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 China’s smartphone market is no longer growing after it witnessed its first annual decline in shipments during 2017, according to new figures released today. The writing was on the wall with a market decline first noted in Q2 but this is the first time a drop has been sustained over a twelve-month period. That’s according to data from analyst firm Canalys which reported that… Read More

 Walmart today announced a major expansion in terms of its global e-commerce presence: the retailer is entering a strategic partnership with Tokyo-based Rakuten, which will see the companies collaborating on the launch of a new online grocery service in Japan, and the sale of e-readers, audiobooks and e-books in the U.S., via Rakuten-owned Kobo. The strategic alliance is one that has two of… Read More

 It’s no secret that Facebook is big on both AR and VR, both for entertainment and communication purposes. And new research suggests it is working on AR applications that could not just modify or replace your face, but your entire body. Read More

 Damien Chazelle, who won last year’s Best Director Oscar for his work on La La Land, will be making a TV show for Apple. The New York Times reports that Chazelle will be writing and directing every episode of the first season, and that the series will be produced by MRC, the studio that’s making House of Cards for Netflix. Nothing else — not the title, the subject, or the… Read More

 French startup Blade, the company behind Shadow, is launching its cloud gaming service in the U.K. Just like in the U.S., the company is starting with a pre-sale before accepting all customers. For a flat monthly fee, you can rent a gaming PC in a data center near you. You can then access this beefy computer using desktop and mobile apps as well as the company’s own little box. Read More

 Trueface.ai, the stealthy facial recognition startup that’s backed by 500 Startups and a slew of angel investors, is integrating with IFTT to allow developers to start playing around with its technology. Chief executive, Shaun Moore tells me that the integration with IFTT represents the first time that facial recognition technology will be made available to the masses without the need… Read More

 AR (mobile AR, smartglasses) could approach three and a half billion installed base and $85 billion to $90 billion revenue within five years. At the same time, VR (mobile, standalone, console, PC) might deliver 50 million to 60 million installed base and $10 billion to $15 billion. That’s a pretty big difference, and it all has to do with AR’s ubiquity and VR’s focus. Read More

 Sensors are growing more and more sophisticated as we build machines that can interpret the world with more precision than we can. Occipital is aiming to do this as effectively and cheaply as possible as it morphs its 3D scanning technology into a product that can do much, much more. The company has closed $12 million of what it plans to be a $15 million Series C. Read More

 Juni Learning wants to give every kid access to a quality education in computer programming. The company, part of YCombinator’s latest batch of startups, is taking the same approach that turned VIPKID into the largest Chinese employer in the U.S. and a runaway hit in the edtech market, by matching students with vetted and pre-qualified online tutors. While VIPKID focused on teaching… Read More

 Similar to Uber’s “God View” scandal, Lyft staffers have been abusing customer insight software to view the personal contact info and ride history of the startup’s passengers. One source that formerly worked with Lyft tells TechCrunch that widespread access to the company’s backend let staffers “see pretty much everything including feedback, and yes, pick up… Read More

 Tesla’s Model 3 EV delays are well-known, including in the company’s own earnings report and quarterly delivery numbers. A fresh report from CNBC on Thursday claimed that Model 3 production was even more delayed than it appeared, with specific continued issues around battery manufacturing. CNBC also suggested that the company is “not close” to mass-production of the… Read More

 Signing on to all of your favorite networks’ apps on Amazon TV just got a little easier. The company, which had teased single sign on for Fire TV in September, is now bringing the service to network apps in the U.S. Users just need to sign in with their pay TV provider credentials and they can access all the networks they need without entering additional passwords. The service works with… Read More

 It’s over. Benchmark’s lawsuit against former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has now been dropped, ending one of the biggest VC-founder disputes in history. It was dismissed as a condition of the SoftBank investment in Uber getting done. The deal was completed earlier this month, giving both Benchmark and Kalanick an opportunity to sell a significant Uber stake. The venture firm and… Read More

 Airbnb has appointed Kenneth I. Chenault, the outgoing CEO of American Express, to its board of directors. The announcement comes one week after Facebook appointed Chenault to its board of directors. “As the CEO of American Express, Ken has built one of the most successful trust-based companies in the world,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky wrote in an open letter today. Read More

 If you are a Microsoft Azure customer and want to get 24/7 access to technical and billing support for your company, as well as a response time of less than an hour for your critical issues, but you don’t want to pay $300 per month for this, today is your lucky day. Microsoft today announced that it’s dropping the price of Azure Standard Support from $300 per month to $100 per… Read More

 People like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, the game where you basically re-enact a version of Battle Royale with you as one of the contestants in the human survival game. It had huge success in alpha prior to its full launch on PC, and now we know that console gamers also love the heck out of it – despite reports of buggy experiences with the Xbox One version. Bugs aside, Xbox… Read More

 Everyone knows that both Main Street and Wall Street investors are going gangbusters for cryptocurrency and blockchain-related technology. But here’s the thing. It’s currently nearly impossible to invest directly in cryptocurrency or in legitimate cryptocurrency companies if you want to limit your investments to SEC-sanctioned ETFs or stocks that are listed on NASDAQ or NYSE. So… Read More

 At first, it may seem an odd move. Google makes money on its ads business, and giving advertisers free rein to stalk you on every site seems really good for companies hoping to remind you of that thing you checked out one time. But the search giant wrote in a blog post out today that it wants to give you, the consumer, more transparency and control. Read More

 The world’s largest taxi firm, Uber, is buying cars. The world’s most popular media company, Facebook, now commissions content. The world’s most valuable retailer is now Amazon, and has more than 350 stores. And the world’s largest hospitality provider, Airbnb, increasingly owns real estate. Things change. Read More

 First Round Capital’s Dorm Room Fund just released VCWiz, a tool to help founders find investors and raise money from them. The platform is one part VC directory and one part CRM tool, essentially letting you find the best investors for your startup then begin the process of reaching out to them. New users input some basic information about their startup including a description, industry… Read More

 Smartphone adoption in emerging markets just delivered the highest number of app downloads Google Play has ever seen in a quarter. According to today’s report from App Annie, Google Play app downloads topped 19 billion in Q4 2017, a new record. That also makes Google Play’s download lead over iOS its largest ever, at 145 percent. Specifically, the downloads were driven by… Read More

 As AppleInsider first spotted, the first beta of iOS 11.3 includes a subtle change. iBooks is now called Books. And Mark Gurman thinks it could be the sign that there will be bigger changes with Apple’s ebook reading app. According to Bloomberg, Apple is working on a new design for the iBooks app on the iPhone and iPad. It will feature a simpler interface with a new section called… Read More

 Mirantis co-founder Adrian Ionel left his CEO role in October 2015, at a time when the company was still solely focused on OpenStack. Now, he is coming back to reprise his role as the company’s CEO at a time when Mirantis is looking beyond OpenStack and toward the still nascent cloud native ecosystem around Kubernetes for its next big business opportunity. Mirantis’ current CEO… Read More

 Ford is acquiring Autonomic and TransLoc, two of its partners, in deals that will help its new mobility business take shape. The acquisitions follow Ford’s announcement at CES earlier this month that it would be working with Silicon Valley-based Autonomic, a transportation architecture and technology provider, on its forthcoming Transportation Mobility Cloud open platform for cities… Read More

 Every company today is a tech company, a maxim that was proven out today when one of the world’s oldest and biggest art auction houses acquired an AI startup. Sotheby’s has bought Thread Genius, which has built a set of algorithms that can both instantly identify objects and then recommend images of similar objects to the viewer. You can see some examples of how it works… Read More

 A backhanded compliment for Uber snuck into UK prime minister Theresa May’s speech to the World Economy Forum in Davos this afternoon — when she said the company’s behavior had made the case for laws being strengthened to stop gig economy workers from being exploited by overly powerful tech platforms.  Read More

 Apple has expanded its autonomous vehicle test fleet, according to Bloomberg, jumping from just three cars registered with the California DMV last year, to 27 vehicles in total now. The fleet consists entirely of Lexus RX450h SUVs, a popular choice for anyone working on autonomous car tech because they can be fairly easily retrofitted with aftermarket sensors to complement those on board and… Read More

 CNN’s attempt at expanding its digital news business by bringing in a top YouTube creator has failed. According to a confirmed report from BuzzFeed, CNN is closing down YouTube star Casey Neistat’s video business, Beme, which it bought for a reported $25 million back in 2016. In addition, the YouTuber and his co-founder, Matt Hackett, are also leaving the company. Neistat spoke… Read More

 No-commission stock trading app Robinhood will let you buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum without any added transaction fees starting in February, compared to Coinbase’s 1.5 to 4 percent fees in the US. And as of today Robinhood will let all users track the price, news, and set up alerts on those and 14 other top crypto coins, including Litecoin and Ripple. “We’re planning… Read More

 Gfycat, a player on the smaller side of the consumer-facing explosion of GIFs, has generally spent a lot of time trying to build out a suite of creator tools — and now it looks like it’ll get another piece to add to that with a small acquisition today. The startup said it’s acquiring MovieLala in a deal where the terms were not disclosed. MovieLala was originally birthed as… Read More

 YouTube Gaming, Google’s rival to game-streaming site Twitch, is starting to pick up traction. According to a new report from Streamlabs, Twitch continues to dominate the live streaming space, but YouTube grew its monthly active streamer base by 343 percent over the course of 2017. Twitch, by comparison, grew 197 percent. Streamlabs has visibility into the live streaming market by way of… Read More

 Social media giants have once again been singled out for a high profile public spanking over social responsibility and illegal online content in Europe. Read More

 CamSoda, a adult web-streaming service, has announced VIRP – Virtual Intercourse with Real People – a service that lets you simulate sex with on-screen participants using RealDoll robots. Yep. The CamSoda [NSFW LINK] service is partnering with the folks at RealDoll to add teledildonics to already fairly realistic sex dolls. The dolls range in price from $1,500 and up and… Read More

 Sneaky Pete, the series created by Bryan Cranston and David Shore, is heading into its second season. Amazon today announced that Season 2 of the drama/thriller will debut March 9 on Amazon Prime Video. Sneaky Pete follows the story of Marius, a conman released from prison who decides to steal the identity of his cellmate Pete to avoid paying back a gangster he robbed in the past. Amazon… Read More

 Sonos is offering a special limited deal for its new Sonos One smart speaker, which works with Amazon’s Alexa right now, and is gaining support for Google Assistant in a future update: You can buy two for $349, which is the same price as one of Apple’s HomePod Siri-enabled speakers. This is likely not a coincidence. Individually, the Sonos One retails for $199, so you get a $50… Read More

 Some consolidation is underway in the world of crowdfunding and online fundraising: YouCaring — which competes with GoFundMe and others in the area of sourcing fundraising for compassionate and charitable causes — is buying Generosity.com from crowdfunding giant Indiegogo (which originally launched as Indiegogo Life). The latter is using the divestment to further hone its focus… Read More

 Ex-hacker Eric Taylor, also known as CosmoTheGod, and another infosec name, Bryant Townsend have colorful pasts. Most recently Taylor stole the social security and personal records of a number of high-ranking Obama administration officials, posting it on a site called exposed.su. Townsend, for his part, was caught up in a denial of service hack that led back to his former DDoS mitigation company. Read More

 IBM today announced a partnership with low-code development platform Mendix that will bring Mendix and native integration with many of IBM’s Watson IoT and AI services to the IBM Cloud. This deal is an evolution of a previous partnership that involved what was then called IBM Bluemix (now IBM Cloud). Read More

 Square has acquired Entrees On-Trays, a 32-year-old restaurant delivery platform. The plan is to expand the footprint of its on-demand food delivery service, Caviar, in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area. There were a few factors Square took into consideration in its acquisition of Entrees On-Trays, Caviar product lead Gokul Rajaram told TechCrunch via email. For one, the acquisition is designed… Read More

 Meet Cozy, a French startup that wants to completely rethink how cloud services work. The startup first launched a Dropbox-like competitor to store, synchronize and share all your files. Now, the company wants to go one step further and create an ecosystem of open-source services that respect your privacy. When I met with Cozy co-founder and CEO Benjamin André earlier this week, he was fed… Read More

 Brainly, the edtech startup founded out of Poland but now with a HQ in New York, has acquired Bask to add video to its peer-to-peer learning platform. Read More

 It’s high times for the marijuana industry, which has been flourishing in recent years as more regions move to decriminalise the use of it for medical and other purposes. Now, Privateer Holdings, one of the big investors in the space, has raised $100 million to back more cannabis startups and capitalise on that trend. This Series C brings the total raised by Privateer to $200 million… Read More

 Snowflake, the cloud-based data warehouse service, announced an enormous investment round today, pulling in a whopping $263 million on a unicorn valuation of $1.5 billion. The round was led by a trio of big-name Silicon Valley VC firms including existing investors Iconiq Capital and Altimeter Capital and new investor Sequoia Capital. Today’s announcement comes on top of the $100… Read More

 StoreHub, a startup that helps retailers digitize their business, has closed a $5.1 million Series A round led by Vertex Venture to expand in Southeast Asia. The startup was founded in 2014 and it offers point-of-sale technology and digital services to retailers. The idea is to help bring the long tail of less sophisticated physical merchants online to help them digitize their finances and… Read More

 A big blow for Facebook today after Europe’s top court delivered a verdict in a long-running legal challenge that opens the door for plaintiff and privacy campaigner, Max Schrems, to sue Facebook in his home city of Vienna. Read More

 Xiaomi couldn’t have wished for better timing of two reports that claim it has toppled Samsung to become India’s top-selling smartphone company. The Chinese firm, which is reportedly on a roadshow ahead of an IPO that could value it as high as $100 billion, is said to have beaten Samsung’s sales efforts in India, the world’s second-largest smartphone market behind… Read More

 LG’s smartphone business still continues to lose money at an alarming rate. The Korean firm cut its losses in its Q4 2017 financial period to minus RKW 213.2 billion ($192.33 million), up from KRW 375.3 billion ($331.37 million) in the previous quarter, but there’s is no sign that things will drastically change any time soon. LG Mobile has posted just one quarter of profitability… Read More

 Tryb Group, a Singapore-based organization focused on fintech services in Southeast Asia, has landed a $30 million investment from Makara Capital. The investment comes from Makara’s $770 million joint fund with the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), which is focused on finding valuable IP in the tech and startup space. TechCrunch understands that Tryb is talking to a… Read More

Apple is preparing to launch Business Chat, Fiverr acquires And Co and The European Union hits Qualcomm with a $1.23 billion fine. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

 Reddit has finally joined other major web properties in adding two-factor authentication for all users. It’s been available for mods and some testers for a while, but this is the first time the vast multitudes of redditors will have access to it. Read More

 At roughly 17 years old, DN Capital is one of Europe’s oldest venture capital firms, albeit one that, by its own admission, has retained its scrappy roots and a certain kind of reputation to go with it. The VC hasn’t gone without success either, most recently seeing portfolio company Shazam exit to Apple in a reported $400 million deal, apt timing for the announcement of DN… Read More

 Call him the ultimate hodler. After being one of the first musicians to accept Bitcoin all the way back in 2014, Rapper 50 Cent (a.k.a. Curtis Jackson) appears to have accumulated a small fortune in the volatile digital currency. As TMZ first reported, and the man himself seems to have confirmed, 50 Cent left his Bitcoin sales untouched until rediscovering them some time recently. At the time,… Read More

 While unemployment in the U.S. hit a 17 year low and the stock market keeps humming along, there’s a lingering sense that all is still not well in U.S. labor markets. Most jobs require a college degree these days, a proposition that’s becoming increasingly unaffordable even if it is attainable. Many students who graduate are saddled with so much debt that not even a decent salaried… Read More

 Logan Paul, the YouTuber who sparked a public backlash three weeks ago after posting a video in Japan’s ‘suicide forest’, has returned to the platform. In his first post back, he published a video focused on suicide and self-harm prevention. Paul first found himself in trouble when, in early January, he posted a video titled “We found a dead body in the Japanese… Read More

 One of Snap CEO Evan Spiegel’s top lieutenants Tom Conrad will leave Snapchat, and the whole tech industry, in March. Coming roughly two years after he joined the company as VP of Product, a source tipped off TechCrunch to Conrad’s impending departure, which Snap now confirms to us. Snap’s director of growth Jacob Andreou who reported to Conrad will step into his role at… Read More

 On Wednesday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) revealed that it has filed a lawsuit against the creators of My Big Coin, an alleged cryptocurrency scam that took naive investors for $6 million. The case, filed on January 16 and unsealed today, charges Randall Crater, Mark Gillespie and My Big Coin Pay, Inc. with commodity fraud and misappropriation of funds raised for a… Read More

 When it comes to interior decorating, some people could use a little professional advice. But it’s not cheap, with the average designer charging over $5,000. Havenly, a Denver-based startup, thinks it can change that. Its platform pairs consumers with stylists offering virtual guidance. After gaining early traction since it launched in 2014, the startup is raising a $12.5 million Series… Read More

 Alphabet, the company you probably still wrongly refer to as “Google,” today announced the launch of Chronicle, new cybersecurity company that aims to give companies a better chance at detecting and fighting off hackers. Chronicle is graduating out of Alphabet’s X moonshot group and is now a stand-alone company under the Alphabet umbrella, just like Google. Stephen Gillett,… Read More

 Google loves it a good puzzle. Each year the company tucks the first details about its annual Google I/O conference behind a puzzle or three, and this year is no different. Whereas last year’s riddle was a math-heavy logic puzzle, this year’s setup is more of an escape room. It has the user click their way through a series of rooms found on Google’s Mountain View campus… Read More

 SpaceX has successfully test fired its Falcon Heavy rocket – but this is just the prelude to the big show. The static test fire performed today is a necessary step prior to an actual test launch, firing up all 27 of the rocket’s big Merlin engines prior to trying to do the same but actually following through with a proper take-off. The test fire, completed at the SpaceX Cape… Read More

 Meet Setapp, the Spotify of Mac apps. If you pay $9.99 per month, you can download and use more than a hundred Mac apps without spending another cent. All those apps are usually paid apps, but Setapp wants to change the model. Setapp was founded by MacPaw, an independent Mac development company based in Ukraine. While they have been developing their own apps for almost ten years,… Read More

 Every inch of the Mavic Air is a testament to thoughtful engineering. Before handing off a review unit, a DJI rep takes us through the process of getting up and running. He flips open the smartphone docking arms from the bottom of the remote, revealing two hidden replacement joysticks nestled inside. Read More

 Caterina Fake and Jyri Engeström have much in common beyond the home and family they share. Each has started — and sold — two companies. Fake famously cofounded the photo sharing site Flickr, which sold to Yahoo, before cofounding Hunch, which sold to eBay. Engeström cofounded Jaiku, a mobile social network that sold to Google, before cofounding Ditto, a mobile local… Read More

 Tigera, a San Francisco-based startup that helps businesses connect and secure their container-based applications, today announced that it has raised an additional $10 million in a funding round led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from New England Associates (NEA) and Wing Venture Capital. Madrona managing partner Soma Somasegar will join the company’s board of directors.… Read More

 In what amounts to faint praise for the strength physical book NPD reported that print book sales rose 1.9 percent in 2017, less than the 3 percent growth posted in 2013-2016. NPD tracks book sales in the US. They write: “Returning from the huge sales of ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ in 2016, and the rise of adult coloring books, last year’s book sales growth was… Read More

 The way Facebook processes what the world writes is about to get a bit more cosmopolitan. As Facebook’s scope continues to grow globally, the way it rolls out features has been complicated by the fact that there are more than 100 languages currently supported on the site. When it comes to building text boxes that users can type status updates into, this isn’t that difficult of a… Read More

 It sounds like a natural fit: Fiverr, an online marketplace where businesses can hire freelancers, is acquiring And Co, a New York City startup building online tools that freelancers can use manage their client relationships. What’s surprising is the new price that Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman plans to charge for And Co’s software — absolutely free. Kaufman explained that many… Read More

 Microsoft’s and its partners’ engineers use the telemetry data from Windows 10 to diagnose crashes, learn about its users hardware configurations and more. It’s on by default and while Microsoft tells you that it collects this data and gives you a choice between basic (the default setting) and “full” diagnostics, it never allowed you to actually see exactly what… Read More

 I’m so ready for these huge robots to fight these huge monsters. I’m ready for John Boyega to pilot his mech to victory over the interdimensional invaders. I’m ready for bright colors, cartoonish levels of destruction and loud sounds. Pacific Rim Uprising isn’t out in theaters until March 23, however, so I do indeed have to wait even though I’m ready now. Just… Read More

 On Tuesday, March 13, some of the most well-regarded venture capitalists on the West Coast will converge in L.A. to hear pitches from women-led startups.  The day is part of a growing series of events that was originally spearheaded by investor Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures, who along with her women friends in venture, wanted to work more closely with the far larger — and growing… Read More

 Apple is preparing to roll out a new feature in iMessage that will allow consumers to chat directly with businesses through Apple’s messaging platform. The feature, called Business Chat, was announced last year at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, and will debut this spring with launch partners including Discover, Hilton, Lowe’s and Wells Fargo. The feature will… Read More

 It’s probably little consolation for Pebble devotes who’ve slowly watched the hardware startup sink into oblivion, but Fitbit’s offering up a good will gesture by extending support for the smartwatch’s ecosystem for another six months. Those who’ve been clutching onto their crowdfunded wearable for dear life will be able to keep the product up and running through… Read More

 Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has said major privacy changes are coming to the platform later this year, as it prepares to comply with the European Union’s incoming data protection regulation. Read More

 Here Technologies, the mapping company that counts a consortium of car makers, Intel and others among its shareholder/owners, today announced a move that underscores the company’s intention to add more than just data to enhance its outdoor navigation business. The company has acquired Micello, a startup that offers a database of indoor maps and provides a platform for businesses to… Read More

 There’s another big financing round led by Softbank’s mammoth vision fund today, with the firm this time pouring $865 million into a construction startup called Katerra that’s a one-stop shop for getting a building up off the ground. Katerra is creating a full-stack provider for, well, buildings. The company runs the process of getting a building up and people inside it from… Read More

 The cord cutting trend is having an outsized impact on subscription video apps’ revenue, it seems. According to a new market analysis from Sensor Tower, U.S. consumer spending in the top 10 subscription video on demand apps grew 77 percent last year, to reach approximately $781 million across the App Store and Google Play. The growth was particularly noticeable in the fourth quarter of… Read More

 Mo’Nique, legendary comedian and Academy Award winner, is calling out Netflix for allegedly offering her $500,000 for a stand-up comedy special while offering millions to Amy Schumer, Dave Chapelle, and Chris Rock. In a tweet, Mo’Nique called for a boycott of Netflix on the grounds of color and gender bias: #BOYCOTT NETFLIX FIR COLOR BIAS AND GENDER BIAS. PLEASE STAND WITH ME. I… Read More

 Front is raising a $66 million Series B round led by Sequoia with DFJ and existing investors also participating. There are now 2,500 companies using Front to manage shared inboxes and collaborate. The startup now wants to go one step further and become the definitive email product. “I decided that I wanted to raise money, I scheduled 11 partner meetings over a single week,”… Read More

 After getting its start in theme parks and event centers in Southern California, Appetize, the developer of point of sale technologies for big stadiums and college campuses, has raised $20 million to expand. The new capital came from Shamrock Capital Advisors, which had served as the financial manager for the Walt Disney family for years, with additional support coming from Silicon Valley… Read More

 Mophie’s been a solid, consistent maker of external batteries and backup power sources, but its new Powerstation AC just might top them all. The large, 22,000 mAh powerhouse has ample output options – including a crucial one that most backup batteries lack: a standard AC plug, just like you’d find in a wall in your home. The Powerstation AC also has a 30W USB-C port with… Read More

 AWS has purchased Sqrrl, a Cambridge, Massachusetts security startup with roots in the NSA. The company helps analyze a variety of sources to track and understand security threats quickly using machine learning. The announcement appeared on the Sqrrl home page in note from company CEO Mark Terenzoni. “We’re thrilled to share that Sqrrl has been acquired by Amazon. We will be… Read More

 Apple announced a new health effort as part of iOS 11.3. The new Health Records section in the Health app lets you gather and view all your medical records. The company is partnering with hospitals and clinics. Apple released the first beta version of iOS 11.3 today. While the new version of iOS is going to remain in beta testing for a couple of months, it should be available as a free download… Read More

 As part of its broader, long-term strategy to appeal to content producers by offering them more exposure, media software maker Plex today is unveiling its new VR experience, Plex VR. The addition will allow Plex users to not only watch videos in VR, but also co-watch with friends – a social component to media consumption that a number of companies, including, recently, Facebook and… Read More

 Fleet, a startup focused on making international logistics less onerous for small companies, announced that it has raised a Series A of $10 million. The round was led by Lufthansa Cargo, the German airline’s air cargo subsidiary, with participation from new and returning investors Hunt Technology, UPS, UP2398 and 1517 Fund. Read More

 More big news out of Apple this morning. The company’s offering up a preview of what’s to come in the latest version of its mobile operating system. The biggest updates here are coming to power management, its augmented reality platform ARKit, Animoji and the company’s Health app. You can check out a more in-depth preview of ARKit 1.5 over here. The new platform brings… Read More

 Carmudi, a Rocket Internet-backed company that sells cars online in emerging markets, has raised $10 million to develop its business in Southeast Asia after reducing its global footprint. The company was formed in 2013 and, at peak, it grew to cover over 20 markets across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. To support that global push, Carmudi raised $10 million in 2014 and then… Read More

 Apple is rolling out an upgrade to its augmented reality toolbox, ARKit, to developers in a beta version today. ARKit 1.5 adds a few marquee features including one big one: wall detection. Up until this point, ARKit has been focused on offering horizontal plane detection, allowing developers to know where the ‘floor’ is that it can then use to orient or place objects in 3D space.… Read More

 Drones may still be having a tough time dispelling the notion that they’re just expensive toys when it comes to the consumer space, but in the world of commercial applications, the autonomous aircraft are having a much easier time proving their worth. PrecisionHawk, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based startup, has closed a Series D round, nabbing $75M in new capital that will help it seize… Read More

 Businesses are gathering more and more information than they ever have before, whether it’s a manufacturer or a bank, and to Timescale CEO Ajay Kulkarni the existing database software soon won’t provide the horsepower they need. That’s why he and CTO Mike Friedman started Timescale, a new open source time series database software. The idea is that businesses increasingly… Read More

 Nexar, a startup that makes an AI-based dashcam app to monitor road safety, announced today that it has raised a $30 million Series B led by Ibex Ventures. Participants included Alibaba Innovation Ventures (the venture capital investment arm of Alibaba Group), Nationwide Insurance and returning investors Aleph, Mosaic Ventures, Slow Ventures, True Ventures and Tusk Ventures. Read More

 The UK government has announced plans to set up a dedicated national security unit to combat state-led disinformation campaigns — raising questions about how broad its ‘fake news’ bullseye will be. Read More

 Qualcomm’s longstanding dominance in LTE chipsets for smartphones, and specifically with Apple’s iPhone, is getting a major hit today. The European Commission today announced that it would be fining the company €997 million, or $1.23 billion, for abusing its market position between 2011 and 2016, related to its relationship with Apple. The figure works out to 4.9 percent of… Read More

 A new startup in Indonesia wants to car owners in Southeast Asia’s country sell their vehicle with more security and reliability. BeliMobilGue — meaning ‘Buy My Car’ — was quietly started last year as a joint venture from Berlin-based Frontier Car Group and Intudo Ventures. It acts as a middleman between Indonesia’s car dealers and consumers who want to… Read More

 TeacherGaming, a new startup from the team behind MinecraftEdu, a company that helped teachers use Minecraft in the classroom that was subsequently acquired by Microsoft, has picked up $1.6 million in seed funding. Read More

 Transportation-on-demand startups betting on growth by honing in on specific market segments continue to play strong with both investors and customers looking for alternatives to traditional taxis and Uber. Today, Blacklane, a Berlin-based business that offers limousines and other high-end cars for airport and other medium-length journeys, is announcing that it has raised a significant round… Read More

 Google continues to increase its presence in China after it joined Sequoia China and Tencent in a $15 million investment for XtalPi, a U.S.-China biotech firm that uses artificial intelligence and computing to accelerate the development of new drugs. The search giant remains blocked in China, but that hasn’t stopped it from making a series of moves in recent months. It is opening an… Read More

 Facebook has a new executive coming on to unify its research efforts in the field of artificial intelligence. Former IBM exec Jérôme Pesenti will be taking the lead at Facebook’s AI research (FAIR) arm, Quartz reports. Yann LeCun, who previously held the lead role, will be shifting to a more research-focused role where he will continue to drive the scientific agenda of FAIR in his… Read More

DJI unveils the new Mavic Air, Twitter COO Anthony Noto resigns and Apple HomePod starts shipping February 9th. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

 Nike just announced their first shoe with an all-foam sole powered by a new foam technology called React. The shoe is called the Nike Epic React Flyknit and is a running shoe, which will release on February 22nd. The bottom is a solid piece of foam with a knitted upper, making it lightweight for running. But looking beyond this shoe the technology is likely the start of a new generation of… Read More

 Denuvo’s anti-piracy tech has been divisive in the gaming world, with some complaining that it restricts their gaming habits or prevents modding — but few will dispute that it has been unusually successful in its main goal of preventing piracy. Successful enough, anyway, to be picked up by Irdeto, a broader digital security concern. Read More

 All-time great science fiction and fantasy writer Ursula Le Guin died Monday. She was 88 years old. Le Guin didn’t always enjoy being called a science fiction writer, and she received acclaim far beyond the genre — she won National Book Awards, published stories in The New Yorker and saw her work collected by the Library of America. Read More

 While the U.S. is just gearing up to the idea of CRISPRing its first humans, China seems to be benefitting from the “move fast and break things”…or cut them with the CRISPR scissors motto. As the Wall Street Journal reports, China has already gene-edited 86 people using CRISPR-Cas9 since 2015. Unhindered by rules and regulations like the ones we have in America to prevent… Read More

 Facebook has confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s acquired…Confirm.io. The startup offered an API that let other companies quickly verify someone’s government issued identification card like a driver’s license was authentic. The Boston-based startup will shut down as both its team and technology are rolled into Facebook, where it could help users who are locked out of… Read More

 GoDaddy is acquiring Main Street Hub, an Austin-based social media marketing platform. The deal is for $125M in cash plus up to $50M in potential future earn outs, and is expected to close late in Q2 2018. Founded in 2010 Main Street Hub has raised a total of $93M in debt and equity financing from Silicon Valley Bank, Vista Equity Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and other investors. For… Read More

 It’s clear that the days of esports being merely a spectator sport are numbered, as soon users won’t just be sitting and watching the story unfold on a computer screen, they’ll be immersed in it. What challenges will this immersion create when it comes to protecting one’s intellectual property rights to the contents of a game and the innovative technologies involved,… Read More

 Last week, software developer and researcher Abraham Masri shared details of a bug that would allow others to freeze your iPhone with little more than a quick text message. Apple has just pushed out iOS 11.2.5, which patches that issue back up. This bug, the likes of which are often referred to as a “text bomb”, had a would-be attacker send a URL via text message. When the… Read More

 A wise person once said, “don’t upgrade to the latest OS X until it’s been patched a few times. And even then, sometimes it isn’t really worth it.” These words have inspired many to stay on older versions of the OS, though lately that meant remaining vulnerable to Meltdown while those on the latest version were protected. Fortunately Apple has brought old OSes… Read More

 Payments platform Stripe will stop supporting bitcoin in April, citing the cryptocurrency’s volatility and long transaction times, among other things. It’s a logical decision, but one likely to anger the easily provoked crypto-crowd. Read More

Today, Tradeshift, a procure-to-pay supply chain management platform for SMBs and enterprise, announced Tradeshift Frontiers.  Frontiers is an innovation lab and incubator that will focus on transforming supply chains through emerging technologies such as distributed ledgers, artificial intelligence, and the internet of things. “The use cases we’re working through Frontiers cover… Read More

 Cambassy is a new app that lets you share the favorite things about your town, city, or country. You can think of it as a sort of breadcrumb travelogue that you leave behind for others to find and lets you include phots, tips, and comments about your favorite locations. Created by Khalid Twaim and Omar Rabea, the company one a pitch-off in Oman and showed their early versions at Disrupt in Berlin. Read More

 Boutique Android phone makers didn’t have a good 2017, but RED aims to reverse that trend with its high-end Hydrogen handset, which founder Jim Jannard talks up in a recent post on the company’s forums. The chunky, unique device will ship in the summer, but those who have pre-ordered will be able to test out its “4-view” display in April. Read More

 Apple hasn’t been been particularly transparent about the iPhone X’s numbers, in part because it’s a bit of a tricky new model. For starters, it’s a $999 phone. It’s also positioned against another premium iPhone model — which got a healthy jump-start on the pricier model. Read More

 To no parent’s surprise, too much smartphone use makes teens unhappy. So says a new study from San Diego State University, which pulled data from over one million 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-graders in the U.S. showing teens who spent more time on social media, gaming, texting and video-chatting on their phones were not as happy as those who played sports, went outside and interacted with… Read More

 France Digitale presented its roadmap for the upcoming 12 months. France Digitale is an association that acts as a lobbying organization when it comes to defending the interests of the startup community in France. And the organization had a couple of new things to announce. Rachel Delacour first introduced the event. She is now co-president with Jean-David Chamboredon. Today, the association… Read More

 While crypto may be obvious to us overlords of digital media, awareness of all facets of cryptocurrency still belongs to a small – but growing – minority. In a large scale survey by SurveyMonkey and the Global Blockchain Business Council, 5,000 responded to an extensive poll about the popularity and use of cryptocurrency. Some interesting findings? First, only 5 percent of people… Read More

 Google teamed up with Xprize to sponsor an audacious literal race to the Moon, but sadly the competition will end with no one taking home the grand prize of $30 million. Xprize and Google realized after discussing progress with its five finalist teams that none will be able to make a Moon launch in time for the deadline of the competition, and so the 10-year journey ends somewhat… Read More

 Facebook says it’s on a mission to de-bloat its Messenger app this year. At the same time, TechCrunch has discovered, the data-mining giant is running tests on its desktop platform to inject the Messenger “contact pages” of businesses directly into your chat sidebar. Read More

 If you want to learn how to build flying cars, then your options in terms of getting an education are kind of limited. Enter Udacity, the online education platform founded by Google self-driving car pioneer Sebastian Thrun. It’s now accepting applications for its Flying Car Nanodegree program, which it announced last year along with a new Introduction to Self-Driving engineering course.… Read More

 Beijing-based stationless bike-sharing startup Ofo is crying foul at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency over its decision to have an exclusive pilot program with startup JUMP. Earlier this month, JUMP obtained an exclusive permit with the SFMTA  to launch 250 dockless, electric bikes in San Francisco. Now, Ofo is asking the SFMTA to consider reopening the permit process and… Read More

 The clock is running out on your chance to compete in the very first TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Dubai hosted by Area 2071 in January 2019. The application window closes on January 25th, 2018 at 9 p.m. PST. That means you have just 48 hours left to get the job done.  Apply today. Startup Battlefield Dubai takes a different approach than our previous competitions. Let’s review,… Read More

 First, don’t call it “Vine Two”. Details are starting to emerge about v2, the forthcoming video app built to replace Vine by its former co-founder Dom Hofmann. TechCrunch has learned that v2 has begun reaching out to former Viners and social media star managers in hopes of establishing ties with some top content creators to get feedback and fuel the app’s eventual… Read More

 Uber has hired Bo Young Lee, the former global diversity and inclusion leader of insurance company Marsh LLC, to be its first-ever chief diversity. Lee will begin in March, Recode first reported. This means Uber’s global head of diversity and inclusion, Bernard Coleman, will now be reporting to her. “As I was interviewing for this role, it became very clear that Uber is taking… Read More

 Google’s Play store now features audiobooks. There is a good chance that you only think of the Play store as Google’s app store for Android, but it has long features support for movies, TV shows, magazines and ebooks, too. The new audiobooks feature is launching in 45 countries and nine languages. The addition of audiobooks feels like a natural progression, but I was actually… Read More

 The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s most unassumingly named tech venture, has presented a plan to build a 6.5 mile tunnel between Hawthorne (where SpaceX HQ is located) and West Los Angeles, undercutting Culver City in between to link the two. Boring Co. executives presented the plan to the Culver City city council on Monday night, trying to sell the local regulators on the idea of a… Read More