This isn’t really surprising if you’ve been following Uber’s legal woes. But the Court of Justice of the European Union has confirmed to Uber France that Uber is operating a transportation company. Member countries can prohibit or punish Uber in their own countries without involving the European Union. Over the past few years, Uber has […]
Facebook has become the de facto way people today keep up with their friends and family and, at times, their wider network of professional acquaintances and colleagues. But its inattention to user data protection is leading some people looking for an out. A new app called Garden, officially launching today, wants to offer people a […]
It’s hard to #DeleteFacebook with no viable alternative, but at least you can export all your data. There’s no such option on Instagram. That lack of data portability puts users at the mercy of Instagram’s product and policy decisions. And it could even put users at risk as those who seek to backup their accounts […]
Alex Wilhelm Contributor Alex Wilhelm is the editor-in-chief of Crunchbase News and co-host of Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast. More posts by this contributor Spotify steadies, DocuSign’s big year, and scooters are the new blockchain Live from Disrupt SF: Equity talks Slack, Lyft and flying cars Today Carbon Black filed to go public, publishing its S-1 […]
It’s Equal Pay Day today — that is, the day women had to work full-time this year to make up the difference between what men made working full-time last year. The actual date is mostly symbolic, but while it’s been narrowing, the gender pay gap is real. Earlier this month, I had a chance to […]
Entrepreneurs have it rough in Africa, India, Pakistan — places where VC cash doesn’t fall from the sky and necessary infrastructure like reliable banking and broadband can be hard to come by. But companies grow and thrive nevertheless in these rugged environments, and DFS Lab is an incubator focused on connecting them with the resources […]
Uber is rolling out a new app for drivers starting today. The hope with the redesign is to make it easier for drivers to access the information they need the most, while ensuring the app is not a distraction while behind the wheel, three Uber driver app product leads told TechCrunch last week. Earnings and […]
So far we’ve been telling you about all of the awesome humans we’re going to have at TC Sessions Robotics next month in Berkeley — humans like Boston Dynamics’ Mark Raibert, Playground’s Andy Rubin, Fetch’s Melonee Wise and Pieter Abbeel, Ken Goldberg and Robert Full from U.C. Berkeley. But what of the robots? Don’t worry, […]
b8ta, the store founded by Nest alums to sell trendy gadgets, is entering new territory. Today, the startup is launching “Built by b8ta,” which functions as a retail-as-a-service platform for brands that want a physical presence. Building off the success of its own retail stores, b8ta is confident it can provide an easy, cost-effective solution […]
Vimeo today announced the launch of a new Mac app that will give video creators using Final Cut Pro more control over their file formats and video codecs. The app expands upon the existing integration with Final Cut Pro, which already offered the ability to upload to Vimeo. With the new app, creators can upload […]
Julia is Sesame Street’s first autistic character and her mission is to make neuroatypical kids feel more comfortable and understand that there are kids out there just like them. She’s a sweet little muppet and now she’s getting her own Kickstarter campaign. The campaign is raising $75,000 to produce content and a free book featuring […]
Cambridge, U.K.-based startup Spectral Edge has closed a $5.3M Series A funding round from existing investors Parkwalk Advisors and IQ Capital. The team, which in 2014 spun the business out of academic research at the University of East Anglia, has developed a mathematical technique for improving photographic imagery in real-time, also using machine learning technology. As we’ve reported […]
There’s a new venture fund in town from some familiar faces. Carey Lai, who previously worked at Intel Capital and IVP, is joining forces with Paul Yeh, formerly of Kleiner Perkins. They’re calling it Conductive Ventures and it’s launching with $100 million under management. They’ll be investing in “expansion stage” companies across enterprise software and […]
Sam Kim, co-founder and CEO of Lucidity, said blockchain technology offers a solution to cut down on fraud and bring more transparency to digital advertising. Kim was previously chief operating officer at The Mobile Majority, a mobile ad company where he said he saw the challenges of reconciling the data used by different parts of […]
By now it’s crystal clear to just about everyone that the password is a weak and frankly meaningless form of authentication, yet most of us still live under the tyranny of the password. This, despite the fact it places a burden on the user, is easily stolen and mostly ineffective. Today, two standards bodies, FIDO […]
Landing pages might not sound like the most exciting problem for a startup to tackle, but Tyson Quick, founder and CEO of Instapage, said that they’re a real issue for marketers. Quick was previously working on a marketing product called Jounce, where he was frustrated by the fact that even after someone had clicked on […]
Walmart is expanding its grocery delivering business with the help from new partner, Postmates, the retailer announced this morning. Postmates will initially begin Walmart Online Grocery Delivery in Charlotte, North Carolina with plans to reach other markets in the months ahead. Postmates joins Walmart’s existing delivery partners Uber and Deliv, who have been helping Walmart […]
Google and Netflix today announced the launch of Kayenta, a new open source project that aims bring the canary analysis tools Netflix developed internally to a wider audience. Kayenta is integrated into the Netflix-incubated Spinnaker continuous delivery platform, which works across virtually every public and private cloud. While Spinnaker is the focus of this release, though, […]
Some folks I met in Chicago are holding an amazing event at a great place on South Canalport Avenue. This former macaroni factory now builds startups and I’ll be helping judge their pitch-off alongside some Chicago luminaries. You can RSVP here and sign up for a spot to pitch here. We’ll choose eight startups to […]
Splunk has always been known as a company that can sift through oodles of log or security data and help customers surface the important bits. Today, it announced it was going to try to apply that same skill set to Industrial Internet of Things data. IIoT is data found in manufacturing settings, typically come from […]
In 2012, J.C. Penney stopped promoting sales and offering coupons. Instead, they advertised new “everyday low prices” — which seems like a pretty good idea, right? Except, in 2012, sales for J. C. Penney actually dropped 25%. J.C. Penney found they actually made more money when they raised the prices of their products and then […]
When people see the word “introvert,” they often think of qualities that don’t actually describe introverted people at all.
Fleetsmith, a startup that wants to make it easier for companies to manage their Apple devices, announced a $7.7 million Series A round today led by Upfront Ventures. Seed investors Index Ventures and Harrison Meta also participated in the round. The company has raised a total of $11 million. They also announced that Luke Kanies, […]
A report by US reseller ThredUP estimates that second-hand fashion will soon overtake “fast fashion”, with an expected market worth of $41 billion USD by 2022. According to the site, in 2017 resale equated to six percent of the fashion market, with fast fashion at nine percent. By 2027 however, it’s projected to sit at […]
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a stunning product picture is worth a thousand website visits. I don’t have data to back up that statement (yet). Nevertheless, product photography can become this valuable to your ecommerce website strategy. According to Trellis, 51% of Americans with internet access prefer to shop online, and that […]
Google’s two smart speaker products — the Google Home and Google Home Mini — and its Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones are now available in India following a launch event in the country. The devices are priced at Rs 9,999 ($154), and Rs 4,499 ($69), respectively, and Google confirmed that they are available for purchase online via […]
When evaluating a job offer, it’s important to know whether you’ll fit in at the new company. But it can be hard to get an unvarnished view of an organization’s culture during the interview process. Before you take the job, find people with objective, unbiased opinions of the organization and its culture. They may be […]
French startup Alan closed a $28.3 million Series A round a few months ago. Index Ventures is leading the round, Xavier Niel is participating as well as existing investors CNP Assurances, Partech and Portag3 Ventures LP. Alan wants to make health insurance as simple as subscribing to a software-as-a-service product. It starts with clear pricing […]
Stringify, an IFTTT-like app that lets consumers control and automate their smart home devices, was quietly snatched up by Comcast last fall to join the company’s larger efforts involving the smart home and the Internet of Things. Today, in its first major update post-acquisition, Stringify is relaunching its app with a new look-and-feel, deeper integrations with Comcast’s […]
Sick of chatting but want to stay connected? Tribe‘s app lets you play clones of Space Invaders, Flappy Bird, Fruit Ninja, Name That Tune and more while video chatting with up to 7 friends or strangers. Originally a video messaging app, Tribe failed to gain traction in the face of Snapchat and Facebook Messenger. But […]
From leaked passwords to identity theft, cybersecurity issues are constantly in the news. Few issues though are as important — or as under-reported by the media — as the security of America’s industrial control infrastructure. Oil rigs, power plants, water treatment facilities and other critical infrastructure are increasingly connecting to the internet, but often without […]
Instagram is preparing to launch a feature called Nametags that lets you create a special image that people can scan with the Instagram Stories camera to follow you. TechCrunch broke the news of Nametags code in Instagram’s Android APK last month. But now thanks to reader Genady Okrain we have screenshots and more details of […]
With these additional regional launches, C5 instances are now available in the AWS US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), Europe (Paris), and South America […]
With these additional regional launches, M5 instances are now available in the AWS US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), Europe (Paris), and South America […]
All of us grew up around tech different from what we have today, and many of us look back on those devices with fondness. But can you recall the exact sound your first Casio keyboard made, or the cadence of a rotary phone’s clicks? Conserve the Sound aims to, well, conserve the sound of gadgets […]
The new metric adds to the pre-existing CPUUtilization metric which exposes CPU utilization for the server instance as a whole including other operating system and management processes. We recommend that you use both the new EngineCPUUtilization and prior CPUUtilization metrics together to get a detailed understanding of CPU utilization for your Redis environment. The metric […]
Last week, Apple called out the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to rollback the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. The company cited both the obvious environmental impact of such a move, along with potential economic fallout. It turns out Apple’s got quite a bit invested in the latter. The company announced today that its global facilities are […]
Over the course of the last few years, the Holberton School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Engineering has made a name for itself as one of the more comprehensive coding schools. The two-year program trains full-stack engineers with a focus on the basics of engineering and sees itself as an alternative to a traditional college experience. […]
AWS Elastic Beanstalk now supports creating Application Load Balancers through the AWS Elastic Beanstalk console. Previously, you could only create an Application Load Balancer using AWS SDKs, AWS CLI, and EB CLI. In the Elastic Beanstalk console, you can now choose Application Load Balancer in addition to Classic Load Balancer when you configure your environment. […]
Duolingo today launched one of its biggest updates in recent years. The company is introducing a range of new exercise types, as well as a new leveling system that lets you choose between delving deeper into specific skills or learning new content. When you are building a popular language learning service like Duolingo, you’re inevitably […]
Amazon Polly is a service that turns text into lifelike speech, allowing you to create applications that talk, and build entirely new categories of speech-enabled products. To more easily enable the voicing of longer text input, Amazon Polly has doubled its character limit for the SynthesizeSpeech API operation. The maximum length of input text can […]
Amazon Linux 2 LTS Candidate 2 is available as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) for use on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), and as a Docker container image for use in any Docker environment, including Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS). It is also available as virtual machine images for VMware ESXi, Oracle VM […]
The popular quiz startup HQ Trivia is beginning to roll out the first of many new social features to its app focused on leveraging competition with friends and family during game time. HQ Trivia has managed to bring people together in real life to play the game on their phones, but the startup has done […]
AWS PrivateLink is available in AWS US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), US West (N. California), EU (London), EU (Ireland), EU (Frankfurt), EU (Paris), Canada (Central), Asia Pacific (Mumbai), Asia Pacific (Seoul), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo) and South America (São Paulo) Regions. To learn more about […]
PayPal is expanding into traditional banking through partnership with smaller banks to offer consumers debit cards connected to their PayPal accounts, along with direct deposit for paychecks and other services, according to news the company shared with The Wall St. Journal. The company says its new products are targeted specifically at the unbanked, and will launch […]
As Coinbase slowly earns the opportunity to begin thinking about taking a breath after the insane growth of the past few months, it’s thinking more about what all it has to say. The cryptocurrency exchange startup has hired Spark Capital partner Rachael Horowitz as its first VP of communications. Horwitz led marketing and communications work […]
You can now share mailboxes among your team members. All users that have been granted access to a shared mailbox can send and receive emails using this mailbox without the need to manually share access credentials. Shared mailboxes make it easy to use email addresses that need to be monitored and used by multiple people. […]
In turns out, SpaceX was indeed not responsible for the loss of a top secret government satellite that fell back to earth and was destroyed following a Falcon 9 rocket launch earlier this year, a report in the Wall Street Journal today states. The Zuma satellite’s purpose was highly classified, but the fate of the […]
UK startup Juro, which is applying a “design centric approach” and machine learning tech to help businesses speed up the authoring and management of sales contracts, has closed $2m in seed funding led by Point Nine Capital. Prior investor Seedcamp also contributed to the round. Juro is announcing Taavet Hinrikus (TransferWise’s co-founder) as an investor […]
Only a few weeks after launching a major overhaul of its Cloud Text-to-Speech API, Google today also announced an update to that service’s Speech-to-Text voice recognition service. The new and improved Cloud Speech-to-Text API promises significantly improved voice recognition performance. The new API promises a reduction in word errors around 54 percent across all of […]
Scribd is setting its sights on bigger, newer titles. E-book and audiobook versions of The Fates Divide, the second volume in Veronica Roth’s Carve the Mark series, will go live on Scribd tomorrow. It’s not an exclusive deal — you’ll be able to buy The Fates Divide in bookstores and from online retailers — but […]
Transportation startup Comma.ai has raised $5 million, according to a new SEC filing. George Hotz, the founder of Comma.ai, started the company in an attempt to take on Tesla. Initially, Hotz was working on a self-driving car kit called Comma One. The Comma One was an add-on that would’ve enabled certain cars to have Tesla […]
I’ll be helping build a larger meetup focused on pre-ICO companies in New York on April 23 and I’d love to see you there. It will be held at Knotel on April 23 at 7pm and will feature a pitch-off with eight startups – I will write about the best ones – and two panels […]
TechCrunch is headed back to Africa to find the next wave of early stage startups tackling big ideas! Last October, TechCrunch held Startup Battlefield in Nairobi, Kenya and featured 15 early stage startups from across the continent. We’re impressed by the Sub-Saharan Africa startup scene and can’t wait to meet the next crop of innovators […]
In an interview last month Parker Harris and Marc Benioff told the story of how when they first launched the company, they were trying to raise money and nobody would give them a dime. Benioff said he went to every venture capital in Silicon Valley — and was turned down every single time. This could […]
Apple is doing it again. The company just unveiled a new version of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. It has a bright red enclosure and a black front. A portion of Apple’s proceeds will fund HIV/AIDS grants from the Global Fund. Other than that, it’s an iPhone 8. You’ll get the exact same […]
Microsoft has released the source code for the original, 1990s-era File Manager that is so familiar to all of us who were dragging and dropping on Windows 3.0. The code, which is available on Github under the MIT OSS license, will compile under Windows 10. File Manager uses the multiple-document interface or MDI to display […]
When Armis launched in 2015, the company founders looked over the horizon and they saw the Internet of Things requiring a strong security layer. Today, the Israeli IoT security startup announced a $30 million Series B. The company has attracted a strong group of venture capitalists. The round was led by Bain Capital Ventures and […]
James Murray is a funny man. A producer, actor, and writer, Murray is best known as Murr on the show Impractical Jokers. I spoke to him for a Technotopia interview about the future of TV, VR, and media and he has a lot to say. His dream? To offer immersive experiences to his audiences using […]
Emojis can be powerful tools that help your messages stick with your audience: a study found that participants who were sent messages with emojis scored higher on memory than those who were sent messages without emojis, indicating that emojis can make your message more memorable. That same study also found that emojis can help portray […]
Grab has given the Uber app a stay of execution in yet another market as regulators across Southeast Asia continue to investigate the merger deal announced between the ride-hailing companies last month. Fresh from extending the closure date a week in Singapore, Grab has done the same in the Philippines, a spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch. […]
Leap Motion has been in kind of a weird place for quite a while now. They’ve raised north of $100 million for their tightly-focused computer vision work hell-bent on replicating real-time hand movements, like, really well. Their work has all been very convincing in demos, but after eight years, the company itself still feels like […]
Did you know an Instagram post with at least one hashtag averages 12.6% more engagement than a post with no hashtags? Hashtags are powerful. They can help your posts reach a target audience, attract followers in your niche, increase engagement, and develop a more positive and recognizable brand image. Here’s the thing, though: with great […]
City Pantry, the office catering marketplace to make it easy to order in food for staff, company events and meetings, has restocked its funding. The London-based startup has raised a new £4 million round led by Octopus Investments with participation from existing investors and Newable Private Investing — capital it plans to use to expand […]
Bitmovin, the online video software and infrastructure company founded by two of the creators of the MPEG-DASH video streaming standard, has raised $30 million in Series B funding. The round is led by Highland Europe, with participation from existing investors Atomico, Constantia New Business, Dawn Capital, and Y Combinator. The company says the new round […]
When you’re asked to give feedback on a fellow employee, you want it to be useful. But unless you connect it to what matters to them — and separate it from your personal beliefs and preferences — they won’t be able to act on it. Emphasize facts, not interpretations. This means staying away from comments […]
Yesterday afternoon, word started spreading that a new — and perhaps final — trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story would land this evening. Sometime during American Idol, they said… of course without saying exactly when. The answer: now. You can see it here: The trailer roll-out for Solo started a bit later than most […]
Tencent is teaming up with Los Angeles-based education company Age of Learning to launch an English education program for kids in China. ABCmouse, Age of Learning’s flagship product, has been localized and will be available as a website and an iOS and Android app in China, with Tencent handling product development, marketing, sales and customer […]
Salesforce has always been a company that is looking ahead to the next big technology, whether that was mobile, social, internet of things or artificial intelligence. In an interview with Business Insider’s Julie Bort at the end of March, Salesforce co-founders Marc Benioff and Parker Harris talked about a range of subjects including how the […]
Edovo, a tablet-based education startup for incarcerated people, has raised $9 million from Impact Engine, Lumina Foundation, Kapor Capital and others. Edovo works with facilities to bring in secure wireless networks and tablets that access Edovo’s educational platform. The incentive-based learning program covers a variety of areas, including literacy, college course work, cognitive behavioral therapy […]
Dictionary app Reverso is getting new features with its 8.0 update. There are new exercices and games to help you learn new words. Reverso also now has an integrated thesaurus. Reverso is one of the biggest dictionary players out there. It now has over 40 million unique visitors on its website and app every month. […]
Alex Wilhelm Contributor Alex Wilhelm is the editor-in-chief of Crunchbase News and co-host of Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast. More posts by this contributor Spotify steadies, DocuSign’s big year, and scooters are the new blockchain Live from Disrupt SF: Equity talks Slack, Lyft and flying cars The growth of Windows has slowed as Microsoft’s mobile […]
Lego Mindstorms have paved the way for many programmable toys. And Austrian startup Robo Wunderkind is building a new kind of Lego-like programmable kit. The startup first launched on the TechCrunch Disrupt stage and just raised $1.2 million (€1 million) from SOSV, Austrian Federal Promotional Bank and multiple business angels. Compared to many programmable toys […]
Snapchat has undone its controversial redesign’s most significant change in an update to some users today. A tab that shows Stories in reverse chronological order, replacing the redesign’s algorithmically sorted feed for many people. We’ve reached out to Snap Inc and haven’t heard back. Showing the most recent Stories first makes them predictable and coherent […]
After a bit of a hubbub among developers this morning who were pissed that in a few months their third-party Twitter apps could lose essential functionality, Twitter announced that they would be delaying the sunset of certain APIs in an effort to ensure developers had enough time to migrate to new systems. The current date […]
It’s been a week filled to the brim with customer security comprises, and here’s one more to add to the pile. A day after Sears, Kmart and Delta confirmed that they’d been impacted by a breach of data firm, [24]7.ai, Best Buy issued a public statement noting that it’s in the same boat. At last […]
AggregateIQ, a Canadian advertising tech and audience intelligence company, has been suspended by Facebook for allegedly being closely connected with SCL, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, reported the National Observer. News broke late last month that AIQ, which was deeply involved with (and handsomely paid by) pro-Leave Brexit groups, was not the independent Canadian […]
We are pleased to announce the general availability of the latest release of Thinkbox Deadline, v10.0.13.6. This maintenance release includes greater control over Amazon EC2 Spot Fleet instances as well as bug fixes. With Deadline 10.0.13.6, customers have greater control over their Amazon EC2 Spot Fleet instances, with the option to either maintain the number […]
Logistics may not be the most exciting application of autonomous vehicles, but it’s definitely one of the most important. And the marine shipping industry — one of the oldest industries in the world, you can imagine — is ready for it. Or at least two major Norwegian shipping companies are: they’re building an autonomous shipping […]
For more information about Job Execution Timeout, visit the AWS Batch Documentation. This change is effective today in all AWS Regions supported by AWS Batch. AWS Batch is currently available in the following AWS Regions: US East (N. Virginia), US West (N. California), US West (Oregon), US East (Ohio), Canada (Central), Europe (Ireland), Europe (London), […]
This morning, the developers of third-party Twitter clients Tweetbot, Twitterific, Tweetings, and Talon banded together to highlight upcoming API changes that could potentially break the way their apps work. As you might expect, their collective user base — a base largely made up of folks who need more out of their Twitter app than the […]
As if there weren’t already cameras enough in this world, researchers created a new type that is both microscopic and self-powered, making it possible to embed just about anywhere and have it work perpetually. It’s undoubtedly cool technology, but it’s probably also going to cause a spike in tinfoil sales. Engineers have previously investigated the […]
Last year, renowned VC Steve Jurvetson parted ways in what appeared a painful split with his longtime firm, DFJ. Six months later, he’s back with a new firm, Future Ventures, Jurvetson tells us via email. (Recode was first to take notice of the new site.) Says Jurvetson: “I am incredibly excited about the future — […]
Postmates, the startup that offers on-demand delivery for anything in your city, now lets people order ahead for pick-up. This comes about one year after Square’s Caviar expanded into pickups, following the acquisition of OrderAhead’s pick-up business. It’s not clear how many markets this is available in, but TechCrunch has reached out to Postmates to learn […]
As part of Twitter’s efforts to rid its platform of abuse and hate, the company is teaming up with researchers Susan Benesch, a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and J. Nathan Matias, a post-doc research associate at Princeton University, to study online abuse. Today, Twitter is […]
There’s always been a glaring issue with voice computing: Talking to a voice assistant with other people around makes you feel like a bit of a weirdo. It’s a big part of the reason we’ve been seeing the technology start to take off in the home, where people feel a little less self-conscious talking to […]
Microsoft is hoping to capitalize on the popularity of podcasts and videos to make Skype more appealing to content creators. The company is now testing a new “Skype for Content Creators” mode for its desktop app that will allow creators to place and record calls using Skype software, which can either be streamed live or […]
Across the country, police brutality and the series of fatal shootings of mostly black men have soured many on the role that police officers play in the community. To combat those negative assessments police forces are turning to an array of new technologies from body cameras, new communications technologies, and social media monitoring services to […]
TechCrunch reported last night that Facebook retracted Facebook messages sent by Mark Zuckerberg and other executives from their recipients’ inboxes. That’s an ability normal Facebook users don’t have. But now Facebook tells me it plans to make an “unsend” feature available to all users in several months, and has already been considering how to build […]
If you’re looking to travel abroad — and especially if you’re looking to work while doing so — it might be tough to convince yourself you can find a cool boutique hotel that caters to a lot of different price points, as well as surround yourself with people that will help you feel like you […]
Now you can use QuickSight to directly connect to, analyze and report on data from popular business applications such JIRA, GitHub, ServiceNow, Adobe Analytics, and Twitter. For example, engineering teams using JIRA to track issues such as tasks and bugs can now use QuickSight to report on developer efficiency and bug burndown. Marketing organizations can […]
Amazon is making it easier for parents to manage their child’s device usage from their own phone, tablet, or PC with an update to the Parent Dashboard in Amazon FreeTime. Since its launch in 2012, Amazon’s FreeTime Unlimited has been one of the better implementations of combining kid-friendly content with customizable profiles and parental controls. […]
Walmart announced this week it’s going to roll out more than 500 additional Pickup Towers to its U.S. stores over the course of the year. The towers, which are like high-tech vending machines distributing customers’ online purchases, were first introduced into nearly 200 stores in 2017. The towers are one of the ways Walmart is […]
In simplified terms, a SERP (which stands for Search Engine Results Page) contains two types of content: organic and paid results. In an effort to make the user search experience easier and more direct, Google created SERP features, on-page content that gives users answers to their queries without requiring them to click into an organic […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Katie Roof and I were joined by David Welsh, part of KKR’s growth equity shop. (His formal title: Member and Head of TMT Growth Equity, where “member” actually means “partner,” it turns out.) And what a […]
We’re busy searching all of Europe for the very best and brightest developers, hackers, tech builders and marketers. Why? Because we want you to come and compete in the TechCrunch Hackathon at VivaTech, of course! The Hackathon takes place at the Expo Porte de Versailles in Paris on May 25-26 and, if you act quickly […]
When it comes to emerging technology, there’s a lot to keep up with.
Fans of Uber in Southeast Asia will have a little more time to continue using the app after Grab, the rival that is acquiring Uber’s business in the region, agreed to extend the life of the app until April 15 while Singapore’s competition commission reviews the merger deal. Grab had originally intended to close the […]
PlayingViral founders Steven Wongsoredjo and Michael Rendy Millennials have been accused of possessing shorter attention spans than goldfish. Though that claim is questionable, online marketers know display ads and even sponsored content are no longer enough to attract twentysomethings. PlayingViral gives brands a new way to lure young consumers with embeddable surveys and quizzes that […]
Samsung has released primarily guidance for its Q1 2018 financial period and the signs are that it will be another blockbuster. The Korean tech giant’s sales in 2017 were enough to see it unseat Intel as the world’s largest chipmaker based on revenue — ending Intel’s 25-year run at the top — and, while Samsung […]
When you’re working from home, sneaking in a load of laundry may not seem like a big deal. But without boundaries, your day is likely to feel chaotic and fragmented. Give yourself structure by pretending you’re at the office. Set up “office hours” (9 AM to 6 PM, for example), and decide what is and […]
Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck, made famously after hackers made off with more than $400 million in digital token NEM, has been acquired. The company announced today (in Japanese) that Tokyo-based online brokerage Monex Group will buy it in full. The transaction will see Coincheck become a wholly owned subsidiary of Monex. The deal is a reaction of the […]
Facebook says it was for security, but is it a breach of user trust? Josh Constine @ / 7 hours You can’t remove Facebook messages from the inboxes of people you sent them to, but Facebook did that for Mark Zuckerberg and other executives. Three sources confirm to TechCrunch that old Facebook messages they received […]
Coinbase has launched a new fund called Coinbase Ventures to invest in early-stage cryptocurrency and blockchain startups. In a blog post, Coinbase head of corporate and business development Emilie Choi said that the fund’s goal is to strengthen the sector. “At least in the beginning, our goal is simply helping the most compelling companies in […]
Redpoint Ventures has hired Annie Kadavy as its first female general partner. She’ll be on the early stage investment team. Kadavy has a background in venture capital, having spent several years at CRV. Most recently, she ran strategic operations at Uber’s freight division. She also has an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. […]
Razer, known mainly for gaming laptops and peripherals, expanded its ecosystem today with the launch of Razer Game Store, an online game distribution platform. Razer Game Store will compete with Steam and Amazon, but wants to grab the attention of gamers with perks like the chance to earn more credits in Razer’s zSilver loyalty program, […]
How to Market on Google Use Google My Business (GMB) and claim free ad space for your business. Improve your website’s SEO using Google Search Console. Buy ads on Google through Google Adwords. Host your website’s videos on YouTube, the largest video community in the world. You may have heard of this little thing called […]
In an interview with Bloomberg, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg disclosed the fact that ongoing privacy revelations around Cambridge Analytica have some advertisers skittish. When asked about how many advertisers had paused their ad spending, Sandberg would only get as specific as saying that “a few” had done so, leaving plenty of room for interpretation. She told […]
YouTube TV is finding life inside a browser not built by Google. The live TV service is now running on Firefox after previously being locked down to Chrome. The new development first spotted by YourTechExplained isn’t a massive shock, Google had promised support for other browsers would be coming, but it’s nice to see them hold […]
Montreal-based fashion site Ssense is acquiring Polyvore from Verizon’s Oath, but the site will not live on. Ssense has already shut down the Polyvore site, taking its user data and redirecting traffic from the site’s main URL. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Polyvore was previously owned by Oath, a Verizon subsidiary which also owns […]
AI research is increasingly being used by militaries around the world for offensive and defensive applications. This past week, groups of AI researchers began to fight back against two separate programs located halfway around the world from each other, generating tough questions about just how much engineers can affect the future uses of these technologies. […]
Amazon just rolled out a long-promised for the Echo. Alexa Announcements turns the company’s smart speaker line into a one-way intercom system, letting owners communicate with the family across a household. At its base level, it’s kind of a relay system. Tell the device, “Alexa, announce that dinner is ready,” and Alexa will say, “Dinner […]
Instacart, the grocery delivery startup that has a partnership of sorts with Whole Foods, is raising $150 million in funding, Axios first reported. This is on top of Instacart’s $200 million raise at a $4.2 billion valuation in February. The additional funding comes shortly after Amazon, owner of Whole Foods, announced free two-hour delivery of […]
A class-action lawsuit alleging pay discrimination at Google based on gender is moving forward, California Superior Court Judge Mary E. Wiss recently ordered. The original suit was dismissed in December due to the fact that plaintiffs defined the class of affected workers too broadly. In January, the plaintiffs filed a revised lawsuit, which added Heidi […]
Mission Bit, a nonprofit organization that teaches high school students computer science, has received a $1 million five-year grant from the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families. Each semester, Mission Bit offers after-school computer science classes to high school students. The fall and spring courses run for 13 weeks, requiring four hours […]
Careship, the German marketplace for in-home senior care, has raised €6 million in further funding. The round is led by Creandum, the European early-stage investor best known for being an early backer of Spotify, and will be used by the Berlin startup to further expand nationally. In addition to Creandum, European ‘impact’ investor Ananda Ventures […]
Facebook isn’t backing down from Stories despite criticism that it copied Snapchat and that Instagram Stories is enough. Instead, it’s committed to figuring out how to adapt the slideshow format into the successor to the status update. That’s why today the company is launching three significant tests that make Facebook Stories a default way to […]
As more and more spending moves online — whether that’s shopping or subscribing to services like Netflix and Spotify — there’s increasing demand for tools that allow those companies, especially smaller ones, to start getting paid. Stripe has made its name by providing developers with a simpler way to start charging customers and handling transactions, […]
The deadline for Google’s Lunar Xprize passed just days ago without a winner, but the lengthy 10-year competition to send a robot to the Moon’s surface had known for months that none of the five teams were ready for launch by the extended deadline of March 31, 2018. As a result, back in January, Google […]
Virgin Galactic took to the skies today for the first test of its rocket-powered spacecraft in over three years. The SpaceShipTwo launch platform deployed the USS Unity at a set altitude where the space craft will fire its engines for as long as 30 seconds bringing the craft to 1 1/2 the speed of sound. […]
GitLab, one of the most popular self-hosted Git services, has been on a bit of a roll lately. Barely two weeks after launching its integration with GitHub, the company today announced that developers on its platform can now automatically spin up a cluster on Google’s Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and deploy their applications to it with […]
Google Cloud is launching a new feature today that will give its users a new way to monitor and optimize how their data flows between their servers in the Google Cloud and other Google Services, on-premises deployments and virtually any other internet endpoint. As the name implies, VPC Flow Logs are meant for businesses that […]
