deal: Galaxy Digital has agreed to acquire Argo Blockchain’s bitcoin mining facility, Helios, for $65 million, Jacquie writes.
  • Code-generating AI: Sounds cool, right? Well, Kyle wrote about a study that found code-generating AI can introduce security vulnerabilities.

2022 in Review

  • Good news!: Amanda, Kyle, Tim, Devin and Rebecca have a roundup of some good news in tech for you. This crop of TC reporters put their heads together to mine 2022 for some tech goodness. Climate tech bolstered by the Inflation Reduction Act and the James Webb Space Telescope are on the list.
  • On the move: Rebecca has compiled the biggest transportation stories that drove the year.
  • Surveying investors: And Karan and Ram give you a glimpse of the investor surveys that we ran on TC+ this year.

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CSC ServiceWorks provides laundry machines to thousands of residential homes and universities, but the company ignored requests to fix a security bug.

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OpenAI created a team to control ‘superintelligent’ AI — then let it wither, source says

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Decks are all about telling a compelling story and Goodcarbon does a good job on that front. But there’s important information missing too.

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Slack is making it difficult for its customers if they want the company to stop using its data for model training.

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A Texas-based company that provides health insurance and benefit plans disclosed a data breach affecting almost 2.5 million people, some of whom had their Social Security number stolen. WebTPA said…

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Ember has partnered with HSBC in the U.K. so that the bank’s business customers can access Ember’s services from their online accounts.

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Kudos uses AI to figure out consumer spending habits so it can then provide more personalized financial advice, like maximizing rewards and utilizing credit effectively.

Kudos lands $10M for an AI smart wallet that picks the best credit card for purchases

The EU’s warning comes after Microsoft failed to respond to a legally binding request for information that focused on its generative AI tools.

EU warns Microsoft it could be fined billions over missing GenAI risk info

The prospects for troubled banking-as-a-service startup Synapse have gone from bad to worse this week after a United States Trustee filed an emergency motion on Wednesday.  The trustee is asking…

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U.K.-based Seraphim Space is spinning up its 13th accelerator program, with nine participating companies working on a range of tech from propulsion to in-space manufacturing and space situational awareness. The…

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OpenAI has reached a deal with Reddit to use the social news site’s data for training AI models. In a blog post on OpenAI’s press relations site, the company said…

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X users will now be able to discover posts from new Communities that are trending directly from an Explore tab within the section.

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Strava announced a slew of features, including AI to weed out leaderboard cheats, a new ‘family’ subscription plan, dark mode and more.

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What a wild week for transportation news! It was a smorgasbord of news that seemed to touch every sector and theme in transportation.

Tesla keeps cutting jobs and the feds probe Waymo

Sony Music Group has sent letters to more than 700 tech companies and music streaming services to warn them not to use its music to train AI without explicit permission.…

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Winston Chi, Butter’s founder and CEO, told TechCrunch that “most parties, including our investors and us, are making money” from the exit.

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The investor lawsuit is related to Bolt securing a $30 million personal loan to Ryan Breslow, which was later defaulted on.

Bolt founder Ryan Breslow wants to settle an investor lawsuit by returning $37 million worth of shares

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