On May 25, the latest installment of the Star Wars theatrical franchise will drop in theaters. Shooting Star Wars: A Solo Story hasn’t been all roses, with Ron Howard stepping in to take over for directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller and reshooting many scenes. But the show must go on! Yesterday, Lucasfilm released a […]
Technotopia is a podcast about the future. It assumes the world won’t fall into a dystopia and therefore is optimistic about our chances for human success. I’m looking for cool people to talk to and I’d like for you to join me. I love guests who are are excited about the future and technology but […]
Facebook’s lawyers are attempting to block a High Court decision in Ireland, where its international business is headquartered, to refer a long-running legal challenge to the bloc’s top court. The social media giant’s lawyers asked the court to stay the referral to the CJEU today, Reuters reports. Facebook is trying to appeal the referral by challenging […]
Payments company Stripe is today taking another step to expand its operations into a wider set of business services, targeting the startups that form its core base of customers. Today, the company is announcing that Atlas, the all-in-one service Stripe started two years ago to help founders incorporate in Delaware, can now be used to […]
Google today announced that Nvidia’s high-powered Tesla V100 GPUs are now available for workloads on both Compute Engine and Kubernetes Engine. For now, this is only a public beta, but for those who need Google’s full support for their GPU workloads, the company also today announced that the slightly less powerful Nvidia P100 GPUs are […]
Halide, the premium iOS camera app from ex-Apple designer Sebastiaan de With and Twitter engineer Ben Sandofsky is today launching one of its biggest upgrades since its arrival last year. The updated app includes a Self-Timer, redesigned photo reviewer, accessibility improvements, and more. But perhaps its best feature is the ability to take better control over your […]
Jake Bright Contributor More posts by this contributor Business solutions firm Africa’s Talking closes $8.6M round led by IFC Uber and Taxify are going head-to-head to digitize Africa’s two-wheeled taxis When it comes to monetizing digital social interactions, Kenya’s Safaricom has its own order. American tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter offered social networks […]
Don’t let procrastination drain your time and productivity — or your wallet. You have exactly three days left to save up to $1,800 on Super Early Bird pricing for Disrupt San Francisco 2018 — the premiere tech conference related to all things startup. Disrupt SF takes place September 5-7 at Moscone Center West, and it’s […]
Here’s an odd juxtaposition for you. According to a new report on voice assistants released today by PwC, younger users are adopting voice technology at a faster rate than their older counterparts, but are somehow using their voice assistants less often. The report found that users 18 through 24 had fewer “heavy” users of voice […]
Research Shows A Simple Way to Increase Your Engagement at Work This article was originally published on HBR.org. Juj Winn/Getty Images It is no secret that many employees face work environments that are not very engaging. A 2016 poll by the Gallup Organization shows that only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. And […]
Since it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed the personal data of millions of Facebook users, one question has lingered in the minds of the public: What other data did Dr. Aleksandr Kogan gain access to? Twitter confirmed to The Telegraph on Saturday that GSR, Kogan’s own commercial enterprise, had purchased one-time API access […]
Fitbit this morning announced plans to utilize Google’s new Cloud Healthcare API, in order to continue its push into the world of serious healthcare devices. It’s a bit of a no-brainer as far as partnerships go. Google announced Cloud for Healthcare, taking a major step into the world of health, which comprised around $3.3 trillion […]
Boom, boom, boom! We’re announcing another big name for our upcoming blockchain event in Zug, Switzerland, on July 6 after Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan joined the line-up. The event — TC: Sessions Blockchain — will be TechCrunch’s first show dedicated to blockchain, it takes place in the world’s “Crypto Valley” and we’ll be joined by a host […]
Baidu has turned to the financial industry to bolster its consumer finance business. The Chinese search giant confirmed that it has sold a majority share in its Financial Services Group (FSG) business to a consortium of private equity firms in a deal worth $1.9 billion. The business is in the consumer finance space and its services include credit and wealth […]
In an ideal world, feedback would always happen face-to-face, so the other person could read your body language and hear your voice. But there are times when you have to provide input through email, text message, or even instant message, and in these cases it’s important to be careful about tone. Written criticism can easily […]
Blue Origin conducted the 8th launch of its New Shepard sub-orbital rocket and crew capsule today out in Texas, and things couldn’t have gone better for the growing space tourism company. The rocket ascended into a cloudless sky, reaching a max velocity of about 2,200 MPH, and delivered its capsule to the edge of space, […]
Larry Harvey normalized the abnormal, expanding the boundaries of what creators could attempt. That’s why there’s a special bond between Silicon Valley and Black Rock City, the desert settlement where Burning Man transpires. Both ditch “what are we supposed to do?” for “what can we do?”. Both encourage risky expression that appears insane to outsiders. […]
Brooks Rainwater Contributor More posts by this contributor Do cities still want a sharing economy? As tech startups surge in cities, inclusive economic growth must be a priority Christopher Hooton Contributor From home- and ride-sharing apps to TV and movie streaming subscriptions to social media platforms – Internet companies have transformed our lives. Today the internet sector […]
Sprint and T-Mobile, after years of going back and forth as to whether they are going to tie up two of the largest telecom providers in the U.S., have announced that the two companies have entered a merger agreement this morning. The merger will be an all-stock transaction, and will now be subject to regulatory […]
Disney’s latest alarmingly star-packed Avengers entry is going to set another box-office record for its opening weekend, eclipsing Star Wars: The Force Awakens, according to Variety. The film is set to bring in around $250 million in its debut domestically, which would put it just ahead of the debut for the first star Wars film in […]
I went to see Arlan Hamilton of Backstage Capital speak this week. Her remarkable story is pretty well known by now — she “built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless,” to quote Backstage’s site. She said several interesting things, but let’s start with this one: as of 2019, she will no […]
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I want to live in the Gemini’s universe. It’s one where the promise of on-demand hardware has been fulfilled. Where crowfunding, rapid prototyping, scalable manufacturing all of those good things have improved our lives by giving us the devices we both want and need. It’s the utopian dream of 2011, fully realized. In the Gemini […]
While streaming and bingeing seem increasingly synonymous, Hulu’s biggest hit The Handmaid’s Tale actually feels like an anti-binge. Some of that is just Hulu’s release strategy, where it doesn’t release an entire season at once, but instead comes out of the gate with a handful of new episodes (two this week for the launch of […]
Shahin Farshchi Contributor More posts by this contributor The dos and don’ts of crafting frontier-tech companies Five billion-dollar businesses for the driverless future I entered the world of venture investing a dozen years ago. Little did I know that I was embarking on a journey to master the art of balancing contradictions: building up experience […]
Rip Pruisken waffled in college (we got that pun safely out of the way for now). He was a student in the Ivy League at Brown University, and had focused on academics for much of his life. His parents were physicists, and “I thought I would study some sort of cookie-cutter path of studying something […]
The Gillmor Gang — Frank Radice, Keith Teare, Denis Pombriant, Michael Markman, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, April 27, 2018. Apple, Spotify meets Alexa, Is Social Dead, the coming subscription bubble. @stevegillmor, @mickeleh, @DenisPombriant, @fradice, @kteare Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor Liner Notes Live chat stream The Gillmor Gang on Facebook
Earlier this week Eric Lundgren was sentenced to 15 months in prison for selling what Microsoft claimed was “counterfeit software,” but which was in fact only recovery CDs loaded with data anyone can download for free. The company has now put up a blog post setting “the facts” straight, though it’s something of a limited […]
Apple has long been rumored to be working on a pair of augmented reality glasses, but a report today suggests that they’re looking to compete with Google, Microsoft and Facebook in the virtual reality space as well. CNET reports that Apple has its eye set on the 2020 release of a wireless headset that combines […]
The charming robot at the heart of Disney’s Big Hero 6, Baymax, isn’t exactly realistic, but its puffy bod is an (admittedly aspirational) example of the growing field of soft robotics. And now Disney itself has produced a soft robot arm that seems like it could be a prototype from the movie. Created by Disney […]
It looks like a potential merger deal between T-Mobile and Sprint, two of the major telecom companies in the U.S., is getting closer and now has set valuation terms, according to a report by Bloomberg. The deal could be announced as soon as Sunday, according to a report by CNBC. The proposed tie-up of the […]
It’s hard launching a phone company — something Essential was pretty candid about from the start. Andy Rubin’s latest endeavor got off to something of a slow start, according to outside accounts, but today the well-funded hardware startup is getting ready to add a whole bunch of new markets to its online store. On Twitter […]
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is gearing up to present its proposal for electric scooter permitting. This comes after the SF Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance for the SFMTA to create a permitting process to better regulate the plethora of electric scooters from Bird, Lime and Spin. The SFMTA’s proposal lays out a […]
EcoFlow, a Chinese hardware firm developed by former JDI engineers that sells portable power stations, has pulled in a Series A round of over $4 million ahead of the imminent launch of new products and an international sales expansion. The Shenzhen-based company has taken an interesting route. Founded in 2016, the startup burst on to the […]
Ahead of Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting in June, stockholder Jing Zhao has submitted a proposal to replace the board’s chairman, Elon Musk, with an independent director. Musk, the chief executive officer at Tesla, has been chairman of the board since 2004. “Although the current leadership structure, in which the positions of Chairman and CEO are […]
Fortnite Battle Royale has transcended your average video game to become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon. In fact, the third-person shooter saw a peak 3.4 million concurrent players in March, with the servers buckling under the pressure. Fortnite Battle Royale also holds the record for individual streamer numbers on Twitch with Ninja’s stream featuring Drake. […]
Facebook’s Messenger Kids, the social network’s new chat app for the under-13 crowd, has been designed to give parents more control over their kids’ contact list. Today, the app is gaining a new feature, “sleep mode,” aimed at giving parents the ability to turn the app off at designated times. The idea is that parents […]
It’s almost becoming boring reporting that the Amazon cloud had a monster quarter. It’s not news at this point, because of course they did. Yesterday, it once again blew away analyst expectations with 49 percent revenue growth for the quarter. Oh ya, and that revenue? Well that was $5.44B for the quarter, a ways above […]
Enterprise tech IPOs continue to roar in 2018. Today, not one but two enterprise tech companies, DocuSign and Smartsheet, saw their share prices popped as they made their debuts the public markets today. Smartsheet was first out of the gates. Trading on NASDAQ under the ticker SMAR, the company clocked an opening price of $18.40. […]
Real estate-focused MetaProp NYC has been adding new programs on top of its core accelerator. The latest: The MetaProp Bridge at Columbia University. It’s an international accelerator designed specifically for real estate and property tech-related startups from Europe, the Middle East and Africa that are looking to expand into North America. Participants get access to […]
If you’ve ever painted a room you know that getting every nook and cranny is pretty difficult and Tim Allen help you if you have hardwood or carpet. The tarp alone costs more than the paint. Now, thanks to MIST, your robot can manage the entire job, slapping paint up like a robotic Jackson Pollock. […]
Despite Facebook being under fire for everything pertaining to Cambridge Analytica, the company still hopes to be able to do some good. Today, Facebook is dropping its platform fees pertaining to fundraisers for personal causes. That means Facebook is getting rid of the 4.3 percent platform fee in the u.S. and the 6.2 percent fee […]
The maker of Shadowverse and Granblue Fantasy is teaming up with Nintendo for a new mobile RPG. Called Dragalia Lost, the Japanese-style action RPG will be a free-to-play game though likely loaded with Loot Box-style mechanics that will result in a financial windfall for Nintendo and developer Cygames. The trailer doesn’t reveal many details about […]
The UK government has suffered yet another defeat in the courts over a surveillance regime that critics have dubbed a ‘Snooper’s charter’. Today the UK High Court agreed with digital and civil rights group Liberty’s crowdfunded legal challenge to a portion of the UK’s 2016 Investigatory Powers Act that gives the state the power to […]
Over coming years Ford intends to stop selling most of its cars in North America. This plan would leave just the Mustang and upcoming Focus Active as the only traditional car it sells while crossovers, SUVs and trucks make up the rest of its lineup. The news was abruptly revealed in Ford’s latest quarterly financial […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Today Katie Roof and I were joined by James Hardiman, a partner at Data Collective (DCVC). If you want to tell him how he did, he’s on Twitter here. It was good to have Hardiman on board as […]
With the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, Microsoft is launching a number of new features for its desktop operating system today. Most of those apply to all users, but in addition to all the regular feature updates, the company also today announced a couple of new features and tools specifically designed for its business users […]
Following the steady pace of its semi-annual update cadence, Microsoft today launched the latest version of Windows 10. For the most part, there are no major revelations here since Microsoft’s Windows Insider program now regularly provides early access to all the new features to those who are brave enough to try out pre-release software. But […]
Unlike other browser vendors, Microsoft remains committed to a relatively slow update cycle that sees the company launch major new versions of Edge in sync with the bi-annual Windows 10 updates. It doesn’t look like that’s changing anytime soon, even as the Edge mobile browser is seeing far more regular updates now. Since today is […]
After a brief delay (though Microsoft won’t confirm or deny this), Microsoft today announced that the Windows 10 April 2018 Update will be available as a free download to users worldwide on Monday, April 30, with the broader rollout starting May 8. As with every Windows release, there’s plenty of new features, cosmetic tweaks and […]
The ongoing trend of consolidation in the world of ridesharing continues apace, with the latest development coming out of Europe. BlaBlaCar, the French carpooling platform, is acquiring Less, a young carpooling platform based in Paris and focusing only on urban rides, paying drivers on a per-kilometer rate to incentivize them. The financial terms are not […]
$4.5 billion-valued ride-sharing startup Go-Jek may be busy in Southeast Asia, where it is aiming to step into the gap following Uber’s exit, but that isn’t stopping it from looking at opportunities elsewhere in the world. Over in Bangladesh, motorbike-taxi hailing service Pathao has announced that it raised a “pre-Series A” investment led by Go-Jek. […]
While Bumble BFF and Hey! Vina help adult women find new friends, there isn’t a social network dedicated to young women. But Brooke Chaffin and Catherine Connors are looking to change that with the introduction of Maverick, a social network that connects young girls with female mentors to express their creativity in a safe space. […]
When you and a coworker are discussing a conflict you’ve been having, you might be tempted to launch into your account of the events, assuming that your counterpart should see things exactly the way you do. But that approach is unlikely to go over well. Instead, treat your opinion of what’s happened as what it […]
DocuSign priced its IPO Thursday evening at $29 per share, netting the company $629 million. It was a better price than the e-signature company had been expecting. The initially proposed price range was $24 to $26 and then that was raised to $26 to $28. The price gives the company a valuation of $4.4 billion […]
[embedded content] As we navigate further and further into this strange Ready Player One-like future that plenty of tech companies are investing heavily, Disney wants to ensure that people can feel content in the most life-like way possible. Disney Research has shown off some research into the world of haptic feedback via a vest with “pneumatically-actuated […]
With Microsoft’s BUILD 2018 conference right around the corner, the company just made good on a promise from last year’s conference; Apple iTunes is finally coming to the Windows Store. The music software was originally forecast to arrive by the end of 2017, but it took a bit longer to finally find its Windows home. […]
Bluetooth and smart speakers are a dime a dozen these days, and many of them aren’t bad — so what it often comes down to is style. Native Union has my number with its latest device, which accentuates the classic bookcase speaker look with a tech-heavy back end and brass volume knob. It’s a collaboration […]
On today’s wildly successful earnings call, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky dropped a bit of a bombshell for Amazon Prime subscribers. The retailer’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink annual subscription plan is about to get pricier. On May 11, Prime annual memberships will jump $20, from $99 a year to $119. The news follows a similar announcement back in January, […]
It’s an end of an era in Cupertino today. Apple just announced the end of production on its AirPort line of base stations, a list that includes the AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme and AirPort Time Capsule. In a statement provided to TechCrunch, the company noted that it will continue to sell its remaining stock, but […]
Thanks in part to its colossal cloud business, Microsoft earnings are drenching shareholders in dollars. For the quarter ending March 31, 2018, the tech ringer from Redmond saw its revenue increase to $26.8 billion (up 16 percent) from $23.2 billion, with operating income up 23 percent to $8.3 billion, up from $6.7 billion. Income was […]
Amazon just announced that it’s scored the rights to stream Thursday Night Football games for another two years. The contract renewal will bring 11 NFL games simulcast on Fox to its Prime video offerings for both the 2018 and 2019 seasons, including weeks four through 15 of the season, save for Thanksgiving. The NFL and Amazon […]
Square just announced that it’s reached an agreement to acquire Weebly for $365 million in cash and stock. While Square is best known for its payment software and hardware, it’s also been expanding into other areas; for example, with the acquisition of food delivery service Caviar and corporate catering startup Zesty. Weebly, meanwhile, offers easy-to-use […]
Amazon reported first-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday, sending shares up 7 percent in after-hours trading after its significantly better-than-expected report. The company reported earnings per share of $3.27, well above the $1.26 that analysts had been expecting. This worked out to $1.6 billion in net income, up from $724 million last year. Revenue […]
MoviePass is known for a pricing model that sounds too good to be true — in exchange for paying $9.95 per month, subscribers get up to one movie ticket per day. At least, they used to: If you try to sign up now, that isn’t quite what you’re offered. Instead, there’s a bundle that combines […]
Stock market investors greeted payroll software company Ceridian with enthusiasm on its debut Thursday. After pricing above its expected range at $22 per share, the stock shot up 42 percent, closing above $31 by day’s end. Ceridian helps clients ranging from BlackRock to Trader Joe’s keep tabs on personnel, including payroll, benefits and onboarding. Its […]
Daniel Tawfik Contributor Often when I attend a conference or a networking event I am surprised by how many people operate at the periphery of the tech industry. Social media gurus, SEO “ninjas,” bloggers, etc. It’s a coterie of tech “club promoters.” The hype men of the industry. “Hack your way to success.” “Meet the […]
Zurich-based DeepCode claims that their system — essentially a tool for analyzing and improving code — is like Grammarly for programmers. The system, which uses a corpus of 250,000 rules, reads your public and private GitHub repositories and tells you how to fix problems, remain compatible and generally improve your programs. Founded by Veselin Raychev, […]
Teradyne, a prosaic-sounding but flush company that provides automated testing equipment for industrial applications, has acquired the Danish robotics company MiR for an eye-popping $148 million, with $124 million on the table after meeting performance goals. MiR, which despite the lowercase “i” stands for Mobile Industrial Robots, does what you might guess. Founded in 2013, […]
Tesla’s VP of Autopilot and low-voltage hardware, Jim Keller, is leaving the company, Electrek first reported. In a statement to TechCrunch, Tesla said it appreciates “his contributions to Tesla and wish the best,” a spokesperson said. “Tesla is deeply committed to developing the most advanced silicon in the world and we plan to dramatically increase […]
When one of your employees quits, you may take it personally. But keep in mind that their decision may have little to do with you: Most people leave because their opportunities for growth are limited. Encourage all your employees to openly discuss with you their goals and plans for the future, even if those plans […]
It’s hard to tell an employee they didn’t get the promotion they were vying for. Your goal should be to deliver the news clearly and with empathy. Start by validating your employee’s contributions and thanking them for applying. Avoid comforting statements like “Next time you’ll get the job,” which make promises you may not be […]
When you’re going through a personal crisis, you’ll likely need the support of your colleagues. But they may not know how to be useful, so ask for their help thoughtfully and specifically. Describe what you need and why the help is meaningful to you, and, as with any request at work, give a deadline. For […]
Protect Yourself Against The Unknown – Cyber Crimes Revealed Source: BestVPNS.co.uk Crime is prevalent in today’s society – we see a plethora of stories on the news relating to criminal activity and our law enforcement organizations have to deal with a myriad of different types of crime, day in day out. One particular brand of […]
When you’re burned out and exhausted, it’s easy to think of yourself as a victim of circumstances — and forget that you have a say in your situation. Instead of blaming everyone else for your being overworked and overstressed, take ownership of it. Think to yourself: “Others may have contributed to my situation, but I […]
We demand a lot from logos. They have to be simple, yet still convey the ethos of the brand in a way that resonates with…
When you go on vacation, ideally you should disconnect from work completely. But if going off the grid truly is not an option for you, set boundaries for yourself so that you aren’t tethered to your device. Make a plan to check your messages once a day at a particular time, or only on certain […]
How to Create Infographics in Under an Hour This article was originally published by HubSpot. Written by Lindsay Kolowich – @lkolow Wouldn’t it be great if creating infographics was as simple as writing regular ol’ text-based blog posts? Unfortunately, the reality is that making visual content like this usually takes a lot more time, […]
Reddit, one of the internet’s largest hubs for both traffic and controversy, announced today that it has hired former Time Inc. President of Digital Jen Wong to take on the role of COO. She will be tasked with managing Reddit’s business strategy, working out of the company’s New York office. Wong left Time Inc. earlier […]
A class-action lawsuit led by a number of Lyft drivers against Uber regarding the alleged “Hell” spying program is moving forward in an amended way. The lawsuit, brought by Lyft driver Michael Gonzales on behalf of other Lyft drivers, alleges Uber wrongfully intercepted the communications and whereabouts of Lyft drivers, and resulted in the loss of […]
Meet Daisy. Apple’s latest recycling robot was revealed, not coincidentally, a few days before Earth Day, in a press announcement summing up the company’s recent environmental accomplishments. The new ‘bot is an update to Liam, the recycling robot the company announced back in 2016. Daisy was developed in-house by Apple engineers, using some of Liam’s […]
We’re less than a month out from TC Sessions: Robotics, and we’ve still got some key names to share with you for the big event. We’ve already announced some of the top names in robotics, including Playground’s Andy Rubin, Boston Dynamics’ Marc Raibert, Ayanna Howard of Zyrobotics, Chris Urmson of Google and U.C. Berkeley professor […]
Rare Bits wants to be eBay for the blockchain, where you buy, sell, and trade non-fungible crypto-goods. After CryptoKitties raised $12 million from Andreessen Horowitz last month for its decentralized digital collectibles game, there’s been an explosion of interest in the space. But without a popular marketplace, it’s hard to find the goods you want at […]
Walmart announced on Thursday it’s beginning to test new technology that arms store staff with mobile devices for checking out customers from the floor. The devices will first be put into use in Walmart’s “Lawn & Garden Centers” in over 350 U.S. stores, where there’s the most need for a mobile checkout experience like this. […]
Investors, it seems, aren’t entirely soured on the world of 3D printing. The technology is still making progress in the enterprise sector, and Shapeways is certainly continuing to make a case for it in the world of online marketplaces. This morning, the New York-based company announced the closing of a $30 million Series E. The […]
Watchmaker Jaquet Droz announced its Signing Machine – a mechanical device that will sign your name for you using a series of miniature gears and springs – in 2014. Four years later, the company is ready to ship their miraculous contraction just in time for you to ink the deal you’ve made with Cybereus, lord […]
Helios and Matheson Analytics is looking to push additional capital into its prime and wildly popular asset, MoviePass, by raising money in a new stock sale that appears to be giving Wall Street fits. Looking to raise additional capital, Helios and Matheson said it would sell up to $150 million in a stock sale that […]
Many of the same “industry insiders” who predicted the demise of email as a marketing tool were saying the same thing about infographics not too long ago. But the fact is that infographic content, which dates back to the 1700s in its earliest form for business purposes, is hotter than ever. But why? […]
Eventbrite has been shopping again in Europe — announcing today that it’s picked up Spanish ticketing firm, Ticketea. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The Madrid-based events discovery and ticketing platform lets people find and book tickets for a variety of live experiences — including festivals, concerts and performing arts shows. It focuses on […]
Rylo wants people to use 360 cameras to capture everything around them, then use software to determine what exactly they want after the fact. Today, the startup is adding a new feature to the app, a new feature to the camera and a new camera effect to keep things interesting on the company’s 360 camera […]
Ebay is rolling out an app update designed to make it easier to list items for sale on its online marketplace. Instead of filling out detailed forms on your mobile phone’s small screen, you can now scan the barcode on the item in question or type a description, choose the item’s condition, then click “list […]
mParticle, which helps companies like Airbnb and Spotify manage their customer data, has hired four new executives — including John Sedlak, most recently a vice president at Adobe, who’s joining the company as chief revenue officer. In addition, Kiran Hebbar (formerly CFO of Social Tables) is joining as chief financial officer, Will Rogers (previously an engineer […]
Nearly 200 colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada are actively recruiting for esports scholarships. But unlike other sports, there is currently no real infrastructure for high school esports. PlayVS, a Science-backed startup out of Los Angeles, is looking to change that. Founded by Delane Parnell, PlayVS has signed an exclusive contract with the […]
It might just be time for Intel admit that’s not great at this whole wearables thing. A few months after their flashy online debut, the Vaunt smart glasses are dead, the chipmaker has confirmed. Some things, it seems, are just too beautiful to live — or receive sufficient investment from their parent company. The news […]
Commodity trading is a very old industry which focuses on raw materials, like lead or copper, that are worth hundreds of billions. These materials are constantly moving from producers to consumers in a global market worth about $80bn, but it often lacks efficiency and transparency. Meanwhile, intermediaries make a lot of money just by acting […]
Lyft, recognizing the impact of its ride-hailing platform on the environment, is making a “multi-million” dollar investment in carbon offsets. Within the first year of this effort, Lyft says it expects to be able to offset about one million metric tons of carbon. “The stark reality is that transportation is one of the largest sources of […]
Music and visual art creation VR startup TheWaveVR just wrapped a $6 million Series A round and when all was said and done, it seemed appropriate for the team to actually sign the term sheet with their lead investor inside virtual reality. The round, led by RRE Ventures, brings the startup’s total funding to $10 million. […]
I’ll be helping build a larger meetup focused on pre-ICO companies in New York on April 23 and I’d love to see you there. It will be held at Knotel on April 23 at 7pm and will feature a pitch-off with eight startups and two panels with some yet-unnamed stars in the space. Let’s get […]
Amazon this morning is introducing “Alexa Blueprints,” a new way for any Alexa owner to create their own customized Alexa skills or responses, without needing to know how to code. The idea is to allow Alexa owners to create their own voice apps, like a trivia game or bedtime stories, or teach Alexa to respond […]
There’s a popular phrase that I’ve heard quite a bit throughout life: “Don’t get mad. Get even.”
2018 is the year that smartphone usage eclipses time spent watching TV in China and it’s all down to the growth of digital video platforms, according to a new report from eMarketer. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this had already happened in China, which happens to be the world’s largest smartphone market, but eMarketer forecasts […]
Facebook has another change in the works to respond to the European Union’s beefed up data protection framework — and this one looks intended to shrink its legal liabilities under GDPR, and at scale. Late yesterday Reuters reported on a change incoming to Facebook’s T&Cs that it said will be pushed out next month — meaning […]
Netflix is introducing its own take on Snapchat and Instagram stories after it began to roll out 30-second preview videos for mobile viewers. The previews look much like Stories because the thumbnails are circular and the content plays with virtual videos, so there’s no need to move your phone to the side. Added to that, […]
Prenetics, a Hong Kong-based startup that offers genetic testing services for patients, is expanding outside of Asia and into the consumer space after it acquired London-based company DNAFit. The deal — which a source told TechCrunch is worth $10 million — not only sees Prenetics enter new geographies, but also expand the scope of its services. […]
If you want people at work to trust and respect you, regardless of your title or authority, pay attention to your body language. How you stand, sit, and speak all affect whether people are open to being influenced by you. For example, standing up straight with your shoulders back helps you come across as confident […]
Facebook has posted a job opening looking for an expert in ASIC and FPGA, two custom silicon designs that companies can gear toward specific use cases — particularly in machine learning and artificial intelligence. There’s been a lot of speculation in the valley as to what Facebook’s interpretation of custom silicon might be, especially as […]
After taking them down to investigate what it called a “cybersecurity incident,” TaskRabbit’s website and app are back online. The Ikea-owned platform for on-demand labor also posted an update from its chief executive officer Stacy Brown-Philpot about the incident. “While our investigation is ongoing, preliminary evidence shows that an unauthorized user gained access to our […]
ZTE will postpone the release of its quarterly earnings report after the United States government banned American companies from selling goods to the Chinese telecom and smartphone maker. In a filing with the Hong Kong stock exchange, ZTE said that its earnings report, originally set to be released on Thursday, is now delayed to an […]
After a report by Reveal suggested that Tesla was underreporting workplace injuries at its Fremont plant, Tesla responded with a blog post calling the report “completely false” and pinning it all up as a “calculated disinformation campaign.” Now California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (otherwise known as Cal/OSHA) is looking into things at the […]
Getting to space is already tough, but getting there on short notice and then doing it again a couple weeks later? That’s a big ask. Nevertheless, DARPA is asking it as part of its Launch Challenge, announced today at the 34th Space Symposium in Colorado. Teams must take a payload to space with only days […]
iZettle, the startup out of Sweden that has been referred to as the Square of Europe, is today making a move that underscores its bigger strategy to build on its traction with small businesses in mobile payments, to expand into an ever-wider range of financial services to fill out its $950 million valuation. The company […]
SpaceX has successfully deployed NASA’s new exoplanet-hunting telescope into high Earth orbit. From there, it will get a gravity assist from the moon and enter a wide orbit, beginning its mission. Meanwhile, back on the surface, the Falcon 9’s first stage landed successfully on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You. This is […]
In the ongoing race to build the best and smartest applications that tap into the advances of artificial intelligence, a startup out of London has raised a large round of funding to double down on solving persistent problems in areas like healthcare and energy. BenevolventAI announced today that it has raised $115 million to continue […]
It’s almost time for SpaceX to launch NASA’s TESS, a space telescope that will search for exoplants across nearly the entire night sky. The launch has been delayed more than once already: originally scheduled for March 20, it slipped to April 16 (Monday), then some minor issues pushed it to today — at 3:51 PM […]
Jeff Bezos is understandably all sorts of self-congratulatory in the annual shareholder letter Amazon released today. The note is full of all smanner of large numbers, including, perhaps most notably, 100 million. Amazon has exceeded that number of Prime subscribers globally, 13 years after the service launched as a free shipping offering. It’s no surprise, […]
Girlboss, the juggernaut business and lifestyle brand launched by serial entrepreneur Sophia Amoruso (the founder of Nasty Gal), has launched a fresh redesign of its website as the company looks to evolve beyond publishing. While publishing will remain a central component of the business that Girlboss is building, Amoruso says that the brand encompasses much […]
One of the biggest headaches for freelance writers is the need to send an invoice for their work, then wait (and wait, and wait) for payment. Matt Saincome, founder of the satirical punk-themed news site The Hard Times, knows this, which is why he’s launching a new payment product called Outvoice. Saincome said he started […]
Picture this. You’re driving down the street and Google Maps tells you to turn right at the Burger King, instead of telling you to turn right on [insert street name you’ve never heard of]. Well, Google is starting to do this. I noticed this while I was in a Lyft in Washington D.C., but I […]
As you can probably imagine, launching satellites is a complicated business. To get into the game, companies must often go to the biggest players, like Nasa. It makes puts the opportunity for small companies to participate in the benefits of satellite usage completely out of reach. Until recently. Mini or nano-satellites are proliferating and so […]
A new space imaging startup called EarthNow aims to provide not just pictures of the planet on demand, but real-time video anywhere a client desires. Its ambition is matched only by its pedigree: Bill Gates, Intellectual Ventures, Airbus, SoftBank and OneWeb founder Greg Wyler are all backing the play. Its promise is a constellation of […]
Days after Disney-owned ESPN launched its new streaming service, ESPN+, a three-year old streaming TV service for sports fans, fuboTV, is announcing the close of $75 million in Series D funding. The round included new investor AMC Networks, and existing investors 21st Century Fox, Luminari Capital, Northzone, Sky, and the former Scripps Networks Interactive, which […]
It looks like at least one major news publisher is on-board with Brave, the ad-blocking web browser founded by former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich. Brave Software and Dow Jones Media Group announced today that they will be partnering in a deal that will give bring Dow Jones content (specifically, full access to Barrons.com or a […]
