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Samsung CES 2018 Liveblog
Samsung is one of the tentpoles that holds up CES. Every year the company has one of the largest offerings at the show and 2018…
LG has come up with a surprisingly interesting way to apply AI to TV
Generally speaking, at CES and elsewhere, when a company says something is powered by AI, they’re blowing smoke. And while smoke was definitely blown at…
It’s a walrus! No, it’s a giraffe! No, it’s MicGoat, a new app to debate controversial issues
Debating is at the core of a robust society — as are online social networks. When combined, they transmute each other into a minefield of…
NextVR is adding 6DoF tracking to its live-streaming VR service
VR’s most popular live-streaming events service is giving you a little wiggle room. NextVR is bringing six-degree-of-freedom (6DoF) movement to its popular virtual reality app for live-streaming…
Spin unveils its stationless electric bike
Spin is adding an electric bike to its fleet of station-less bicycles for bike sharing. The Spin bike can travel up to 50 miles with a…
Germany’s Smava raises $65M to expand its consumer loan portal
While Google dominates the world when it comes to search, portals for those looking for products and services in specific niches continue to have a…
Aptiv and Lyft’s self-driving BMWs are picking up CES passengers
Self-driving and connected car tech company Aptiv (formerly Delphi) is back at CES again in 2018, and this time it’s partnering with Lyft to demonstrate…
Facebook is shutting down its standalone personal assistant “M”
It was a fun experiment, but it’s time to shut it down. M users received messages today that Facebook is sunsetting the service on January…
After breach exposing millions of parents and kids, toymaker VTech handed a $650K fine by FTC
VTech, the maker of smart toys whose poor security practices exposed data from millions of parents and children, has been slapped on the wrist by…
Ford GoBikes are going electric in San Francisco
Motivate, the company behind the San Francisco area’s bike-share system, is adding pedal-assist e-bikes to its fleets this April. The one-year pilot will launch with…
Toyota’s mobility business shifts into high gear at CES
Toyota took advantage of CES 2018 to signal a major shift in its business, becoming what company president Akio Toyoda termed a “mobility service company”…
Apple releases iOS and macOS updates with a mitigation for Spectre
Apple just released iOS 11.2.2 with some Safari and WebKit improvements to mitigate the Spectre vulnerability. macOS is also receiving an update. It’s a supplemental…
James Damore just filed a class action lawsuit against Google, saying it discriminates against white male conservatives
James Damore, a former Google engineer who was fired in August after posting a memo to an internal Google message board, arguing that women may not…
Facebook and Sony/ATV reach a licensing deal to let people post music videos
Facebook and Sony/ATV Music Publishing announced a multi-year licensing deal today that lets people upload and share video from Sony/ATV artists on Facebook, Instagram and…
Smart home robot gives LG exec the silent treatment during CES keynote
Keynote demo mishaps with voice recognition products are par for the course, but LG’s Hub Robot, which debuted at CES last year, didn’t work onstage…
Toyota launches dedicated mobility services concept vehicle
Toyota has launched a new concept car that incorporates fully autonomous technology in a platform designed specifically for ride sharing and ride-hailing. The new ‘e-Palette’…
Toyota teams with Uber, Amazon, Pizza Hut, more on mobility services
Toyota has partnered with a number of companies to form the “e-Palette Alliance,” which is a group intended to help guide its transformation as a…
Study: Seasons have little effect on dieting app reporting but the day of week does
If you’ve gotten three apps and a Fitbit so you can get skinnier this year, don’t worry so much about summer beach season or holiday…
Garmin’s Speak Plus brings Alexa to your car and doubles as a dash cam
It’s more or less inevitable that Amazon Alexa will find its way into cars. Once you get used to sitting in your house and shouting…
Ring debuts new indoor/outdoor security cameras and LED lighting
Ring has a few new products on display at CES 2018, including a new version of its Stick Up Cam security camera, and a Stick…
Ring acquires smart LED light company Mr. Beams
Ring, the connected home security gadget startup, has acquired Mr. Beams, a maker of LED lighting with wireless connectivity and motion-sensing capabilities. The Mr. Beams…
Google’s updated Search Console gives you more detailed search performance and indexing data
Google is launching an update to its search console for webmasters today that, among other things, brings redesigned search performance and index coverage data to…
Google brings its different payment platforms together under the Google Pay brand
Google is simplifying the way it presents its different payments tools to consumers, uniting them under a new brand called Google Pay. In a Google…
Kohler wants to make your bathroom smarter with Konnect
Kohler, a name you may recognize from the faucet, or commercials about a faucet, is delivering a new line of smart bathroom and kitchen appliances…
New Sequoia China investment values Australian design company Canva at $1 billion
Canva, the Australian provider of graphic design software as a service, has become the world’s latest unicorn with a new investment led by Sequoia China.…
Collibra snags $58 M Series D led by Iconiq and Battery Ventures to simplify data governance
Collibra, a company that wants to help firms understand data governance, announced a $58 million Series D funding round today led by Iconiq Capital and…
mRelief launches end-to-end food stamp enrollment service
Signing up for food stamps can be cumbersome, especially for those with limited access to transportation and internet. In San Francisco, about one in four…
Concerns raised over new ethics regime for UK public sector data processing
Health data privacy advocacy group MedConfidential believes ministers are trying to sneak in a data protection law carveout, in order to hand politicians the power…
Kittyhawk adds automated multi-waypoint flights to its drone-control software
All-in-one drone management app Kittyhawk has added yet another feature: multi-waypoint automated flights. This is an essential feature for lots of commercial drone applications, and…
Kano’s latest gadget: a build-it-yourself camera for custom photo filters and GIFs
After raising $28 million last November to add more firepower to its growth, Kano is unveiling the newest addition to its range of build-it-yourself gadgets…
XYZprinting adds voice control to its color 3D printers
XYZprinting wants users to talk to its 3D printers. Say, print an apple and it will print an apple. Say, calibrate the printer and the…
Ripple, a Tinder spinoff backed by Match, launches app for professional networking
A team of former Tinder employees, led by Tinder’s original CTO Ryan Ogle, are today launching a new app aimed at professional networking. The app,…
Security camera Canary adds package detection and a new skill for Amazon Alexa
Canary has been steadily upgrading its line of security cameras with new features like two-way talk and person detection, among other things by way of…
Canary’s $99 View camera cuts out the extra features
The connected security camera space has changed a lot since Canary launched its first camera back in 2013. In the meantime, the company’s come out…
Starry Internet and Marvell want to bust open the ISP industry
Expanding and upgrading wireless networks requires an astounding amount of investment, both in terms of time and resources. As we head into the era of…
The Garmin Vivofit 4 is an $80 Fitbit killer
Garmin and Fitbit have been going at it for years. Both companies offer a compelling array of products complete with high-end smartwatches. But it’s the…
Nima announces a $289 portable peanut allergy tester
Peanut allergy is common and now there’s a new way to detect if a food substance contains the ingredient. Nima’s Peanut is a small, self-contained unit…
iHome debuts a Google Assistant-powered clock radio, the iGV1
Amazon’s Echo Spot, introduced late last year, smartly combined the power of Alexa with a more traditional clock radio type form factor and interface, complete…
Lost-item finder Tile will work with Bose headphones and other new partners
Lost-item finder Tile announced today that it will soon be able to locate your Bose headphones. Starting in late spring 2018, Bose will become one…
Pet cameras from Petcube can take pet selfies, let Fido ‘call’ home
At CES, Petcube is showing off some of its news software technologies for its pet camera system that lets people connect with their pets while…
China is reportedly moving to clamp down on bitcoin miners
China banned bitcoin, ICOs and now it appears to be clamping down on Chinese miners, an important group estimated to produce some three-quarters of the…
E-commerce startup citiesocial raises $2.75M led by Alibaba’s fund for Taiwanese entrepreneurs
Citiesocial, a Taipei-based startup that helps emerging brands break into Asia’s e-commerce market, has raised $2.75 million led by Alibaba Taiwan Entrepreneurs Fund, a non-profit…
Telegram plans multi-billion dollar ICO for chat cryptocurrency
Encrypted messaging startup Telegram plans to launch its own blockchain platform and native cryptocurrency, powering payments on its chat app and beyond. According to multiple…
HP’s new Sprout hardware is a clip-on 3D webcam
The Sprout was one of the stranger products in HP’s long history of releases. We called the all-in-one a “bold but goofy experiment” when it…
Anker puts Alexa in the car with the Roav Viva, but it’s not worth your time
Anker’s mobile division Roav is today announcing an in-vehicle Alexa device. Called Viva, the device plugs into a 12-volt cigarette lighter outlet and turns Alexa…
VW taps Nvidia to build AI into its new electric microbus and beyond
Nvidia will power artificial intelligence technology built into its future vehicles, including the new I.D. Buzz, its all-electric retro-inspired camper van concept. The partnership between…
Nvidia reveals new AI platforms for smart assistants and AR in the car
Nvidia revealed a lot of news about its Xavier autonomous machine intelligence processors at this year’s CES show in Las Vegas. The first production samples…
Self-driving startup Aurora will work with Nvidia on autonomous driving
Relative autonomous driving industry newcomer Aurora has been revealing a lot of early traction lately, and now we know that it’s also working with GPU-maker…
Baidu and ZF tap Nvidia Drive for self-driving compute tech
Nvidia announced at its CES 2018 keynote that it’s now partnering with two Chinese companies on bringing autonomous driving to roads, including Baidu and automaker…
Uber taps Nvidia for its self-driving vehicle fleet
Uber has picked Nvidia as one of its key technology partners in its fleet of self-driving, specifically to provide the AI computing aspects of its…
Two large Apple shareholders say it needs to research the impact of smartphones on kids
Two of Apple’s institutional shareholders, hedge fund Jana Partners and California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), are calling on the company to study the impact…
Nvidia teams up with Acer, Asus and HP to launch 65-inch gaming displays
If you are tired of that puny 27-inch gaming screen on your desk and you want a more immersive gaming experience on a really big…
Hands on with Samsung’s refreshed Notebook 9 and Notebook 7 Spin
Samsung’s big press conference is still a day away, but the company’s already pulled the curtain back on what looks to be two of its…
Netatmo launches a chatbot to manage all your connected devices
French company Netatmo is adding one more way to control your smart objects around your house. You can now talk and control with all your…
The PDA returns to CES, because everything old is new again
Gather round children, and let me tell you a story. It’s a tale from a bygone area called the “nineteen nineties,” when flannel ruled the…
Watch Nvidia’s CES press conference right here
CES is here — and while most of the official press conferences and keynotes don’t start until tomorrow, Nvidia has scheduled its press event for…
The NeoMano robotic glove brings control back to paralyzed hands
This time last year, we took at a look at Neofect’s Raphael, a “smart glove” designed to help patients rehabilitate a hand after a stroke.…
Liveblog: Nvidia is at CES 2018 with autonomous cars and gaming
Nvidia is quickly becoming a giant in the world of consumer electronics so it’s only fitting that the company holds one of the first press…
SpaceX successfully launches top-secret Zuma spacecraft
SpaceX has successfully launched its first mission of 2018, after capping a record year last year in 2017 with 18 total launches. The first launch…
Nuheara announces $200 wireless earbuds with active noise-canceling
Nuheara is at CES showing off the smart earbud company’s newest hearables. The battle to take-on Apple’s wildly-popular wireless earbuds is a tough one for emerging…
Hey Glooglel
CES 2018 is here and it feels different to the TechCrunch team. Maybe we’re jaded. We’ve been doing this for years, fighting the scrum and…
Google cancels UK ads from shady rehab clinic referrers already banned in US
Another day, another way tech giants are found to be profiting handsomely from unsavory ad practices. Today brings the news, as reported by the Sunday…
KweliTV is Netflix for black people, by black people, starring black people
Kweli.tv aims to be the go-to streaming media platform for black filmmakers all over the world to share their content and make money from its…
Here’s how to stream the Golden Globes tonight
Tonight for the first time the Golden Globes are being live-streamed, meaning you can watch it even if you aren’t in front of a TV.…
Watch SpaceX launch the mysterious Zuma spacecraft live here
SpaceX will attempt its first launch of 2018 later today, with a two-hour launch window opening at 8 PM EST (5 PM PST), with a…
DraftKings is testing a fantasy contest focused on a single NFL game
A few days ago DraftKings announced an NFL product called Showdown, which lets you play in a fantasy football contest centered around just a single…
More long term greed… Tim O’Reilly’s recipe for a successful 2018
Silicon Valley’s problem, says Tim O’Reilly, is actually a structural problem with our entire economy. What’s gone wrong, O’Reilly argues, is that what he calls “short-term greed” has…
The cryptocurrency bubble is strangling innovation
Sure, fine, maybe it’s a bubble. OK it’s definitely a bubble, but that’s a good thing, a bubble brings attention and investment in infrastructure, which…
Google has planted its flag at CES
Google’s here, and it’s planning something big. The company’s presence is impossible to miss as you drive down Paradise Road toward the Las Vegas Convention…
RIP IPO (1602-2018)
In comparison to an anemic 2016 for venture-backed technology IPOs, 2017 was a much better year. Companies as diverse as Yext, Cloudera, Blue Apron, StitchFix,…
Cassette tapes are back, kind of
Add the surprise return of the cassette tape to the long list of why the last couple of years have been some of the strangest…
How Tier 2 cloud vendors banded together to cope with Spectre and Meltdown
Earlier this week news broke of a pair of massive chip vulnerabilities dubbed Spectre and Meltdown (for an explainer see this post). We learned that the…
CTRL+T podcast: As long as it tastes like chicken, folds my clothes for cheap and doesn’t run me over
Wait, what? Yeah, this week a company called SuperMeat announced that it raised $3 million to create chicken in a lab. It requires real chicken…
The light and dark of AI-powered smartphones
As more smartphones get on device AI processing powers it could support a new range of advanced consumer features. But what kind of value exchange…
Robomart is the latest startup to try and unseat the local convenience store
The startup assault on the humble neighborhood store continues to intensify. First came Bodega, the terribly named, and mostly misguided startup with its mission to…
Panic will soon no longer sell Transmit for iOS
Panic Inc., the team behind a bunch of excellent iOS/Mac apps (like Coda, Transmit, and Prompt), are about to retire one of their products. Sometime…
Someone stole a piece of China’s new solar panel-paved road less than a week after it opened
Putting solar panels into our roads isn’t the craziest idea, but we may as well admit that it poses some unique challenges. For instance, people…
Apple adds a documentary series about extraordinary homes to its streaming lineup
Apple has greenlit a new documentary series called “Home,” according to a new report from Variety out today. The series will give viewers an “inside…
The quantum computing apocalypse is imminent
According to experts, quantum computers will be able to create breakthroughs in many of the most complicated data processing problems, leading to the development of…
AR/VR startups raised $3 billion last year led by a few industry juggernauts
Tech companies working with augmented reality and virtual reality technologies raised more than $3 billion in venture funding in 2017. This data comes from analytics firm Digi-Capital…
FCC Commissioner Clyburn’s extended dissent guts anti-net neutrality order
FCC Commissioner Clyburn’s passionate dissent at last month’s meeting left no room for guesswork on her position on the Commission’s plan to eliminate net neutrality.…
Menlo, Benchmark, First Round sold Uber stakes worth hundreds of millions
Uber finally got its secondary transaction done with SoftBank buying billions of dollars worth of shares last month. Now we’re learning more about who sold…
A look back at the year that the Sub-Saharan African startup scene found its stride
African tech in 2017 was about the normalization of market events mostly absent even a decade ago. There were acquisitions, multiple investment rounds, lots of…
Verizon acquires autonomous threat detection startup Niddel
Verizon (which owns this publication) announced today that it has acquired Niddel, a startup that bills itself as an autonomous threat detection service. The acquisition…
Distributed applications, teams, genes and geographies will shape the future of VC in 2018
As the New Year dawns, new opportunities are emerging for savvy venture capitalists in a number of different fields. From new companies building businesses based…
Google says it sold a Google Home device every second since October 19
Google today announced that it sold “tens of millions of Google devices for the home” over the course of the last year and that it…
App revenue climbed 35 percent to $60 billion in 2017
Global app revenue climbed 35 percent in 2017 to reach nearly $60 billion, according to a new report today from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower,…
Spotify’s chief content officer is out
Ahead of going public, Spotify Chief Content Officer Stefan Blom announced today he’s leaving the company, Recode first reported. Blom, who spent a little more…
G.E. Appliances is launching its own version of Quirky for businesses called Giddy
G.E. Appliances (now a subsidiary of the Chinese appliance manufacturer Haier) is spinning out a crowd-sourced product development business as a service for corporate customers…
Amazon’s a la carte TV service, Amazon Channels, adds CBS All Access
Amazon’s a la carte TV subscription service, Amazon Channels, just added another big name to its lineup. Today, the companies announced that CBS’s over-the-top streaming…
Original Content podcast: Netflix’s ‘Bright’ offers dumb fun with orcs and elves in modern LA
Netflix’s original film Bright has been decimated by critics, but Darrell Etherington and Anthony Ha, the hosts of TechCrunch’s Original Content podcast enjoyed it —…
Alexa is coming to wearable devices, including headphones, smartwatches and fitness trackers
Amazon wants to bring Alexa to more devices than smart speakers, Fire TV and various other consumer electronics for the home, like alarm clocks. The…
Equity podcast: Spotify’s impending debut, Uber’s done deal, and Nasdaq 7,000
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This episode, the first of 2018, saw our…
Samsung’s Notebook 7 Spin refresh sneaks out ahead of CES
Another pre-CES announcement out of Samsung’s PC department less than a week ahead of the show. This time it’s a refresh to the Notebook 7…
Mark Zuckerberg is right to explore the potential of the blockchain for Facebook
In what is Mark Zuckerberg’s now-traditional New Year Speech, the Facebook supremo pledged to fix the social network’s many problems which bubbled up in 2017.…
2018 is the year ICO companies become investors too
The rise of ICOs surprised many in the tech industry, helping blockchain companies raise close to $4 billion in 2017, and that’s all set to…
Dinghy picks up backing from Balderton for its flexible freelancer insurance
Insurtech was one of the big VC bets of 2017, and that looks set to continue into the new year as startups spot gaps in…
India’s national ID database is reportedly accessible for less than $10
The nightmare is a reality in India. Reports from the country suggest that the government’s national ID system — Aadhaar, which holds personal data belonging…
After Meltdown and Spectre revelation, questions arise about timing of Intel CEO’s stock sales
The timing of Intel CEO Brian Krzanich’s large sale of shares in November is raising questions because a Securities and Exchange Commission filing appeared to…
Chinese game streaming platform Chushou raises Series D, adds Google as investor
Google has added Chinese mobile game livestreaming platform Chushou to its list of investments in Asia. The Beijing-based startup announced today that it has closed…
Crunch Report | Ethereum Hits $1,000 a Coin
Ethereum hits $1,000 a coin, Eero lays off 20% of staff and Mark Zuckerberg issues his 2018 challenge. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Travis Kalanick reportedly plans to sell about 29% of his Uber shares
Uber founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick plans to sell nearly a third of his shares in the company, reports Bloomberg. The transaction would be…
Facebook Watch is adding clips from the CBS late-night lineup
Short-form content from CBS’ late-night shows “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “The Late Late Show with James Corden” will now appear on Facebook…
Apple says Meltdown and Spectre flaws affect ‘all Mac systems and iOS devices,’ but not for long
Apple isn’t immune to Meltdown and Spectre, the major bugs in basic computing architecture that were announced yesterday to widespread amazement and horror. In an…
Spotify hits 70 million subscribers
Spotify just announced it’s killing it on the subscriber front. As of today, Spotify has 70 million subscribers compared to Apple Music’s 30 million. Last July,…
Game of Thrones isn’t coming back until 2019
Winter isn’t coming any time soon. Today HBO broke it to dedicated fans the world over that Game of Thrones won’t be returning until 2019.…
Jimmy Iovine is reportedly leaving Apple this year
Jimmy Iovine, the music mogul who sold Beats to Apple in 2014, is reportedly leaving Apple later this year in August, Billboard reports. Word on…
FCC issues final version of order eliminating net neutrality rules
The FCC has released the final text of the order it voted on last month that is set to undo the net neutrality rules established…
Apple in good cheer over a billion-dollar Christmas and New Year on the App Store
The week after Christmas is a lazy one, but the App Store was working overtime. Apple triumphantly announced today that the late holiday season brought…
Can municipal broadband save the open internet?
No challenge around the future of the internet looms larger in the coming year than what to do in the aftermath of the repeal of…
Hulu and Steven Spielberg are bringing back ‘Animaniacs’
Hulu will be resurrecting 90s animated cartoon hit Animaniacs. Yes, Yakko, Wakko and Dot Animaniacs, from the 90s. In this bizarre twist, which is probably…
TiVo debuts its ‘Next-Gen’ platform for pay TV providers looking to fight cord cutting
TiVo today introduced a new “Next-Gen Platform,” as it’s being called, that will allow pay TV operators to better keep up with the changes in…
Appcanary shuts down its vulnerability scanning service as the team joins GitHub
Appcanary, a Y Combinator-incubated service that helps developers scan the third-party packages and libraries they use to write their code for potential security vulnerabilities, today…
Mapbox adds makes another acquisition to bolster its navigation toolkits
Mapbox, the Softbank-backed developer of mapping applications that competes with Google Maps TomTom and Here, has acquired the intellectual property and developers behind MapZen’s Valhalla…
LG’s new robots deliver food and double as shopping carts
Robots are hard. Softbank has pumped a bunch of money into them, and the best it’s come up with so far is Pepper, a friendly…
Lea’s live event assistant for Messenger makes buying tickets easier
Buying event tickets online isn’t a great experience. Sites like Ticketmaster are the default, but are difficult to use and expensive. A startup called Lea…
This $319 thermostat has Cortana built-in
Microsoft’s in a weird spot with Cortana. The company’s smart assistant is deployed on countless PCs, by way of Windows 10, but it’s constantly playing…
Ethereum breaks new record by reaching $1,000 for the first time
Ethereum tokens (ethers) have reached $1,000 on multiple major exchanges for the first time ever. This is an all-time high and the result of a…
Google Cloud launches preemptible GPUs with a 50% discount
Google Cloud today announced the launch of preemptible GPUs. Like Google’s preemptible VMs (and AWS’s comparable spot instances), these GPUs come at a significant discount…
Salesforce wants to be a $60 billion company by 2034
We all know that Salesforce sets big goals. It just recently blew through its $10 billion goal just a few years after CEO and co-founder…
Investors are pouring money into Frank, a TurboTax for student loan applications
Venture capitalists have been trying to make money from the higher education market for years. It’s a rich target for the clutch of investor that pride…
Wealthfront raises $75 million to help Millennials invest
Millennials take a different approach to investing than previous generations. Only one in three are buying stocks. And some are turning to software, rather than humans,…
Quartet raises $40M Series C to help healthcare providers collaborate on patient care
Healthcare in America is a mess with no quick solutions and many people aren’t getting the help they need. Created to bridge mental and physical…
RagTagd reinvents the lost and found
Each day, kids go to school and lose things. But RagTagd, a Sydney-based company, is looking to fix that. RagTagd is a service that provides…
Tesla launches a web-based version of its in-car trip planning tool
Curious about what it’s like to plan a long road trip as an electric vehicle owner? Tesla thinks you just might be, so now it’s…
Smart speakers top AR, VR and wearables to become fastest-growing consumer tech
Amazon and Google were willing to lose money on smart speaker sales over the holidays by discounting their hardware in order to gain market share. The…