Good day, lovelies, and welcome to Week in Overview (WiR), TechCrunch’s common e-newsletter that recaps the week in tech. For a lot of people, this workweek was a day shorter, because of the Juneteenth observance on Monday. However lots occurred.

We’ve received protection on the OceanGate tragedy, and we’ve continued to intently monitor the Reddit API controversy — which reveals no indicators of abating. Elsewhere, TC has a full assessment of the brand new Google Pixel Pill (spoiler alert: the bundled dock is a serious spotlight), and we’ve got the thin on Microsoft’s quantum plans and extra.

Should you haven’t already, enroll right here to get WiR in your inbox each Saturday. Then learn on for the week’s digest.

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OceanGate fired a whistleblower: The director of marine operations at OceanGate, the corporate whose submersible went lacking Sunday on an expedition to the Titanic within the North Atlantic, was fired after elevating considerations about its first-of-a-kind carbon fiber hull and different techniques earlier than its maiden voyage, in accordance with a courtroom submitting in a 2018 lawsuit.

Hackers threaten to leak Reddit knowledge: Hackers are threatening to launch confidential knowledge stolen from Reddit except the corporate pays a ransom demand — and reverses its controversial API worth hikes. In a put up on its darkish net leak website, the BlackCat ransomware gang, also called ALPHV, claims to have stolen 80 gigabytes of compressed knowledge from Reddit throughout a February breach of the corporate’s techniques. 

Reddit protests proceed: In additional Reddit information, a number of subreddits are adopting different strategies of protesting the aforementioned API modifications, comparable to publishing just one type of put up, altering the subject in focus and days when the group turns non-public. Many of those communities took half in a “blackout” from June 12–14 to protest the API rule modifications, which might successfully kill a number of third-party apps.

Google Pixel Pill assessment: Brian critiques the brand new Pixel Pill, Google’s first try in a minute at an Android-powered gadget with a pill type issue. The decision? The so-so slate is larger than the sum of its components with the addition of a bundled sensible residence dock. Learn on for the remainder of his impressions.

Microsoft will get critical about quantum: This week, Microsoft introduced its roadmap for constructing a quantum supercomputer, utilizing the topological qubits the corporate’s researchers have been engaged on for fairly a while. There’s nonetheless loads of middleman milestones to be reached. However the firm believes that it’ll take fewer than 10 years to construct a quantum supercomputer utilizing these qubits.

WhatsApp will get automated silencing: WhatsApp has launched a brand new characteristic to routinely silence calls from unknown numbers. It comes after a number of prospects in India, the chat app’s largest market with greater than 500 million customers, complained about a rise in spam calls over the previous 12 months.

Marvel’s AI artwork controversy: Marvel’s newest sequence, “Secret Invasion,” made its debut on Disney+ this week — sparking backlash after it was confirmed that the intro sequence was AI-generated. Technique Studios, the VFX firm answerable for the graphics, advised The Hollywood Reporter, “No artists’ jobs have been changed by incorporating these new instruments” — however that didn’t cease many artists from taking to Twitter specific their frustrations.

Board members stop Byju’s: On Thursday, international big Deloitte stop because the auditor of Byju’s and three board members resigned from probably the most helpful Indian startup, sending a shock wave via the business a 12 months after the Indian agency’s tardy monetary reporting attracted international scrutiny.

Audio

Want a podcast to go the commute — or only a lazy Sunday afternoon? TechCrunch has you coated. There’s sure to be one thing that appeals in TC’s rising audio content material steady.

This week’s episode of Discovered featured Net Solar, the co-founder and president of Komodo Well being, a startup that makes use of knowledge to create a complete map of the U.S. healthcare system. Net opened up about what drove him to entrepreneurship and the way mutual mates launched him to his co-founder, pondering they’d get alongside (little did they know!). He additionally talked about navigating fundraising through the bull market and layoffs — a well timed subject to make sure.

TechCrunch+

TC+ subscribers get entry to in-depth commentary, evaluation and surveys — which you recognize in the event you’re already a subscriber. Should you’re not, take into account signing up. Listed below are a number of highlights from this week:

Europe’s and Israel’s unicorns: Accel associate Harry Nelis writes about how, within the final 20 years, we’ve seen a wealth of sturdy founders and operators emerge throughout Europe and Israel, constructing progressive merchandise and category-defining unicorn corporations that at the moment are competing on the worldwide stage.

Coinbase, the subsequent tremendous app: Because the crypto markets proceed to face uncertainty, Coinbase’s CEO Brian Armstrong sees better potential for the digital asset ecosystem to develop. Within the subsequent 5 to seven years, Armstrong’s imaginative and prescient for Coinbase consists of turning it right into a “tremendous app,” referring to apps like WeChat and Alipay, that are used for messaging, commerce, banking, loans, funds and even for ordering meals.

AI infiltrates crowdsourced work: A brand new paper from researchers at Swiss college EPFL means that between 33% and 46% of distributed crowd staff on Amazon Mechanical Turk seem to have “cheated” when performing a selected activity assigned to them, utilizing instruments comparable to ChatGPT to do a number of the work. If that follow is widespread, it might develop into a fairly critical subject, Haje writes.

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