digital marketing

 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

 Amazon and Netflix both got some good news in this morning’s Oscar nominations. Mudbound, a Netflix original that tells the story of two families (one black, one white) farming on the Mississippi Delta, got four nominations — including best supporting actress (Mary J. Blige), best adapted screenplay (Dee Rees and Virgil Williams) and best original song (“Mighty River”).… Read More

 DJI hasn’t done a great job keeping its drones under wraps. As with the last couple of devices, the Mavic Air leaked out just ahead of today’s official unveiling. The drone is more or less what we expected, falling somewhere between the Mavic Pro and Spark and rounding out the company’s current line of consumer-focused quadcopters. DJI says it “went back to the… Read More

 Elon Musk’s new Tesla compensation package is the CEO equivalent of putting your money where your mouth is: He’ll only be paid out if he manages to raise the value of Tesla as a company to certain milestones, kind of like Kickstarter project stretch goals on a grand scale. Per the New York Times, Musk’s compensation will start at zero, and will increase based on… Read More

 David Barber, the storied owner of the Blue Hill restaurant, farm, and hospitality consulting mecca (a favorite of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama), has long been an angel investor in startup companies. Individually, he’s backed companies like Sweetgreen, the fast casual farm-to-table restaurant chain, that share Blue Hill’s focus on sustainable products and… Read More

 Twitter COO Anthony Noto has left the company, Twitter announced Tuesday. Noto’s leaving because he accepted a CEO role elsewhere, according to the release. Just last week, the WSJ reported that Noto was mulling the top executive job at finance startup SoFi, and indeed SoFi confirmed today that he’s joining effective March 1. Developing… Read More

 When we heard from Sumo Logic last June, the company was announcing a $75 million Series F. Today, they announced they were acquiring FactorChain, a security startup that has raised $3.6 million. The companies would not disclose the purchase price, but indicated the acquisition closed at the end of Q4 and all 12 FactorChain employees have joined Sumo Logic, including CEO Dave Frampton and CTO… Read More

 Adobe is launching an update to Photoshop CC today that includes a number of new features, including better support for high density monitors and the Microsoft dial for Windows users. But the highlight of the release is the new Select Subject tool that uses Adobe’s Sensei AI platform to make selecting objects as simple as a click. Selecting objects in an image typically takes a bit of… Read More

 There’s no getting around the fact that Snapchat has a user growth problem, so it’s smart that the company is making it easier for people who like and use Snapchat to share content they find within beyond the app itself. Today, Snap is launching the ability to share some public Stories via links that then display the Story selected on Snapchat.com. Stories eligible for sharing… Read More

 It’s been about a year since Atlassian acquired Trello and the company has stayed true to its word and continues to invest heavily in the product. Today, Trello is launching a new directory for its add-ons — or ‘Power-Ups‘ in Trello lingo — that shows both the continued investment in the service and that’s also indicative of how the Atlassian ecosystem in… Read More

 A startup called Bolt wants to give e-commerce retailers a better shot at competing with Amazon. Operating in stealth for a year, the payments platform has grown to 100 online merchants who are now in various phases of roll out with its end-to-end solution for managing customer checkout, payment processing, and fraud detection. The company was officially founded in 2014, with an initial focus… Read More

 Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was speaking to Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait today at the new outlet’s event #TheYearAhead event, and he shared some more information about Uber’s plans around autonomy, and autonomous ride-hailing service rollout. “True autonomy for every single use case, is some ways away,” Khosrowshahi began, acknowledging that the problem is… Read More

 Apple is finally shipping the HomePod. The device will ship on February 9, seven months after its announcement at WWDC 2017. It will cost $349 and limited at launch to the US, UK and Australian markets. The news come from Apple who is touting HomePod’s Siri integration, saying its voice assistant is able to “send a message, set a timer, play a podcast, check the news, sports,… Read More

 Rainforest QA, an on-demand software QA service, announced a $25 million Series B investment today. Silicon Valley Bank, Bessemer Venture Partners, Sutter Hill Capital, Rincon Ventures and Initialized Capital all participated in the round. Today’s investment brings the total raised to over $42 million, according to the company. The startup, which got its start in the Summer 2012 Y… Read More

Big data systems tend to be large, complex and often hard to troubleshoot. In the world of databases, web and mobile stacks, application performance management services like AppDynamics and New Relic help ops teams keep tabs on their system. In the big data world, Unravel Data is one of the few APM players to focus solely on the complete big data stack from ingestion to analysis. Read More

 As we inch ever closer to GDPR in May, companies doing business in Europe need to start getting a grip on the sensitive private data they have. The trouble is that as companies move their data into data lakes, massive big data stores, it becomes more difficult to find data in a particular category. Clairvoyant, an Arizona company is releasing a tool called Kogni that could help. Chandra… Read More

 There are three exciting developments that I do expect to transpire within the next 12-18 months.The first major rollouts of autonomous fleets; the development of new mapping and LIDAR technology; and, finally, the development of communities dedicated to autonomous driving in cities and private campuses.  Read More

 Element.AI — which last year raised $102 million from the likes of Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia and more to build an incubator-meets-consultancy to work with multiple businesses as they launch new services and systems based on artificial intelligence — is entering the next phase of its growth this week. The Canadian startup — co-founded by Jean-François Gagné, Nicolas… Read More

 Aspect Ventures has finalized its second fund. The team led by Jennifer Fonstad and Theresia Gouw has closed $181 million, up from $150 million it raised at its inception three years ago.  An SEC filing last year alerted us that the team was fundraising, but now it’s officially official. Aspect is also adding Melinda Gates and Cisco to its roster of LPs. The team is “looking… Read More

 Some major product news from veteran anti-tracking search engine DuckDuckGo: Today it’s launched revamped mobile apps and browser extensions that bake in a tracker blocker for third party sites, and include a suite of other privacy features intended to help users keep surfing privately as they navigate around the web. Read More

 Japanese bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange BitFlyer has expanded into Europe after it landed a payment license to operate across the EU. Data from Coinmarketcap.com shows that BitFlyer is the world’s 14th largest exchange based on volume, with more than $294 million trading in the last 24 hours at the time of writing. Bitcoin is the dominant choice for BitFlyer users, having account… Read More

 SmartHR, a startup helping Japanese employers run HR and staffing smarter — because that’s of course its name — has raised a JPY 1.5 billion ($13.3 million) Series B round led by 500 Startups Japan. The startup is perhaps comparable to the likes of Zenefits and Gusto in the U.S. — it aims to drag Japanese HR departments into today’s digital era. “In Japan… Read More

Netflix is now worth more than $100 billion, Uber Eats acquires Ando and Rupert Murdoch wants Facebook to pay for the news. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

 I was all set to dislike the “flick,” a time unit just recently invented by Facebook (technically the Oculus team), because I thought it was going to be something worthless like “the average time someone looks at a post.” In fact it’s a very clever way of dividing time that theoretically could make video and audio production much more harmonious. Read More

 Oreo was a bit of a lackluster update on first launch, but the mobile operating system is getting some nice new tricks with 8.1’s updates. The new Speed Labels feature is one of the more compelling of the bunch, offering estimated network signals prior to logging on. Starting this week, users with 8.1 installed will see one of four qualifiers next to open Wi-Fi networks: Very Fast, Fast,… Read More

 The PX headphones are Bowers & Wilkins’ first noise-cancelling headphones. While Bowers & Wilkins is more known for its premium work with high-end speakers, its first foray into noise-cancelling headphones is a win. Overall the Bowers & Wilkins PX wireless headphones boast big sound and a sharp design, but they come at a high price compared to similar offerings by competitors. Read More

 Netflix crossed a fun milestone today, crossing the $100 billion mark for its market cap as it once again surprised industry observers with better-than-expected growth in its subscribers. We’ll get to the financial numbers in a minute but, as usual, the big story here is that it continues to wow Wall Street with impressive growth in its subscriber numbers. The company said it added… Read More

 After selling his social virtual reality startup to Microsoft in October, Eric Romo, the co-founder of AltspaceVR is joining the competing social VR team at Facebook as its Product Director where he will be “exploring how VR can help communities connect.” “It wasn’t an easy decision, but I left AltspaceVR with confidence that the team is well-placed to continue… Read More

 A startup that’s operating in stealth mode raises an almost stunning amount of money before it releases a product. Investors write outsize checks to the outfit anyway because of the people involved in it, but before you know it, poof, the company is imploding, and the capital is gone. It’s a story that industry watchers know well at this point. Clinkle — the payments… Read More

 The FCC’s wildly unpopular decision to kill net neutrality has sent legislators, companies and individuals scrambling for ways to keep the Obama era regulations in place. A new bid by Montana Governor Steve Bullock would cut through much of the red tape and force internet service providers to abide by earlier net neutrality rules. Bullock, a second term Democrat, told The New York Times… Read More

 The always outspoken Linus Torvalds, best known for his continuing work on the innermost code of Linux systems, has harsh words to say and accusations to level against Intel. His evaluation of Intel’s latest proposed fix for the Meltdown/Spectre issue: “the patches are COMPLETE AND UTTER GARBAGE.” Read More

 Apple today launched a new dashboard that will allow artists on Apple Music to track fans’ listening and buying habits, and view a variety of analytics about their music, according to Billboard which had the launch exclusive from Apple. The dashboard, called Apple Music for Artists, is currently available only for select beta users ahead of a broader launch planned for later this… Read More

 Brian McClendon, a notable engineering executive at startups and large tech companies, including Google and Uber, has announced his candidacy to run for the open seat of secretary of state of Kansas. He will compete in the Democratic primary scheduled for August 7th. McClendon has been a lifelong engineer, growing up in the state and receiving his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering… Read More

 Ziro is a nifty programmable robotics kit for kids that had a successful Indiegogo campaign last year. And the company behind it, ZeroUI, is still adding new features. By default, Ziro kits come with a smart glove to control your robots. You can use the mobile app to configure gestures based on hand movements. For instance, if you tilt your hand forward, it can make a car go forward. Ziro now… Read More

 Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote a blog post about Google’s investments in France. There are three different pieces of news in this announcement. First, Google is going to expand its office in Paris. If you already know Google’s current office in Paris, that building is going to stick around. The company is going to acquire or rent other buildings around Google’s current office… Read More

 Waymo continues to expand the pool of locations where it’s testing its autonomous vehicle tech, and the latest destination is metro Atlanta. The former Google self-driving car company revealed the news on Twitter, noting that it’s expanding considerably its geographic testing footprint now that it’s got fully driverless test vehicles on the road in Phoenix. Its test cars… Read More

 At first glance, genealogy may seem like a quiet hobby you take up in your retirement, but it’s also a big industry, with the likes of Ancestry, MyHeritage, Helix and others all vying for new users. You’d think that there isn’t much these companies can do to really differentiate themselves from each other, but they all offer a slightly different spin on the core theme of… Read More

 Hulu and YouTube are battling for subscribers for their respective live TV streaming services, according to a CNBC report out this morning, which says that Hulu Live has grown to 450,000 paying subscribers and YouTube TV has just over 300,000. Both are still trailing competitors including Dish’s Sling TV, which has more than 2 million estimated subscribers, and AT&T’s DirecTV… Read More

 Coinbase just announced they’re hiring Tina Bhatnagar as VP of Operations and Technology to lead all operational teams at Coinbase and GDAX. But perhaps most relevant right now is the fact that her responsibilities will include overseeing the fast growing startup’s customer service division. It’s no secret that Coinbase is in need of some help with it comes to support and… Read More

 The consumer investment train keeps rolling through Los Angeles, with organic perfumer Skylar Body becoming the latest brand that investors here are banking on for a big win. The company raised $3 million late last year in a round led by Upfront Ventures with participation from serial entrepreneur-turned-investor Brian Lee and other top tier local investors. Lee, who made his name (and his… Read More

 Predicting cryptocurrency prices is a fool’s game yet this fool is about to try. The drivers of a single cryptocurrency’s value are currently too varied and vague to make assessments based on any one point. News is trending up on Bitcoin? Maybe there’s a hack or an API failure that is driving it down at the same time. Ethereum looking sluggish? Who knows: maybe someone will… Read More

 It probably goes without saying that Microsoft, along with the rest of the tech world, was working on a smartwatch. And while, by some accounts, the category is finally having its moment, the software giant’s efforts didn’t appear to make it to far beyond the prototype stage. New photos posted by a Twitter user and spotted by Windows Central purport to show the company’s… Read More

 Everyone wants to be the Craigslist killer. In November, Facebook expanded its Marketplace section to include partners’ housing rentals alongside secondhand merchandise, and today the number three shopping app letgo is doing the same. The company says that, starting today, its tens of millions of users can now quickly snap a few photos and add a description to list a housing rental or… Read More

 Payroll provider ADP said it is acquiring WorkMarket, a startup that specializes in workforce management software that operates across a wide range of employees and contractors, for an undisclosed sum. The software aims to create a kind of unified interface for managing an extended workforce that can include a variety of workers with different employment status, from contractors and… Read More

 Cargo, a startup that wants to let every rideshare driver open their own convenience store in their car, has just raised $5.5M in a round it’s calling seed preferred financing. Over the summer we covered the company’s $1.75M seed round, at which point they were just getting started. Now they have 2,500 cars on the road in NYC, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis, with 20,000 driver… Read More

 A demographic and place data firm has ranked Amazon’s HQ2 top 20 picks across a number of factors to predict which city the tech giant will choose for its new headquarters. The firm, Sperling BestPlaces, has had a fairly good track record with its prior picks – 15 of its top 20 picks made Amazon’s short list, including its top 11. This time around, it’s putting… Read More

 Cabify, the Madrid-based startup that competes with the likes of Uber and 99 in Latin America as well as the Iberian peninsula, has closed out another round of funding as competition continues to heat up in the on-demand transportation sector. Cabify’s parent company Maxi Mobility has raised $160 million at a valuation of $1.4 billion, the company confirmed to TechCrunch today. The Series… Read More

 SpaceX is impacted by the ongoing U.S. Government shutdown – which is bad news both for its pending Falcon Heavy test flight, as well as for its other missions, which include imminent ISS resupply and commercial satellite launches. The Verge has confirmed that SpaceX’s dependence on U.S. Air Force support for launch operations at Cape Canaveral has held up any potential launch… Read More

 Gamers worldwide! Nike, PlayStation and Oklahoma Thunder player Paul George have a shoe in the works that may be right up your alley. The PG2, the second generation of Paul George’s signature shoes, is themed around the PlayStation console, complete with tongues that light up. Buttons inside the tongues let the owner turn on and off those lights, shaped in the PlayStation logo and PG logo… Read More

 Rocket Lab is hoping to fill a niche for small payload orbital launches with its house-built Electron rocket and private launch facility – and now it’s one step closer to full commercial operations. The startup managed its second test flight (via Space) for its Electron booster – this time making it all the way to orbit, where it deployed some of its first ever customer… Read More

 GM has opened a new Canadian Technical Centre (CTC) in Markham, Ontario just outside of Toronto, in a brand new building capable of supporting 1,000 employees at its full target capacity, including 700 dedicated engineers. The facility will support work done on GM’s advanced driver assistance features, its fully autonomous vehicle program, and infotainment center design and… Read More

 DJI is supposed to announce a new drone tomorrow but this appears to be it. Called the Mavic Air, the small drone looks to be a combo of foldable Mavic Pro and the affordable Spark. I’m interested. According to DroneDJ, the small drone will have four foldable legs, a 4k camera, 3-way gimbal and a obstacle-avoidance system. But what about the price and range? DJI will likely reveal… Read More

 Say what you will about Chromebooks, there’s little question that Google’s low-cost offerings have reignited edtech. Last May, Microsoft fired its shot across the bow with Windows 10 S — a dumbed-down version of its operating system intended to take on the Chromebook with ultra-cheap hardware. This week at the Bett education show in the U.K., the company’s showing off… Read More

 As food delivery hopefuls like Deliveroo and Amazon get more involved in the making of food themselves, Uber’s food delivery branch Uber Eats has made an acquisition that could see the company also producing more of the product it’s bringing to its customers. Ando — the delivery-only ‘restaurant’ founded by Momofuku chef David Chang — announced today that it… Read More

 There has been so much money poured into insurance startups lately that it’s spawned its own category, “insurtech.” Investors see an opportunity to reduce inefficiencies and make customer-friendly products. They believe that more young people will buy insurance if it’s made more convenient. From autos to rentals to theft, every insurance category is seeing… Read More

 VCs continue to pump money into startups attempting to inject life into the legacy and lucrative insurance industry. The latest ‘insurtech’ company to pick up funding in the U.K. is Anorak Technologies, which is on a self-described mission to “build the world’s smartest independent insurance adviser,” starting with life insurance. Read More

 Facebook has announced it’s expanding a free training program that teaches Internet-skills, media literacy and online safety to Europe. It says its “ambition” is to train 300,000 people across six EU countries by 2020 — specifically in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Poland. Read More

 As people become more aware of how their data is used — and abused — in our digital world; and regulations (like GDPR in Europe) are leading more organizations to implement better data protection policies, a startup that is hoping to protect that data found in images — by making it impossible for algorithms to read it — has raised a seed round to help it bring its… Read More

 Korea’s Kakao, the internet giant behind the country’s top messaging app, is actively seeking overseas investment opportunities after it raised $1 billion via a placement. Kakao is valued at over $7 billion and its services are used by more than 40 million people. The company, which counts Tencent as an early investor, now appears to be making good on its long-standing plan to… Read More

 ViViDoctor, a healthtech startup out of Brussels that offers teleconsultations with doctors, has raised €400,000 in seed funding as it continues to sell its service into hospitals. The company enables patients to consult with doctors and other specialists online, including via video conference. Read More

 It’s been a while since we heard from Snow, the Snapchat clone app in Asia that Facebook once tried to buy, but today the company behind it has scooped up a $50 million investment from SoftBank and Sequoia China. Snow was started by Naver, the Korean firm behind popular messaging app Line, and it had proven popular in Japan, Korea, China and other markets in Asia thanks to a focus on… Read More

 Grab, Uber’s chief rival across Southeast Asia, is getting into bike-sharing after it announced plans to integrate oBike’s service into its core ride-hailing app. The news isn’t a huge surprise since Grab is an investor in oBike, as we reported back last year, so you’d expect there to be a strategic element to that relationship. This morning’s announcement came as… Read More

 Apple has teamed up with Malala Fund to support girls’ education, becoming Malala Fund’s first Laureate partner. Founded by Yousafzai and her father, Ziauddin, the Malala Fund aims to empower young girls and help them access the quality education they deserve. With the support of Apple, Malala Fund expects to double the number of grants awarded through its Gulmakai Network and… Read More

 Sphero was ready to conquer the world last year. The company quintupled its product release schedule, flying high with the help of a Disney licensing deal that gave the world several Star Wars droids and talking Spider-Man and Lightning McQueen robots. But following a holiday season that failed to live up to expectations, the company recently laid off 45 staff members globally, TechCrunch… Read More

 California is home to two very different innovation worlds. For the readers of TechCrunch, there is the familiar excitement of the startup world, with startups working on longevity and age extension, rockets to Mars, and cars that drive themselves. Hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs, engineers, and product managers are building these futures every day, often on shoestring budgets all in… Read More

 “The consensus is that because blockchain is so niche and it’s mostly early adopters who come from tech and finance, that it’s actually less diverse than those industries that are already struggling to be representative of the population at large,” Raine Revere, co-founder of blockchain education startup Maiden, told me on an episode of the CTRL+T podcast. In… Read More

 With WPP’s over 200,000 employees and a $75 billion media book, Sir Martin Sorrell has a uniquely privileged insight into the future of the online advertising industry. And he believes that 2018 might be the year that a third company joins what he calls the Facebook/Google “duopoly” in online advertising and search. Read More

 By now many have heard of Amazon’s most audacious attempt to shake up the retail world, the cashless, cashierless Go store. Walk in, grab what you want, and walk out. I got a chance to do just that recently, as well as pick the brain of one of its chief architects. My intention going in was to try to shoplift something and catch these complacent Amazon types napping. But it became clear… Read More

 “Everything’s a battle,” Cindy Gallop sighs, although ti’s clear she relishes those battles. What she means is that the entire Internet has long been divided into two separate, walled fiefdoms: one labelled “pornography,” the other marked with those three dread words “no adult content.” The territory between those two worlds, which she is trying… Read More

 When Google Arts & Culture’s new selfie-matching feature went viral earlier this week, many people of color found that their results were limited or skewed toward subservient and exoticized figures. In other words, it pretty much captured the experience of exploring most American or European art museums as a minority. Read More

 Good news! The great Raw Water Story of 2017 is finally over. Google tells me that searches went up ten-fold over the raw water craze, but thankfully, humans seem to have filtered out any more stories or follow ups. Silicon Valley can rest easy. But wait! There is another crisis brewing, and it isn’t the animal fecal matter in your algae water. Over the past few days, we’ve seen… Read More

 Storied Sequoia investor Mike Moritz threw fire into the tech Twitter gumbo with his observations of hard-working Chinese workers and slothful Silicon Valley engineers. Moritz, a billionaire, clearly needs page views to fund his retirement. The major money quote about Silicon Valley is this: “In recent months, there have been complaints about the political sensibilities of speakers… Read More

 There aren’t a lot of venture funds that are led by a single general partner who happens to be a woman. Sonja Hoel Perkins is one. The longtime Menlo Ventures managing director founded her own venture firm two years ago. Cindy Padnos, who spent four years with Outlook Ventures as a director before founding her own firm, Illuminate Ventures, nine years ago, is another. Now Silicon Valley… Read More

 After nearly a year, venture capitalists nabbed their first U.S. acquisition for more than a billion dollars. And it wasn’t a tech startup. Nor was it a company on the list of known unicorns. And it had nothing to do with blockchain. Read More

 Today’s nationwide Women’s March attendees will advocate for voter registration through every conceivable social network, so one of its planning organizations has allied with a new app that lets you combine posts from across apps. Crunchet will help the Women’s March Alliance and Chicago march create collages of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, Spotify, and… Read More

 Within a matter of months, the General Data Protection Regulation will apply across the EU and business processing citizens’ data will need to be sure they’re compliant. We explain the major changes incoming and take a look at some possible impacts… Read More

 Blockchain has become the latest buzzword in the technology industry, but many people are still in the dark about just what exactly it means. Thanks to Raine Revere, we have a bit of a better grasp on what the blockchain entails as well as some of its implications. As Revere so eloquently put it, “blockchain is a technology that allows for peer to peer transactions,” she explained… Read More

 Desperate for an opportunity to jump aboard in the next big thing, cryptocurrency owners are losing money by investing blindly in fake Telegram ICO websites. Chat app Telegram’s upcoming ICO promises to break records with a target raise of $1.2 billion, which may be extended to $2 billion according to new reports. The public sale component isn’t scheduled to launch until March,… Read More

 TechCrunch is holding an informal meetup during the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Grab a free ticket here. The event precedes our TechCrunch Meetup the week after in Zug, Switzerland, the so-called Crypto Valley. You can grab a ticket here. The Davos meetup will be co-hosted by Samantha Stein, TechCrunch’s Director of Special Projects & Startup… Read More

Google inks a patent deal with Tencent, Tile lays off 30 people and Apple hires the tech team from Silicon Valley Data Science (SVDS). All this on Crunch Report. Read More

 Few events have jolted the urban planning crowd quite like Amazon’s process for selecting the company’s new second headquarters (dubbed HQ2). The company put up a massive carrot of 50,000 jobs and $5 billion in investment, and then proceeded to demand proposals from cities across North America (lovingly written up by Clickhole). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Amazon received 238… Read More

 If you’re looking for a way to close out your week that’s entertaining, edifying, and looks like you’re doing real work, check out Chimeria:Grayscale, a game where you act as an HR person dealing with everyday office problems via email. Okay, maybe it doesn’t sound that exciting, but there’s more to it than that. Read More

 Google CEO Sundar Pichai says he still believes that it was appropriate to fire James Damore. “I don’t regret it,” said Pichai, in an interview with Recode’s Kara Swisher and MSNBC’s Ari Melber. “It was the right decision,” YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, echoed on stage. It’s been almost six months since the company dismissed the engineer, who… Read More

 Things aren’t going well down at the ol’ nano-factory. They’re having trouble getting all those tiny workers to synchronize and move quickly together. But leave it to the Germans to get things running smoothly! All it took was a careful application of that newfangled technology “electricity.” Tiny nano-scale machines formed from DNA could be the future of… Read More