MarketingMuses

 We already knew that Tencent, the owner of China’s messaging behemoth WeChat, was an investor in Snap when the company was still a startup going…

 Ride-sharing companies the world over are branching out to go beyond just handling your car trips. In recent weeks we’ve seen Uber, the pioneer of the…

 Volkswagen Group’s Moia sub-brand launched last year at TechCrunch Disrupt, with a focus on helping connect the dots between VW’s existing automotive business and a…

 Researchers at Dartmouth University have found that a 3D printed shape covered in aluminum foil can improve wireless range and increase Wi-Fi security. The project,…

 BOLDR is a small watch company with a distinct style. Selling primarily on Kickstarter, the company has gone through a number of design iterations to…

 It’s hard to believe that fintech startup Revolut still doesn’t have a proper banking license. Many users will tell you that Revolut’s electronic wallets already…

 Amazon has continued its hardware push into Asia after it launched the Echo, Echo Plus, and Echo Dot in Japan today. Alongside the hardware, it…

Today’s Stories  Apple Pay Cash launches in beta today, letting you send and receive cash in Messages Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public…

 Facebook is testing a new method to combat revenge porn in Australia, the Australia Broadcasting Corporation reports. The strategy entails uploading your nude photos or…

 CargoX announced today that it has raised $20 million in Series C funding led by Goldman Sachs. The startup is currently focused on the Brazilian…

 This is the final installment in the series “A Startup Takes Flight.” We started by creating a company — the Internet of Wings, a provider…

 Snap got destroyed by Wall Street today after a horrible Q3 earnings where revenue and user growth fell well under expectations. So to get things…

 Ho boy — there are bad days and there are bad days in earnings season, and this is definitely the latter for Snap. The company released…

 Snap’s losing streak continued with today’s Q3 2017 earnings report that saw it miss financial expectations and add just 4.5 million users. Snap earned $207.9…

 Twitter’s expansion to 280 characters is rolling out publicly today to all users in supported languages, including English. The company had first announced the controversial plan…

 As video becomes increasingly important to the media business (to the point where it’s become a cliché), a startup called Vidrovr aims to help publishers…

 Legal representatives of the UK government faced a raft of questions today from judges sitting in the European Court of Human Rights hearing a challenge…

 Parrot, the original household drone company, recently released the Bebop 2 Power, an upgraded version of the Bebop 2 with a better camera, better controls,…

 At Uber’s all-hands meeting today, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced the transportation company’s new “cultural norms,” which includes values like “We build globally, we live locally”…

 If you do a search for Amazon S3 breaches due to customer error of leaving the data unencrypted, you’ll see a long list that includes…

 Apple is soft-launching direct, person-to-person payments in an iMessage today with the Apple Pay Cash beta. The feature, which was announced earlier this year, allows…

 Micro-investment service, Acorns, which automatically invests small amounts from its customers’ bank accounts into investment funds, has bought Vault, a Portland-based developer of retirement fund investment…

 Founder turned investor Hayley Barna is now a general partner with the early-stage venture firm First Round Capital. The appointment comes roughly one-and-a-half years after…

 Google is preparing to soon launch a new mobile app called Files Go that will allow Android users to better manage the files on their…

 As it looks to expand the global footprint of its internet-enabled digital advertising and informational kiosks, New York-based Intersection has raised $150 million in a new round…

 MyMusicTaste, a Seoul-headquartered service that lets fans campaign to bring their favorite artists to their city, plans to double the concerts it organizes next year…

 Netflix is launching its first project with Wanted creator Mark Millar, since acquiring Millarworld, the publishing company he owns and operates with Lucy Millar. The plan…

 Instagram is moving forward with the rollout of its branded content tool, which allows celebrities and other popular users to identify posts that are paid…

 Waymo recently hosted a number of journalists at its private Castle testing compound, and treated us to rides with no safety driver behind the wheel…

 Waymo is firming up some of its plans around its initial go-to-market strategy for its autonomous driving technology. The company has talked about a number…

 Today is not a good news day for Ethereum. A  vulnerability found within a popular wallet has frozen potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of…

 Google announced today it will soon roll out a new feature to Google Search, followed by Google Maps, that will show you the estimated wait…

 Adobe likes to talk about its public cloud partnerships with Microsoft and others, but it doesn’t often talk about its private cloud strategy. It’s no…

 Amazon’s expansion into private label fashion continues with the launch of a handful of new sportswear brands, reports Bloomberg, citing data from L2 researchers. The…

 When a company is looking for a candidate for an open role, the hiring manager is probably going to rattle off a bunch of qualifications…

 Airbnb continues to be an ecosystem in its own right, with a number of startups building a business by making the lives of hosts easier…

 Ride-sharing provider Lyft is going bicoastal with its first ever permanent office in New York, which will house not only sales and marketing, but also…

 A quick update on the James Comey Twitter situation: The former FBI Director yesterday switched his Twitter handle over to his name. He now owns…

 Tencent’s China Literature, an Amazon-like e-book business, is continuing the trend of Asian tech IPOs after it announced its public listing in Hong Kong will…

 In his 2015 State of the Union, President Obama announced the Precision Medicine Initiative — a massive research project designed to gain more insight into…

 Any day now, the Department of Justice will announce whether the AT&T-Time Warner mega-merger will be permitted.  And anyone with a cell phone, a cable…

 Tesla is moving to turn around its output challenges with the Model 3, with a new acquisition reported by Bloomberg of a supplier whose focus is…

 Intuit, the company behind products like QuickBooks and TurboTax, is getting into the small business lending space. With QuickBooks Capital, QuickBooks users can now get…

 As malicious groups continue to become more sophisticated in their hacking techniques, cybersecurity efforts are attempting to expand in their reach, and that is leading…

 The billionaire-backed corporation, which has raised over $1.7 billion from Virgin Group, SoftBank, Coca Cola, Bharti Group, Qualcomm and Airbus; just announced an exclusive $190…

 Shape Security is a company you may never heard of, yet it’s been around for five years and its founders include former Googlersand DoD officials.…

 TechCrunch Disrupt is coming to Arena Berlin on 4-5 December, and and we’re looking for rockstar startups to be a part of Startup Alley. If…

 We’re approaching one year since Amazon expanded its Prime video service to over 200 countries internationally, and today the company is doubling down on that…

 Tencent is making progress on its own autonomous driving system, according to Bloomberg. The report says that Tencent, one of China’s largest tech firms and…

French carmaker Renault has developed technology that enables self-driving cars to avoid obstacles in emergency situations at up to the same speeds as professional test…

 One of Southeast Asia’s lesser-known startups has come out from under the radar today after ShopBack, a cash back-focused e-commerce service, announced it has raised…

 Mojiworks, the U.K. startup building games for messaging apps, has raised £2.1 million in Series A funding. The round is led by Balderton Capital, with…

 Lyft’s chief operating officer Rex Tibbens plans to step down by the end of the year. The news was first reported by Axios and confirmed…

Today’s Stories  Broadcom offers to acquire Qualcomm for $70 per share Intel and AMD partner on graphics and CPU combo to challenge Nvidia Comcast’s Xfinity…

 Computer vision and clever imaging technology remain hot areas in consumer and enterprise apps, and today Microsoft is picking up a startup called Swng Technologies…

 As October came to a close, three of the five largest American tech companies beat earnings expectations. The quarterly results of Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet were…

 What do you get if you combine the Internet of Things with the business of home insurance? UK startup Neos is hoping the answer is…

 Monzo, one of a number of “challenger” banks in the U.K. aiming to re-invent the current account, continues to be on a roll, both in…

 Swag, especially good swag, can be important. That’s where Swag.com comes in. The company, which launched 15 months ago, aims to be a way for…

 Snapchat is having some technical difficulties with its service and its 173 million daily users are not happy about it. Some people are having trouble sending and…

 Salesforce and Google inked a deal today that could provide easier integration between Salesforce tools and Google’s G Suite and Google Analytics. It also named…

 Tesla will unveil its electric semi truck on November 16, the company confirmed today via email invites sent to press. The invites feature a full-size…

 Lab tests on the recently released iPhone X put Apple’s new flagship in the highest tiers of quality when it comes to the display and…

 Boxed offers the online equivalent of the bulk shopping offered at stores like Costco. But big discounts aren’t the only thing the company’s focused on.…

 Last year, the European Union ordered Apple to pay up to $14.5 billion for illegal tax benefits in Ireland. The company has learned an important…

 Having issues with Comcast this morning? You’re very much not alone. Right around 10 am Pacific, we started seeing reports from both coasts that the…

 Broadcom confirmed this morning that it would offer to acquire Qualcomm in one of the largest tech deals of all time, and one that would…

 The iPhone X is already showing strong consumer adoption, according to a new report from Localytics out today, despite the fact that long shipping delays for…

 Bootstrapping Barcelona-based visual commerce startup Photoslurp has taken its first external funding: Announcing €750,000 (~$870k) in pre-Series A financing, led by Spanish VC Inveready Technology Investment Group,…

 Bang & Olufsen’s headphones tend to stand out from the crowd, and their new fully wireless mode, the Beoplay E8, is no exception. The E8…

 The used car market seems ripe for disruption, not least in terms of customer service and creating a better experience online. However, if recent events…

 Apple just started selling new bonds in order to finance a share buyback program and dividends for shareholders, as Bloomberg spotted in a filing. This…

 Google has once again been called out for algorithmically encouraging the spread of dubious, politically charged speculation and misinformation around a topical news event. Read…

 Amazon Cash, the service that lets consumers add cash to their Amazon.com balance at brick-and-mortar retailers, is now available at nearly 8,000 7-Eleven convenience stores,…

 As augmented reality slowly proliferates with the promise of bringing computer interaction into three-dimensional space, platform giants like Google are tasked with bringing every sense…

 A new iOS app called Album+ is taking advantage of the increased A.I. capabilities and GPUs in modern iPhones to help people better manage their…

 Music artist Kehlani is getting into the tech business and she’s tapped Arlan Hamilton’s Backstage Capital for funding. Backstage Capital, the venture capital firm focused…

 Though the world could probably use a few more machine learning experts, there are a lot of non-programming specialists whose expertise could directly benefit ML…

 Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica (CA) plans to publish a book on his firm’s approach to online campaigning, and it’s role in the…

 Apple’s return to growth in the saturated China smartphone market was echoed by a report from IDC, out this morning, which attributes the rise in Apple’s…

 Intel is working with AMD to produce a chip for notebook computers that pairs an Intel CPU with an AMD graphics processor, with a small,…

 Ink, a Nebraska-based startup focused on revamping on-campus printing, has raised $7M from VTF Capital, SQN Venture Partners, Invest Nebraska and NE Angeles. This brings total…

 Kobalt, the music tech startup that has built a platform for rights holders to track incremental and full plays of music across a wide sea…

 Following rumors over the weekend, chipmaker Broadcom has today confirmed it has approached wireless chipmaker Qualcomm with an acquisition offer that values the company at…

 When Salesforce bought Quip, a document-based, mobile-first collaboration tool for $750 million last September, it may have seemed like an odd purchase, but Salesforce and…

 What do you do when you want to create a software-as-a-service startup but it feels like everything has been built already? You build a product…

 It’s been just over a year since Salesforce introduced Einstein, a set of artificial intelligence technologies that are designed to underlie and enhance the Salesforce product…

 Two Minute Techcrunch! Since it’s impossible, as a journalist, to crawl around all the stands at Web Summit, I thought it would be easier to…

 Electric bikes range in price but the best ones come in just north of $1,000. Now, however, you can own a foldable electric bike with…

 Just a remind that I’m holding one of our patented MicroMeetups in Muscat, Oman on Thursday November 9th from 3pm to 6:30pm. We will meet…

 It’s been some time since Samsung mocked Apple with videos on the inferiority of the iPhone  — the exploding Note 7 set that argument back…

 TechCrunch Disrupt is returning to Berlin for the first time since the original Disrupt Europe in 2013. Disrupt Berlin 2017 is one of the largest…

 There’s more funding for Southeast Asia’s growing local services space after Kaodim, a Malaysia-based startup that operates in four countries in the region, raised $7…

 Grab, Uber’s fierce rival in Southeast Asia, announced today that its service has crossed one billion completed rides. The firm hit the milestone on October…

 Red Hat is still best known for its Linux distribution, but the company has also long offered its own OpenStack distribution and additional services as well.…

The proposed tie-up between two American telecom giants was formally called off this weekend. Sprint and T-Mobile had been negotiations for months but ultimately decided…

 Catch up while you can — all 12 seasons of the popular FX show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia will no longer be available on…

 As far as gimmicks go, PowerWatch’s is pretty good. After generations of wearables with 24-hour battery lives, the promise of never having to charge your…

 Shenzhen-based Tencent Holdings Limited, the parent company behind extremely popular services like WeChat and QQ, today announced that it is joining the OpenStack Foundation as…

 OpenStack, the massive open source project that provides large businesses with the software tools to run their data center infrastructure, is now almost eight years…

 Here are Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ tips about inspiration, work-life balance, and how to be an inventor. Oh, and how it felt getting doused with…

 Millions of dollars are at stake in a legal battle between Ron Conway and his former SV Angel partner David Lee, according to a suit filed…

 Some people are griping about Face ID, noting that sometimes their siblings can open their iPhone Xs using Face ID. There’s a simple reason for…

 When it comes to virtual reality, we’re in a classic tech-industry moment: lots of chatter but seemingly little movement. We hear future-focused cheerleading from all…

 How’s this for a press release headline? “Saga: the e-reader that changes the game of digital reading.” Compelling, right? within the first two sentences, Bookeen…

How do you know that Hillary Clinton exists? I’m serious; or, at least, I’m making a point. Bear with me. Think about it. You don’t…

 In a move sure to shock the business world, Saudi Arabia last night announced the arrest of at least eleven princes, including renowned billionaire investor…

 For driverless car startups, raising capital seems to happen on autopilot. Investors and acquirers have put billions into the space over the past couple of…

 Face ID has already generated a lot of excitement but the switch to a facial biometric does raise privacy concerns — given that the human face…

 Like many of the most compelling startups, littleBits began life as a side-hustle — no expectations, no early push for venture capital. Just a bit…

 Three prominent tech thinkers recently declared the end of the startup era, questioned the future of tech innovation generally and heralded the rise of the…

 The International Conference on Computer Vision just wrapped up, and at it the finest minds in CV and machine learning compared notes, gave presentations, and…

 While Amazon has yet to reveal where in North America its second headquarters will be, the Seattle headquartered ecommerce behemoth has got Canadians excited by…

 More fallout from allegations surrounding House of Cards actor, Kevin Spacey: Netflix has said it will no longer work with the actor at all. Read More

 Happy iPhone X day! A few of us over here at TechCrunch received our new toys today and wanted to share some initial thoughts with…

 It seems there’s nothing but bad news out there lately, but here’s some good news — the nonprofit Evolve Foundation has raised $100 million for…

 Bradley Tusk, a former political operative who helps companies launch political-style campaigns, runs several businesses. One of them, Tusk Ventures, has been working with startups for…

 “Make No Small Plans” is the Summit Series motto, and it doesn’t. The “Burning Man meets Davos” event company has bought a mountain, rented cruise…

 Tech IPOs have been picking up lately and one lesser-known semiconductor company, Aquantia, made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange today. The company…

 It was only in April that Blizzard made the original StarCraft free to play, and now the company has done the same for its sequel.…

 Meural’s second-generation Canvas digital art display is now available, and I’ve been testing one out for the past couple of weeks to see how it…

 Stranger Things 2 (as Netflix and the Duffer Brothers are calling the second season of their hit show) has been out for a full week,…

 The day we’ve all been waiting for is finally here. Apple’s highly-anticipated iPhone X has made it into the hands of everyday customers. I’m a…

 Netflix definitely has a hit show on its hands with the recent release of Stranger Things 2. According to new data this week from Nielsen,…