Plus more of TechCrunch's top stories to start your morning

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October 23, 2026

 

TechCrunch Top 3

Warhound raises $200M to engineer war dogs and arm them with Anduril gear

Warhound raises $200M to engineer war dogs and arm them with Anduril gear: Warhound, the brainchild of Ben Lamm and Palmer Luckey, emerges from stealth to genetically engineer dogs for military and law enforcement. Read More

As blockchain investing falls out of vogue, a16z Crypto rebrands as a16z Frontier: The digital asset unit, helmed by Chris Dixon, broadens its scope. Read More

Uber rival inDrive eyes 2027 robotaxi tests in Central Asia with Pony.ai and Nvidia: inDrive plans to begin testing Pony.ai's robotaxis in Kazakhstan's capital in the first half of 2027. Read More

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Morning Must-Reads

Rivian buys world model startup to accelerate self-driving ambitions

Rivian buys world model startup to accelerate self-driving ambitions: Third Dimension's technology uses AI to match the physical world, which when combined with Rivian's reams of data could turn into a valuable simulator. Read More

Mark Zuckerberg's creative plan to pay California’s proposed billionaire tax without losing control of Meta: A newly launched stock class being offered was partially engineered to help Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg pay the "billionaire's tax," should the measure be voted into law. Read More

Left alone with nothing to do, AI agents started playing: MIT researchers marooned 13 AIs on a virtual island, and they responded by inventing games, mourning a lost ring and, eventually, getting better at their jobs. Read More

Oura sues rival Ultrahuman again, threatening its U.S. smart ring comeback: Oura alleges in its newest lawsuit that Ultrahuman's Ring Pro infringes two of its patents. Read More

1Password launches a way for AI agents to log in on your behalf without seeing your password: The new feature allows agents to log into a customer's personal accounts while still protecting the private credentials that secure those accounts. Read More

Last but Not Least

Microsoft’s Mustafa Suleyman says its AI outperforms doctors on hard cases as he chases ‘medical superintelligence’

Microsoft’s Mustafa Suleyman says its AI outperforms doctors on hard cases as he chases ‘medical superintelligence’: Microsoft’s new AI diagnostic system beat generalist doctors on hard cases, according to a study in Science. But most of the improvement seems to come from the AI models underneath, not from Microsoft’s system itself. Read More

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