After months of talks, SoftBank Group is close to finalizing its investment in Uber. Multiple sources tell TechCrunch that the deal is expected to be…
MarketingMuses
Arab springs and AI winters
Remember the Arab Spring? “Revolution 2.0”? Remember how we imagined, full of triumphal optimism, that social media would become the web that knit the oppressed…
I watched 1,000 hours of YouTube Kids’ content and this is what happened…
What do you get if you endlessly recombine Spiderman and the Joker with Elsa from Frozen and lashings of product placement for junk food brands…
Uber’s new Asia chief wants to work with governments and taxi firms not against them
New CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has been vocal in pledging to reform Uber’s toxic culture to take the business to the next level — and ultimately an IPO…
What it’s like cooking with meal kit startup Chef’d
I’ve tried both Blue Apron and HelloFresh before, but I don’t like being locked into some subscription, so I decided to go with Chef’d this…
Physical storage startup Makespace has a new CEO to represent it
Makespace, one of the many startups that launched to give consumers a new option for storing their stuff, has a new chief executive, TechCrunch has…
Imagining Instagram: Stories-first
Time spent by people watching Instagram Stories — which is temporary sharing with private replies — could someday significantly surpass time spent in the Instagram…
Robin goes all in on robotic lawn care and focuses on franchising
Robin, which pitched a combined “Uber for lawn care” and robotic-lawnmower-as-a-service at Disrupt SF’s Startup Battlefield last year, is making some big changes. It quietly…
China’s second largest e-commerce firm just showed Alibaba has serious competition
Alibaba invented China’s biggest shopping day — 11/11 aka Single’s Day — and it dominates the headlines with record sales year-on-year, but another company just stepped…
Alibaba smashes its Single’s Day record once again as sales cross $25 billion
Alibaba has set another Single’s Day record after the e-commerce giant sold over $25 billion of product on the Chinese biggest online shopping date. The full…
Alibaba hits nearly $18 billion in ‘Singles Day’ orders in 12 hours, already surpassing 2016 sales
Well, it’s 11/11 on the other side of the globe which means Alibaba is already raking in loads of cash from Singles Day, otherwise known…
Crunch Report | Musical.ly to sell for at least $800 million
Today’s Stories China’s Toutiao is buying Musical.ly in a deal worth $800M-$1B Uber loses UK tribunal appeal over driver employment rights Uber ‘Express POOL’ offers…
Nintendo may make as many as 30 million Switches next year
Rumors in early October had Nintendo more than doubling production for the highly successful Switch in order to meet what will almost certainly be crushing…
Twilio competitor Bandwidth up 6% following IPO
Bandwidth, a company that helps businesses with voice and text communication, debuted on the Nasdaq on Friday, going up about 6 percent on its first day…
Amazon’s Echo Spot might not arrive by Christmas
A number of customers who pre-ordered Amazon’s new Echo Spot smart alarm clock are now being told the product’s ship date has been pushed back.…
Bike-share platform Spin poaches Seattle transit regulator and launches in a dozen new cities
Spin, one of several bike-sharing companies now vying for dominance in a number of U.S. cities, has a new weapon to wield against its competitors:…
New startups like Mytime want to pay for your attention and time in cryptocurrency
The debate about the effects social networks like Facebook and Twitter have on us as human beings goes one. Indeed, just this week Facebook co-founder…
Uber “Express Pool” offers the cheapest fare if you’ll walk a little
Uber’s found a way to shave another 25% or so off the price of a ride. Uber Express Pool asks you to walk up to a few…
Instagram could let you follow hashtags soon
Instagram is testing a new feature with a small fraction of its user base. As spotted by Pippa Akram and The Next Web, some users…
Mysterious ‘green line of death’ appears on some iPhone X displays
It wouldn’t be the launch of a first-generation Apple product without a few hiccups — who can forget Antennagate and Bendgate? — and the iPhone…
Online real estate startup ToLet acquires Jumia House Nigeria to create PropertyPro.Ng
African tech can produce surprises. One this week is a $1.2 million Series A startup buying part of a $1 billion company. That’s what Lagos…
Apple’s iOS App Store adds weekend deals to boost app downloads
With the introduction of iOS 11, Apple redesigned the App Store with a heavier focus on editorial content, including articles, interviews, how-to’s, lists and other…
Amazon expands its Influencer Program to include Twitter and Instagram, in addition to YouTube
Amazon is expanding its Influencer Program beyond YouTube to also include Twitter and Instagram, the company announced on Thursday. First launched into beta earlier this…
Original Content podcast: Marvel’s ‘Runaways’ looks like an all-around good time
Lord of the Rings as a streaming TV series? It might happen. Also, Netflix is releasing a comic book with Mark Millar, and Harry Potter…
PayPal takes on crowdfunding with Money Pools, where groups chip in to raise money and buy things
When Airbnb acquired and subsequently shut down Tilt — a platform that let people pool together to pay for items or events — many (including former…
The OpenStack Foundation starts to look at projects beyond OpenStack
Over the last few years, we’ve seen the launch of a number of open source foundations like the Cloud Native Compute Foundation, the Cloud Foundry…
Equity podcast: Roku’s on a tear, and Snap had an awful week
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Katie Roof, Matthew Lynley and Alex Wilhelm dug into the recent…
IBM makes 20 qubit quantum computing machine available as a cloud service
IBM has been offering quantum computing as a cloud service since last year when it came out with a 5 qubit version of the advanced…
Facebook relaunches Events app as Facebook Local, adds bars and food
Bad news for Yelp and good news for nightlife lovers. When you want to go out, it doesn’t necessarily have to be to an event.…
Facebook makes it easier to donate in times of crisis
Facebook’s social good team has launched a donate button specific to crises. The goal is that people will be able to more easily and securely…
Ambitious new media firm ByteDance is no longer a secret outside of China
ByteDance is a name that is about to become very familiar to everyone in international tech circles. Really it should already be. It is valued…
Uber loses UK tribunal appeal over driver employment rights
Another blow for Uber’s UK business: The company has lost its appeal against an employment tribunal ruling which last year judged that the Uber drivers…
Parrot’s Henri Seydoux comes to Disrupt to talk about commercial drones
Henri Seydoux first founded Parrot in 1994. But the company has drastically evolved over time and managed to remain relevant more than 20 years later.…
Razer to raise upwards of $504 million in Hong Kong IPO
PC gaming company Razer is set to raise upwards of US$504 million (HK$3.9 billion) when it lists on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Monday. The…
ESPN’s new streaming service will launch in the spring and be called “ESPN Plus”
Today on Disney’s Q3 earnings call CEO Bob Iger gave a preview of ESPN’s upcoming direct to consumer streaming service. The announcement comes after another disappointing…
Twitter fixes another important problem with support for 50-character usernames
Twitter has followed up its move to double the character limit of tweets to 280 by increasing the length of a username to 50 characters.…
Crunch Report | Uber eyes 2019 IPO
Today’s Stories Uber CEO says 2019 is the target for IPO Apple has acquired imaging sensor startup InVisage Technologies Twitter pauses account verifications after critics…
Gillmor Gang: Blocktrain
The Gillmor Gang — Doc Searls, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, Denis Pombriant, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, November 3, 2017. G3: Social Security —…
Announcing the TechCrunch Meetup in Singapore on November 23
Here at TechCrunch we serve a global audience which is why we’ve held casual meetup events across many different parts of the world. Now we’re…
China’s Toutiao is buying Musical.ly in a deal worth $800M-$1B
Musical.ly, the lip-syncing app popular with teens and young people, has been sold to Chinese social media giant Toutiao, according to an announcement made today.…
Youtube Kids implements new policy to flag inappropriate videos targeted at children
A New York Times piece and a subsequent Medium post this week highlighted an ongoing problem with Youtube Kids — bizarre and disturbing videos aimed…
New Stars Wars and Marvel TV shows planned for Disney’s streaming service
Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed some amazing news on his company’s earnings call for this quarter, including that there will be a brand new trilogy…
Twitch is finally releasing the nearly 30 million usernames associated with Justin.tv
Justin.tv, the life-streaming service that eventually grew into Twitch, was shut down back in 2014. Since then, many Twitch users have asked when the company…
Facebook defends revenge porn pilot that has people upload nude images of themselves
Facebook Global Head of Safety Antigone Davis has clarified some things about how Facebook’s test pilot to combat revenge porn in Australia works. The strategy entails…
Brand new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy coming from ‘The Last Jedi’ director Rian Johnson
Star Wars will get another film trilogy, which will be entirely new and will be separate from the current saga focusing on the Skywalker family…
70 years of VC innovation
How old is venture capital? Probably as old as the first hunter/gatherer. Yet, until the mid-20th century, it was mostly practiced by wealthy individuals and…
Redfin shares fall 7% after real estate earnings disappoint
Redfin, the real estate brokerage site, saw its shares tumble about 7% in after-hours trading, shortly after sharing its earnings. The company posted about $109.5…
Nvidia’s huge run continues as its data center business ramps up
Nvidia continues to ride the wave of a myriad of huge success stories for the company, like the rapid adoption of the Nintendo Switch and…
Chinese search engine Sogou up 4% following IPO
Sogou, the Chinese search engine, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, under the ticker “SOGO.” After pricing at the top of the…
Do cities still want a sharing economy?
Cities make the sharing economy work, and the urban environment is the critical differentiator for experimentation, change, and scale. In just a few years, the…
Bolt Threads is raising $106 million from Foundation Capital and Formation 8
Our spidey senses are tingling over here. According to an SEC filing, TechCrunch has learned Bolt Threads, the biotech company spinning microbes into spider silk,…
Google’s improved image blending means a more seamless Street View
Google is hard at work behind the scenes improving one of its ambitious technical projects ever – Street View. The company previously revealed that its…
Essential Phone can now stream live to Facebook from the 360 camera add-on
The Essential Phone just got a camera software update that will allow owners of the device to broadcast live, 360-degree video right from the native…
Apple just pushed an iOS update to fix that “I” autocorrect bug
Over the last few days, most iOS users have experienced the same peculiar bug: the letter “I” was autocorrecting to… something else. Sometimes it was…
Alphabet and Goldman Sachs are suing ad tech startup Outcome Health for alleged fraud
Investors are suing Outcome Health, a startup selling ad space on screens in doctor’s offices, for alleged fraud and breach of contract eight months after…
Apple updates its Clips video app with fancy selfie backgrounds and iCloud support
Apple is releasing version 2.0 of Clips, its free application for easily editing mobile videos. When the app first launched earlier this year, it was…
EV startup Nio reportedly raises $1B from Tencent and others
Electric cars are set to become an increasingly lucrative investment target, if they continuing enjoying the strong support of global initiatives to lower emissions and…
Facebook will teach the unemployed digital/social media skills in 30 cities
Whether it’s to “bring the world closer together” or improve its public image, Facebook today announced Community Boost. It’s a program travelling to 30 cities…
Thrive Capital leads health tech startup Welkin Health’s $8 million Series A
Digital patient relationship platform Welkin Health has landed $8 million in Series A financing, led by Jared Kushner’s Thrive Capital. This now brings the total…
Pinterest now lets you create sections within your boards to further tidy up ideas
Pinterest serves as a pretty good place for users that are looking to plan large-scale projects, like outfits for big events, home design, or even…
Where venture capitalists invest and why
Entrepreneurs looking to raise capital are often told that investors like to keep things close to home. Is that true? The question influences where people…
Twitter pauses account verifications after critics slam it for verifying Charlottesville rally organizer
Twitter today announced it’s pausing all account verifications – the process that gives public figures on Twitter a blue checkmark next to their names –…
Rep the Squad is a subscription service to borrow authentic sports jerseys
Authentic sports jerseys are expensive and infrequently worn, but that doesn’t stop fans from wanting to own as many as possible from all their favorite…
Conversive helps businesses build the virtual equivalent of face-to-face conversations
If you’ve ever interacted with a chatbot and felt like there was just something missing, the founders of a new startup called Conversive think they…
Apple has acquired imaging sensor startup InVisage Technologies
As Apple continues to work on ever-smaller but more powerful computing devices, it has acquired a startup focusing on nanotechnology, and specifically as it relates…
Uber CEO says 2019 is the target for IPO
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi was on stage at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference today, and the ride hailing company’s top executive put a timeline…
After leak, Google’s new file manager for Android, Files Go, launches into public beta
Google today decided to launch its new Files Go Android app into public beta to reach a wider group of testers. The company had been…
Facebook expands its Marketplace section with housing rentals
Facebook today announced its expanding its Marketplace listings section to include “hundreds of thousands” of housing rentals in a move that seems clearly designed to…
Elastic acquires search startup Swiftype
Swiftype isn’t just a startup that we write about — we also use the technology to provide site search on TechCrunch itself. Now it’s being…
Hulu is Nintendo’s first video streaming app for the Switch
Nintendo has released a list of the new releases for its Switch console eShop available today, and North Americans will be able to download Hulu,…
Dreamforce lacks the drama this year
Dreamforce took place this week in San Francisco, that magical gathering of over more than 150,000 Salesforce faithful that happens every fall. While I didn’t…
Amazon devices now sold at over 100 Whole Foods; holiday Pop-Up shops open next week
Amazon is putting its $13.7 billion Whole Foods acquisition to work in time for holiday shopping. The companies announced today that over 100 Whole Foods…
Uber brings five-star rating system to UberEATS app
UberEATS, Uber’s standalone app for on-demand food delivery, has added in-app restaurant reviews in order to help people make more informed decisions about what to…
Financial tech startup WeLab raises $220M from investors including Alibaba, the IFC and Credit Suisse
WeLab, an financial tech startup that operates online lending platforms in Hong Kong and China, has raised $220 million in combined equity and debt financing.…
Skyscanner buys Twizoo to add social content shout-outs to travel reviews
Travel metasearch giant Skyscanner has acquired Twizoo, a small London-based startup which makes a platform for brands to automate injecting relevant social content across their…
Apple’s ‘Everyone Can Code’ initiative expands to colleges and universities outside of the US
Apple is taking its coding course international after it announced that 20 college and university partners worldwide will begin offering the Everyone Can Code initiative to…
The Muscat micromeetup has been modified
I had originally planned to run a pitch-off in Muscat today from 3pm to 6pm but it looks like that is cancelled. I only received…
Pronoun, an ebook service for writers, shuts down
Pronoun, a self-publishing service for authors, is shutting down after promising free ebook distribution for authors. The company, which raised millions in funding and ended…
More free Hackathon tickets for Disrupt Berlin available now
Wow, that was quick. Six days ago, we released a batch of free tickets to the Disrupt Berlin Hackathon and — faster than you can…
Natural Cycles gets $30M for its EU-certified “digital contraception”
European startup Natural Cycles is pushing to establish its EU-certified “digital contraceptive app” as a globally accepted contraception option — and compete with tried and tested…
AI pioneer Chris Boos talks about the future of machine learning
This week on Technotopia I talk to Chris Boos, the creator of a bot that can play FreeCiv, a Civilization clone. His solution demonstrates the…
Tencent could play a role redesigning Snapchat following $2B investment
Tencent, the Chinese internet giant valued at $470 billion, may have a hand in rebooting the Snapchat app to make it more competitive with Instagram…
TripAdvisor will mark pages for businesses where violent incidents, including rape, have been reported
TripAdvisor will place warning badges on the pages of businesses where safety issues, including violent incidents like assault and rape, have been reported. The travel…
Crunch Report | Yahoo hack is still a mystery
Today’s Stories Four years later, Yahoo still doesn’t know how 3 billion accounts were hacked Apple’s iPad could drop the home button and add Face…
Driverless shuttle in Las Vegas gets in fender bender within an hour
A driverless shuttle set free in downtown Las Vegas was involved in a minor accident less than an hour after it hit the streets, reported…
Reflex aims to Kickstart film photography with a new old SLR
Mating digital photography with film seems to me an alluring yet ultimately quixotic endeavor; who doesn’t love the idea of a camera that combines the…
Are flying cars the future of transportation or an inflated expectation?
It’s clear that flying cars are transitioning from a fascinating concept to a quite-mature technology and promising investment thesis. But will we see flying cars…
Senators push to ditch social security numbers in light of Equifax hack
Eyeing more secure alternatives to social security numbers, lawmakers in the U.S. are looking abroad. Today, the Senate Commerce Committee questioned former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer,…
Shernaz Daver, the CMO who helped to turn around Udacity, is leaving the company
Shernaz Daver, the chief marketing officer for Udacity, who company founder Sebastian Thrun credits with architecting the company’s dramatic revitalization four years ago, is stepping…
Square’s dominant year hits a snag
Square is continuing to make its bid to capture the payments of small businesses around the world, as well as tap into the momentum of…
Roku soars 26% after smashing first earnings report
Roku, the digital streaming business, had a huge first earnings report, greatly surpassing analyst expectations. The company quickly surged over 26% in initial after-hours trading.…
AARP Survey Finds Veterans Are Frequent Scam Victims via AARP Money
Nov 8, 2017 … Operation Protect Veterans, a joint effort by AARP Fraud Watch Network and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, warns former military members of scams.
Uber gives top riders a 24/7 “Premium Support” hotline
If something scary or infuriating happens with your Uber, sending an email to support doesn’t always cut it. And if you’ve ridden thousands of miles…
Skype launches Photo Effects – sticker suggestions powered by machine learning
Not content with merely launching its own take on Instagram and Snapchat’s Stories, Skype today is adding another copycat-like feature to its app: photo stickers.…
Geospatial imaging service Enview raises $6 million to manage energy and utility infrastructure
Over the past 20 years there have been 11,459 accidents across the network of oil and gas pipelines that crisscross the U.S. The toll in…
Apple orders two seasons of Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon TV drama
Apple’s original content ambitions just landed some premiere talent, per The Hollywood Reporter: A drama series focused on a fictional version of the morning TV…
Greta Van Susteren is releasing an apology app called Sorry
Former cable news anchor Greta Van Susteren is ready to jump into the app market with an apology app, according to a Facebook post she…
Apple’s iPad could drop the home button and add Face ID in 2018
Apple is reportedly working on a redesign of the iPad that includes dropping the Home button and slimming down the bezels on the top-end model,…
Goldman Sachs leads $10 million round for data structuring startup Crux Informatics
Every financial services firm has a team of data scientists that take all the information that comes in and structure it in a way that…
Amazon is selling its own private label diapers again, now under the Mama Bear brand
Amazon quietly launched its own private label diapers on its site last week, this time under the Mama Bear brand. The brand, which already sells…
SpaceX Merlin rocket engine explodes during testing at Texas facility
SpaceX suffered an explosion of one of its Falcon 9 rocket engines during qualification testing at its facility in McGregor, Texas, per The Verge. The…
SegWit2x backers cancel plans for bitcoin hard fork
Advocates for a bitcoin hard fork have now decided to cancel plans for the so-called SegWit2x fork. The bitcoin blockchain was supposed to split into…
Founder Gym aims to help underrepresented startup founders build tech startups
Founder Gym, co-founded by Mandela Schumacher-Hodge and Gabriela Zamudio (pictured above), is unveiling its online platform to support and train underrepresented founders building tech startups.…
BitTorrent inventor announces eco-friendly Bitcoin competitor Chia
A Bitcoin transaction wastes as much electricity as it takes to power an American home for a week, and legendary coder Bram Cohen wants to…
TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 will be held at the Moscone Center West, Sept. 5-7
TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF is the pride of TechCrunch’s event line-up, and last September the event reached new heights, including 5,000 attendees, 1,220 investor-founder meetings, 500…
LinkedIn and Microsoft team up for a resume building assistant in Word
LinkedIn, the social network for professionals that was acquired by Microsoft for $26.2 billion, is today rolling out the latest product in its deepening relationship…
Chrome will soon make browsing sketchy sites less frustrating
When you’re browsing the web, there’s little that’s more annoying than clicking on what you think is a video and finding out that it was…
Twitter’s $99 monthly subscription ad program launches into public beta
Twitter unveiled in its Q3 earnings report that it had been testing a new, self-serve advertising subscription aimed at small businesses. That service, known as…
Most iOS devices now run iOS 11
Apple has updated its App Store support page with new metrics. As of November 6, 2017, iOS 11 is now installed on 52 percent of…
Lyft is testing a new rider experience with a small percentage of users
Lyft is giving around 1 percent of its riders access to a different, beta user experience in its mobile app, starting today. The new look…
Discounted student tickets available for Disrupt Berlin
Are you a student on a limited budget but still want to check out the best startup show in Berlin? We’ve got you covered. For a…
Volkswagen and Google to bring quantum computing benefits to cars
Computers have changed cars at least as much as they’ve changed our daily lives, but a new partnership between Google and Volkswagen could transform transportation…
Meet European bootcamp Rockstart’s first AI cohort
Back in April the Netherlands-based Rockstart bootcamp announced it was adding an AI track. It’s now named the first batch of startups in the inaugural…
Niantic’s follow-up to Pokémon Go will be a Harry Potter AR game launching in 2018
Niantic Labs had tremendous success with Pokémon Go, which paired their expertise in building location-based augmented reality mobile experiences with a top-flight IP with a…
Promote helps any online marketplace get into the ad business
The latest company to emerge from startup accelerator Expa Labs is focused on helping online marketplaces make money from advertising. Promote founder and CEO Siddharth…
Voice-enabled smart speakers to reach 55% of U.S. households by 2022, says report
Adoption of voice-powered smart speakers is taking off. According to a new report from Juniper Research out this morning, smart devices like the Amazon Echo,…
HBO launches Soderbergh’s choose-the-order storytelling app and show Mosaic
What if a mystery TV series let you decide to follow one character’s story to the end, or jump between characters as the action unfolds?…
Call of Duty WWII Review: A stunning return to the beaches of Normandy
For folks who have played Call of Duty since the beginning, this is a welcome return to the game they fell in love with. Soldiers…
Instagram now lets you add any photos or videos to your Stories
Instagram is turning on a feature that many users have asked for, letting users add photos and videos from their camera roll – even if…
Coffee Meets Bagel dating app introduces ephemeral video to foster authenticity
Coffee Meets Bagel, the dating app that serves up a small number of targeted matches each day, has today introduced a new video feature to…
User-generated content marketing platform Yotpo closes $51M Series D round
Yotpo, a platform that lets companies gather content from their customers in the form of reviews, Q&As, photos and videos, mainly for use in marketing,…
Famed VC Jim Breyer on finding the next Mark Zuckerberg (and much more)
Yesterday, at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, we caught up with Jim Breyer, among the most famous venture capitalists in Silicon Valley thanks to…
China Literature makes stellar public debut following $1B Hong Kong IPO
China Literature, the e-publishing business backed by Tencent, enjoyed an impressive debut as public company with its share price rising as high double during its first…
Apple said to be working on AR headset aimed for potential 2020 ship date
Apple is working on technology that would enable it to build an augmented reality headset by 2019, with shipping targeted for as soon as 2020,…
Real estate startup Compass nabs $100M at a $1.8B valuation
Today, the real-estate startup Compass is announcing that it has raised another $100 million — money that it plans to use to expand its sales…
Postmates launches grocery service, scheduled deliveries and revamped app
Postmates has always offered grocery delivery as part of its ethos of delivering anything to you within your city on-demand. Now, Postmates is taking a…
Uber adds LA to flying taxi test cities, demo flights slated for 2020
Uber has inked a partnership with Nasa over its flying taxi plans and says now it’s aiming to get demo flights up and running in…