Welcome to another rollercoaster day for the cryptocurrency community. In just a few minutes, bitcoin price crashed from $10,740 to $9,690, which represents a 10.8 percent crash. As always, it’s a bit hard to know for sure what’s happening. But one company in particular is having a bad day. Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has spotted some […]

YouTube Studio, the video sharing network’s revamped channel management system, launched into beta last June, will now become the default experience for creators. The company announced today that YouTube Studio will began to reach many creators in the weeks ahead, though the option to switch back to the Classic view will remain available. The public […]

TechCrunch’s Disrupt events are known for big launch announcements, like the first public rollout of Dag Kittlaus’ Siri-killer Viv, as well as ground-breaking interviews with the top figures in the start-up and technology world, like Marc Benioff, Vitalik Buterin, Diane Greene, Ann Wojcicki, and hundreds more. Those interviews and TechCrunch’s storied Startup Battlefield, devour three […]

The best bot on Messenger just got better. We’ve teamed up with Chatfuel and Bitext to add Bitext’s NLP Middleware to the TechCrunch Messenger bot. This enhanced version adds functionality for conversational interaction, improved natural language understanding, and unique features like negation understanding. You can check out our new and improved Messenger bot here. To get […]

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a warning on cryptocurrency exchanges. The SEC says that many exchanges are currently unregulated and can do whatever they want with your money. As an investor, you should be extremely careful. As a company running an exchange, you should expect a crackdown soon. The SEC first assumes […]

Wyoming, a wide-open state with plenty of free wind power, is continuing to be a surprising leader in cryptocurrency legislation. To wit: their recent passing of H.B. No. 0070, a bill that allows the sale of “open Blockchain tokens” to be exempt from regulation and money sending legislation. These tokens are very specific in their […]

Just like in the last two years, Google is using the beginning of March to launch the first developer preview of the next version of Android. Android P, as it’s currently called, is still very much a work in progress and Google isn’t releasing it into its public Android beta channel for over-the-air updates just […]

Microsoft today announced its AI Platform for Windows developers, a new set of tools that will soon help developers to bring the machine learning models they trained in the cloud to their desktop apps. The AI platform in Windows 10, which will launch with the next major version of Windows, will make use of the […]

Google’s messaging strategy may still seem chaotic to many, but the basic tenet of how it wants the public to think about Hangouts, Hangouts Meet, Hangouts Chat, Allo and Duo is that Allo/Duo are for consumers and Hangouts Meet/Chat are for business users. Hangouts itself is meant to… actually, I don’t know what it’s meant […]

CBS All Access, the network’s over-the-top streaming service for cord cutters, will invest in more original programming, as competition in the market heats up thanks to upcoming entries from Viacom and Disney on the horizon. According to The Hollywood Reporter, CBS All Access is now promising six or seven new original programs will be on […]

[embedded content] When future generations look back on 2018 what will they remember? Not much, I suspect, except for this amazing robot that can solve a Rubik’s cube in .38 seconds. The video, above, shows the cube in an unsolved position and then the actuators jump into action, slamming squares into place like some kind […]

Fishbrain, the Sweden-made mobile app and social network for sport fishing, is disclosing $13.5 million in Series B funding. The round is led by B Capital Group, the VC fund founded by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, with participation from SoftBank Ventures Korea, and existing investors Northzone, and Industrifonden. The new cash injection, which brings total […]

Nearly one in five U.S. adults today have access to a smart speaker, according to new research out this week from Voicebot.ai. That means adoption of these voice-powered devices has grown from around 1 percent reach among U.S. adults to nearly 20 percent in just two years – or 47.3 million U.S. adults. To clarify, […]

Smart thermostat maker Ecobee just wrapped up a $61 million Series C, bringing the Toronto-based company’s total funding to $146 million. This latest round features investments from Energy Impact Partners, Thomvest, Relay Ventures and, most notably, Amazon’s Alexa Fund, which has taken a particularly interest in the company’s products of late. No surprise, really. Ecobee […]

Geniac, the London-based startup that provided an “office as a service” for small and medium-sized businesses, is soon to enter the deadpool. TechCrunch has learned that majority owner Grant Thornton, the international professional services company, has made the decision to shutter Geniac as of April 5th. Customers were informed at the beginning of this month […]

Windows 10S is, in the simplest terms, Microsoft’s Chrome OS competitor. A spiritual successor to RT, the operating system is a slimmed down version of Windows 10 with added security (by way of locked down app installs) and lower hardware requirements designed to be run on sub-$300 systems that can be purchased in bulk by […]

S&P Global announced today that it will acquire Kensho, a Cambridge, Massachusetts startup that has concentrated on artificial intelligence and analytics for big financial institutions. The total value of the deal is $550 million in a mix of cash and stock. Kensho, which counted S&P Global as a client/partner and an investor, launched in 2013 and […]

Magic Leap still hasn’t released a product, but they’re continuing to raise a lot of cash to get there. The Plantation, Florida-based augmented reality startup announced today that it has raised $461 million from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign investment arm, The Public Investment Fund. The Saudi Arabian fund contributed $400 million of the raise, with […]

Amazon announced this morning it will offer a low-cost version of its Prime membership program to qualifying recipients of Medicaid. The program will bring the cost of Prime down from the usual $10.99 per month to about half that, at $5.99 per month, while still offering the full range of Prime perks, including free, two-day shipping […]

Atomwise, which uses deep learning to shorten the process of discovering new drugs, has raised a $45 million Series A. The round was led by Monsanto Growth Ventures, Data Collective (DCVC) and B Capital Group. Baidu Ventures, Tencent and Dolby Family Ventures, which are all new investors in Atomwise, also participated, as well as returning […]

After bringing its pared-down Android app Messenger Lite to mature markets like the US and UK last autumn, Facebook is expanding its features to ramp up engagement. Today, the company announced that it is adding video chat into the mix. Messenger Lite, first launched in 2015 was initially part of an effort from Facebook to build more […]

It seems that everyone agrees that meetings are a time suck. There have been many attempts to use technology to make it easier to organize and run them, but Voicera, a Bay area startup, is attacking the problem from a different angle. It wants to make it simpler to record meetings and pull out action items […]

Atom Bank, the startup based out of Durham, England that operates a mobile-only bank targeting consumers between the ages of 18 and 34, has raised another big round of funding. The company today announced another £149 million ($206 million) in funding to double down on its existing business — focused currently on savings accounts, mortgages […]

In 2021 the UK government intends the country to be well on its way to a driverless future. No, not a cheap joke about Brexit — yesterday it announced a three-year regulatory review to “pave the way for self-driving cars”. This follows the budget, in November, when the government announced a tranche of funding for technology innovations […]

The Geneva Motor Show is home to many supercars and outlandish apparitions, but the collaboration between Italdesign, Audi and Airbus on the Pop.Up Next flying car concept is one of the more out there. It’s an updated version fo the Pop.Up that Italdesign and Airbus brought to the show last year, this time including an […]

TechCrunch is proud to bring Startup Battlefield Europe to Paris in partnership with VivaTech, which takes place on May 24th – 25. Thousands of founders, business leaders, investors, academics, students, and media will descend on the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles to see the future of tech. And TechCrunch will be there searching for the first winner […]

Messaging and payments continue to converge in India after Google added chat features to its Tez payment app in India. The move follows the introduction of peer-to-peer payments inside WhatsApp in India, its largest country worldwide with over 200 million users, last month and it now allows users of Tez to communicate directly with contacts […]

IBM today announced PAIRS Geoscope, a new experimental cloud-based service that makes it easier for developers to work with large amounts of geospatial data from across a wide variety of sources. The service handles ingesting, integrating and managing the data and allows developers to focus on their queries. Indeed, it’s the part of the service […]

Ventech has been around for 20 years, which is the equivalent of 80 years in tech time. And the VC firm is still going strong as it just announced the initial closing of a new fund. The firm has raised $170 million (€140 million) and wants to reach the $250 million hard cap (€200 million) […]

This week on Technotopia I talked to Jonathan Zufi, creator of the LifeClock One, a replica of the watch worn by Snake Pliskin in Escape From New York. Zufi loves design and his insight on what makes something a timeless classic – even when it comes to computer hardware – is fascinating. Zufi is also […]

Travel websites get redesigned all the time, but you just need to visit the homepage to tell that the team at Condé Nast Traveler has something different in mind. Instead of a standard river of articles, or a menu for navigating to different sections and travel destinations, there’s just a declaration in large text: “To all […]

Genetic testing powerhouse 23andMe announced today that it’s officially received the FDA go-ahead to launch a direct-to-consumer testing kit for genes linked to various forms of cancer. The forthcoming kit, which will be made available without a prescription, tests for BRCA1 and BRCA2, which are linked to higher risk of ovarian, break and prostate cancer. […]

When you’re the runaway leader in a growing industry you typically have two opinions: A) Stay in your lane and let other companies pop up to solve the industry’s problems. B) Try to offer as many products as possible and own the entire customer experience from A-Z (no Amazon pun intended). If there’s any doubt which option […]

Whether you’re a developer who’s working on mobile apps, or just someone enjoying the millions of apps available for your phone, today is a very special day. It’s the 10-year anniversary of the original iPhone SDK. I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that this release changed a lot of people’s lives. I know it […]

Drive Up is Target’s latest attempt to blur the lines between online ordering and brick and mortar. Customers order things through the company’s app, drive up to a store, and employees will bring the purchases out to their car — the very literal embodiment of meeting customers halfway. After beta testing the offering in its […]

Airbnb is bringing on Greg Greeley, Amazon’s current VP of Prime & Delivery Experience, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky wrote in a blog post today. His first day at Airbnb will be March 18. At Airbnb, Greeley will be responsible for leading the home-sharing startup’s Homes unit. The Homes unit entails Airbnb’s standard offering as well […]

Two major car manufacturers, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) and Volkswagen, announced today they will begin to offer free Apple Music subscriptions of up to six months to customers purchasing new vehicles with CarPlay starting on May 1, 2018. The offers are meant to help boost Apple Music subscribers, and arrive shortly after rival Spotify filed to […]

Google Lens, the company’s visual search engine that can recognize what’s in your images and scan business cards, among other things, is now rolling out to all Google Photos users on Android. This marks Google’s first major expansion for Lens, which was previously only available to those who had access to the latest Pixel phones. […]

A new micro VC fund backed by a host of well-known names in the Estonia tech scene is de-cloaking this week. Dubbed “Superangel“, the new fund is targeting a final closing of €20 million but has already raised €12 million. It will make pre-seed and seed investments of between €50,000 and €250,000 on average per […]

HQ is redefining mobile, creating through its twice-daily trivia games a sense of urgency that pierces the monotony of our social feeds. Now it’s raised a big round of funding to turn its scrappy operation into the Jeopardy from tomorrow. But just like its 12-round games, we’ve got 12 questions (and some answers) for HQ: […]

One thing thing the Amazon Echo and Google Home can’t do: deliver room-melting superpowers. Sure, Siri functionality is still pretty limited at launch, but who’s going to argue with the efficacy of a smart speaker that imbues the listener with matter altering abilities resulting in an epic dance battle with one’s own reflection? All lofty […]

If you’ve ever been stuck in a boring meeting, chances are you might spend the time busy answering messages from email or Slack — or even just browsing around the Internet while you wait for it to finally end. And there are a lot of factors that go into making that meeting boring, from the […]

What’s better than building a company in a fast growing industry? Building a service provider for all the other companies in that fast growing industry. While Mighty started as a plaintiff financing platform it’s shifted to a a software company that’s building an “operating system for legal and medical founders”. Essentially the startup has created […]

Dyson referred to today’s event in New York as the company’s “biggest launch, ever,” unveiling a new vacuum and air purifier that have all the sort of pricey premium components we’ve come to anticipate from the UK company. Namesake James Dyson was on hand at the event, giving a bit of a history lesson on the […]

A good home security camera is easy to install while offering surprising peace of mind. The Ring Floodlight Cam, $249 and available now, offers both. The camera mounts where your old floodlight would have been – if you have a standard outdoor electrical box it will connect right into your current setup and it even […]

Volvo turned its race-tuning sub brand Polestar into its own company with a focus on electric performance last year, and at the Geneva Motor Show this week it revealed the Polestar 1 GT, a hybrid electric car that’s designed to go toe-to-toe with Tesla for performance-loving customers eager for alternative powertrain options. In person, the […]

Greg Greeley, Amazon VP of Amazon Prime and delivery experience, is leaving the company after 18 years of work at Amazon, he posted on LinkedIn last night. During his time at Amazon, he held a number of senior leadership positions. Greeley is credited for helping create Amazon Prime and previously built Amazon’s European business. In a […]

Dropbox first appeared on the startup scene with its debut at Y Combinator Demo Day way back in the summer of 2007. Since then, the company has grown to hundreds of millions of users and to a value of more than $10 billion dollars — putting it in a cherry position for a much-anticipated initial […]

Lucidworks has been helping large organizations like Reddit with complex content build search tools that reach across massive content stores, but the company wanted to make the underlying search technology available to a wider market. Today, it released Lucidworks Site Search, a cloud service that enables companies to embed Lucidworks search in any application or […]

You might get to actually save money while you’re traveling if you just leave some free space in your bag — or not pay for that travel at all — if Daria Rebenok’s plan plays out. As avid travelers, and ones longing for products from home they can’t get abroad, she and Artem Fedyaev decided to start […]

Uber’s autonomous trucks are now doing actual work for customers via Uber Freight, Uber’s commercial cargo shipping on-demand app. The first runs are being done in Arizona, with regular hauls operating with both human drivers and autonomous trucks working in tandem. How it works is that Uber will load up the freight on a conventional, […]

The Dyson Cyclone V10 cord-free vacuum that Dyson unveiled today at an event in New York is a new milestone for the company’s strong line of battery-powered vacuums. In fact, it spells the end for plug-in models, even for holdouts who’ve been reluctant to ditch their big bulky continuous power versions. Dyson’s Cyclone V10 has […]

Dyson has a few new products it’s revealing today, including the latest Pure Cool line of purifying fans. These fans have built-in air purifying technology, which can detect and weed out pollutants, particulate matter and more of the nasty stuff we sometimes breathe in that we probably should not be breathing in. The new fans […]

Searching for a new job can be a daunting process — especially if you aren’t sure what you’re great at — and even finding the right companies and what jobs are out there is probably enough to make you freeze for a second. Leap.ai, an intelligent recruiting platform, is looking to make life a little […]

Imagine a tool that’s a kind of Facebook for data inside large organizations. You could build data projects and teams, upload and share data sets, then discuss your raw data and findings with colleagues in a community setting. That’s precisely what Data.world, an Austin startup, released today. Data is the lifeblood of most modern organizations […]

Just a month after Amazon began to offer Whole Foods grocery deliveries via its Prime Now service in a handful of cities, the company announced today it’s expanding that service to two more key markets, San Francisco and Atlanta. The latter city is especially interesting, given that it’s on Amazon’s shortlist of potential HQ2 picks. […]

With our new features launch this Spring, we’re ready to help marketers make more informed decisions, strengthen their account-based marketing strategies, and offer more personalized experiences to their customers based on a deeper understanding of their data. We know that today’s buyers are more connected than ever before. And, in order to engage with buyers […]

WeWork is acquiring Conductor. The two businesses might not seem like an obvious fit. Why would a coworking giant buy a company that’s best known for search engine optimization? Well, Conductor co-founder and CEO Seth Besmertnik said that he and WeWork CEO Adam Neumann went to college together, and they’ve “kept reconnecting and reconnecting over […]

When an employee is looking to advance in their career, where they work might have a kind of strict hierarchical path for the role they’re in and what titles come next — but there’s a good chance that employee might want to try something new without leaving their company. Instead of going from just an […]

Isaac Oates runs a startup that’s looking to be a complete suite of operational tools like human resources and payroll for businesses — but he and his team initially didn’t get why users kept asking better reporting tools over and over again. It’s indicative of the constant push-and-pull startups and founders face when having to […]

The latest company to sponsor an NBA team by putting a patch on a jersey is…Bumble, the female-led dating and networking app. The company’s logo will now be appearing on the jersey of the LA Clippers. The deal brings some serious brand recognition to the four-year old dating app, which is now adding between 75k-100k […]

Open source libraries provide a tremendously valuable resource for developers, but in today’s rapid fire application development environment, it’s not always a simple matter to make sure you’re using secure code. Snyk, a software service startup wants to help developers find and fix vulnerabilities in their open source code before it goes into production. The […]

With traditional university programs getting more expensive and competitive, we’re seeing a boom in the number of alternative programs that are taking advantage of the internet and more flexible teaching and learning formats to fill the gap in the market. The latest development comes from Coursera. Today, the online education startup with 31 million students and […]

Since the dawn of smartwatches the fancier watch lovers among us have wanted a mechanical watch with all the features of a smart watch. A few comers have attempted this nearly impossible feat and now the X-ONE H1 is now giving it a try. The X-ONE H1 has an internal mechanical movement that powers the […]

Last week, we reported that UiPath, a startup out of Romania building AI-based services for enterprises in the area of robotic process automation (RPA) — helping businesses automate mundane tasks in back-office IT systems — was about to close a big round, upwards of $120 million at a $1 billion-plus valuation. Today, the company is […]

Renault’s EZ-GO is less concept car than a full transportation service concept design. The vehicle revealed at the Geneva Motor Show this week is a fully autonomous electric car that can’t travel fast, but that does fit as many as six passengers through a big, almost garage-like door that opens up to load people and […]

Honda’s adorable little Urban EV Concept stole hearts at last year’s Frankfurt Motor Show, and at the Geneva Motor Show this week, the automaker confirmed that it’s making a production version of the car, with a target street date of late 2019 for the cute little guy, though it’ll be a European exclusive at first. […]

Porsche unveiled a new concept version of its forthcoming Mission E all-electric car today at at the Geneva Motor Show. The Mission E Cross Turismo is a crossover utility vehicle with all-wheel drive, four doors and a larger cargo capacity for making sure you have plenty of room to stow your skis before you hit […]

WHOOP, the company behind the Tesla of health tracking and sports performance wearables, has raised a whopping $25 million in a new round of funding. The round was comprised of a slew of prominent investment firms and individual investors including the Durant Company, the National Football League Players Association, former NBA commissioner David Stern, Twitter […]

Flying cars aren’t as out of reach as you might think – the PAL-V Liberty, for instance, is a real physical thing you can see and touch at the Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland. The production version of the aerocar is on display for the first time ever at the show, and we got a […]

Volkswagen’s big centerpiece for this year’s Geneva Motor Show is the I.D. Vizzion, the latest in its I.D. EV lineup and the car that’s designed to lead the pack as a premium offering. Volkswagen talked a lot about the Vizzion’s future-focused design and features yesterday during a special pre-show press unveiling, but on Tuesday it […]

The co-founders behind Centrifuge have previously created an essential company with Taulia. Now, they want to do it again, but on the blockchain. Taulia is a supply-chain financing company. It has raised over $150 million and moves billions of dollars per day. 97 out of the Fortune 100 companies use it to improve liquidity when […]

In an effort to attract more government clients, Microsoft said it will integrate Azure Stack, its hybrid cloud platform, with Azure Government in the middle of this year. Azure Stack will let government agencies run Azure’s cloud computing platform on their own private servers while retaining access to Microsoft’s cloud services. This makes it easier […]

SpaceX has launched its 50th Falcon 9 rocket mission, and on board is its largest ever geostationary satellite payload, a Hispasat unit that’s around the size of a city bus. The launch took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida this morning and proceeded as planned, delivering Hispasat 30W-6 to its target geostationary transfer orbit. The […]

Coinbase just threw a bit of cold water on Ripple enthusiasts eager to see their coin hit the popular mainstream exchange.  Rumors that Ripple’s XRP would be next in line after Bitcoin Cash reached a fever pitch this week among coin hype types, with some reading between the lines of a Tuesday segment of CNBC’s […]

Not sure what there is to add to the headline, really. Well, I guess I should probably explain a bit. Back in 2016 (on my birthday in fact) researchers from the University of Tokyo posted an interesting video showing a projector and motion tracking system working together to project an image onto moving, deforming surfaces […]

Dating app Bumble is joining the dozens of major companies that have decided to take the fight against gun violence into their own hands following a string of mass shootings and renewed discussions around gun reform. Starting immediately all profile pictures with visible guns and other deadly weapons like knives will be banned. Bumble is […]

 Vroom, an on-demand car buying and selling startup that has raised over $300 million in venture funding, has hit a bump in the road. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that the company has laid off a sizeable proportion of its staff — in line with a strategy of “sharpening our focus on profitability,” according to […]

Autonomous cars gather up tons of data about the world around them, but even the best computer vision systems can’t see through brick and mortar. But by carefully monitoring the reflected light of a laser bouncing off a nearby surface, they might be able to see around corners — that’s the idea behind recently published […]

Coinbase is continuing its executive hiring spree as the company has announced that Emilie Choi is joining Coinbase as Vice President of Corporate and Business Development. Choi comes from LinkedIn where she was Vice President of Corporate Development and oversaw a total of 40 M&A-related transactions. Prior to that she worked in business development roles at both […]

Matthew Henick, formerly the head of BuzzFeed Studios, is joining Facebook’s media partnerships team, where he will serve as head of content planning and strategy. In a post on Facebook, Henick argued that the social network is “a storytelling platform at its core,” and it sounds like he wants to help Facebook take advantage of […]

In order to best negotiate your salary, being equipped with the knowledge of what other people are making can be immensely helpful. Generally speaking, you’re going to earn more money working at a public tech company versus a private tech company, according to new data from culture workplace and salary comparison platform Comparably. And the […]

[embedded content] SpaceX is setting up to launch its 50th Falcon 9 rocket, with a payload that also represents a new milestone. The two-hour launch window is set to begin at 12:33 AM EST (9:33 PM PST) so it’s a late one, but if you’re a fan of watching SpaceX make history, this is one […]

 Over the past decade, there has been a ferocious rise in the freelance economy in the United States. Millions of people today work on platforms ranging from Uber and Lyft to Taskrabbit and Fiverr, accepting what are usually short-term tasks that can be completed efficiently and repeatedly. While these casual jobs have been the focus […]

Eager to one-up Snapchat, Instagram appears to be preparing to expand its collection of shutter modes beyond options like Boomerang and Superzoom. Buried within Instagram’s Android Application Package (APK) is an icon for a Portrait shutter for the Stories camera. This could potentially let people shoot stylized portraits with bokeh effect-blurred backgrounds or other lighting […]

Volkswagen has revealed its latest I.D. concept vehicle at the Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland: The I.D. Vizzion, which is a lot less sleepy than all those ‘Zs’ might suggest. The Vizzion is by far my favorite of the I.D. line in terms of pure design, with sporty lines on a roomy but sleek sedan […]

Everyone knew the MoviePass deal is too good to be true — and as is so often the case these days, it turns out you’re not the customer, you’re the product. And in this case they’re not even attempting to camouflage that. Mitch Lowe, the company’s CEO, told an audience at a Hollywood event that […]

 Google Search is now available within iMessage. In an effort to more deeply integrate Google’s search engine on iOS devices, the company announced today that its Search app for iOS has added an iMessage extension, allowing iPhone and iPad users to search the web, then quickly add those search results to their iMessage conversations. The extension […]

After months of speculations, France’s economy minister Bruno Le Maire announced in an interview with the JDD that Europe’s new tax model for tech giants is happening. The plan will be unveiled in the next few weeks. Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook have all faced different issues when it comes to tax optimizations. They’ve been […]

Facebook’s algorithm is terrible at surfacing breaking news, often surfacing urgent posts hours or even days later when more facts have since emerged or the story has changed. This has made Twitter the default home for this content, but that position has weakened since Twitter implemented its own relevancy algorithm that brings up old tweets. […]

Uber is facing another lawsuit over the massive 2016 data breach. This time, it’s from Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who alleges Uber violated the state’s data breach notification law. Shapiro specifically alleges Uber violated the Pennsylvania Breach of Personal Information Notification Act, which requires companies to notify people impacted by a data breach within […]

The plot thickens. Last week, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple has been working on over-the-ear headphones in addition to new AirPods. Today, Bloomberg confirms this information and adds that these new headphones could also feature noise-canceling capabilities. KGI said that this new product should be available at some point in Q4 2018, just […]

Salesforce introduced a new feature to Einstein Analytics today called conversational queries. It’s not conversational in the Alexa sense of conversation, at least not yet, but it does recognize the most common query types as you’re typing, providing faster access to data and analytics in a natural language query style. “Now, with Conversational Queries, users […]

What if it look like if the majority of newly issued ERC-20 tokens were used for good, instead of scammy ICO evil? One Y Combinator-backed startup that thinks they have an answer to this question. Meet Hexel, a startup that that wants to make it easy for anyone to use Ethereum-based tokens to engage their hyperlocal […]

Ilya Fushman, a former Dropbox executive most recently at Index Ventures, is joining Kleiner Perkins as a general partner and managing member, the firm said today. Fushman is a big pickup for Kleiner Perkins, who also brought on Social+Capital’s Mamoon Hamid in August last year. All these hires give the impression that Kleiner Perkins, with […]

If you can’t get enough new Black Mirror episodes, Netflix confirmed that the series will be coming back with a fifth season. The company shared the news with a cryptic teaser video on Twitter with “Be Right Back” written at the end. The future will be brighter than ever. pic.twitter.com/slVeg3VPd7 — Black Mirror (@blackmirror) March […]

Every major tech company is looking at quantum computers as the next big breakthrough in computing. Teams at Google, Microsoft, Intel, IBM and various startups and academic labs are racing to become the first to achieve quantum supremacy — that is, the point where a quantum computer can run certain algorithms faster than a classical […]

Ahead of GDC later this month, Amazon has confirmed an acquisition that speaks to its ambitions to do more in the area of gaming — and specifically through offering platform tools for the games developer community. The company has acquired UK- and Ireland-based cloud gaming platform GameSparks — a “backend as a service” for game developers […]

Employees of French startup Devialet just learned this morning that they would get a new CEO. Co-founder and (former) CEO Quentin Sannié is going to focus on the long-term vision, while Franck Lebouchard is joining the company to become CEO. While the board of the company elected Lebouchard as CEO on Friday, this change has […]

On the heels of Amazon’s launch of Whole Foods grocery delivery through Amazon Prime Now, Walmart today is rolling out a new option for its grocery pickup and delivery service meant to appeal to busy families: meal kits. The retailer’s affordable alternative to meal kit delivery subscriptions like Blue Apron, is now available at over […]

Seven years after picking up Zagat for $151 million, Google is selling off the perennial restaurant recommendation service. The New York Times is reporting this morning that the technology giant is selling off the company to The Infatuation, a review site founded nine years back by former music execs. The company had been rumored to […]

Apple should definitely avoid throwing stones as its glass houses have been causing some problems of late. The lights inside the new Apple Store in Chicago were attracting birds to fly into the large glass windows. And it seems humans aren’t immune to that crystal clear glass either. Employees at Apple Park have been walking […]

RedDoorz, a budget hotel startup focused on Southeast Asia, has closed $11 million in new funding to expand its presence. The three-year-old startup is a number offers a network of hotels that are grouped together under a single brand. The goal is a happy combination that marries the ubiquity of (typically) unorganized local guesthouse-style rooms […]

Recently launched out of beta, U.K. startup Shape wants to create a more educational trading experience for a new generation of traders, including those who might be concerned with the ethical standards of the sectors or companies they back. The Shape iOS app assumes no or very little prior trading knowledge, and provides easy-to-follow information […]

Waze’s carpooling app for commuters is relaunching with a number of new features designed to make it easier and safer to use. The company says it will now allow people to choose their shared rides, instead of being matched blindly. That means riders will be able to pick drivers based on things like star ratings, mutual […]

A year after announcing a partnership with Caliburger, Miso Robotics’ resident chef has finally graduated Hamburger University. The AI-enabled line cook starts today, joining the the human crew at the fast casual restaurant’s Pasadena location during the lunch shift. The deal has been in the works for some time, with plans to bring the robot […]

Virtru co-founder Will Ackerly developed the company’s underlying encryption technology while he was working as an engineer at the NSA, so it’s fair to say he knows a thing or two about the subject. The company has been delivering encryption products for email and files in transit for several years now, mainly through a partnership […]

Eric Paley Contributor Eric Paley is a managing partner at Founder Collective. More posts by this contributor: The plague of rationalization Learning to embrace conflict as a part of startup culture I’ve written a lot about the benefits of efficient entrepreneurship. I’ve explained my view conceptually, tried to illustrate the mechanics of how excess capital kills promising […]