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Jon Evans Contributor Jon Evans is the CTO of the engineering consultancy HappyFunCorp; the award-winning author of six novels, one graphic novel, and a book of travel writing; and TechCrunch's weekend columnist since 2010. More posts by this contributor Why are people who cite videos always wrong? Seven viral futures Not long ago we lived […]

The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every Saturday in your inbox. Hi and welcome back to The Station. Memorial Day is this coming Monday, a holiday meant to honor military personnel who died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. […]

A renowned iPhone hacking team has released a new “jailbreak” tool that unlocks every iPhone, even the most recent models running the latest iOS 13.5. For as long as Apple has kept up its “walled garden” approach to iPhones by only allowing apps and customizations that it approves, hackers have tried to break free from […]

The rationale behind the deluge of dollars flooding into billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio Platforms is beginning to become more clear as his e-commerce venture JioMart starts rolling out to more people across India. An e-commerce venture between the nation’s top telecom operator Jio Platforms and top retail chain Jio Retail, JioMart just launched its […]

In the days and weeks after Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the cybertruck — a post-apocalyptic inspired vehicle made of cold-rolled steel — there was a lot of speculation about whether it would be smaller once it actually made it to market. Production of the Cybertruck is still a long ways off. There isn’t even […]

Conservative members of the United Kingdom’s government have pushed Prime Minister Boris Johnson to draw up plans to remove telecom equipment made by the Chinese manufacturer Huawei from the nation’s 5G networks by 2023, according to multiple reports. The decision by Johnson, who wanted Huawei’s market share in the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure capped at 35 […]

Virgin Orbit held a press briefing on Saturday hosted by CEO Dan Hart and VP of Special Projects Will Pomerantz. The company aims to fly its first ever orbital test launch on Sunday, at roughly 9:30 AM PT (12:30 PM ET), though there’s flexibility for that to move depending on preparations and weather. If it […]

In many ways, Netflix’s new “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” special “Kimmy vs. the Reverend” is a delight. For fans of the show, it’s a chance to catch up with Kimmy (Ellie Kemper), Titus (Titus Burgess) and all their other friends/nemeses on the eve of Kimmy’s wedding to Prince Frederick (Daniel Radcliffe). Creators Robert Carlock and Tina […]

Remember when the top investors and companies in tech were reacting to SoftBank's every move? These days, we are picking through the latest results from the Japanese conglomerate and its Vision Fund to see how things went wrong, and where it is still succeeding with its startup portfolio.

We continue to look at how the pandemic is impacting the world of mobile apps. Notably, we saw the launch of the Apple/Google exposure notification API with the latest version of iOS.

The global pandemic has cast a light on decades of cumulative efforts to manipulate and suppress voters, showing that the country is completely unprepared for any serious challenge to its elections system. There can be no more excuses: Every state must implement voting by mail in 2020 or be prepared to admit it is deliberately […]

Nearly a year ago, Todd Howard, the director of Bethesda Games, said that the company’s “Fallout Shelter” game would be coming to Tesla displays. It arrived, via the 2020.20 software update, this week, which was first noted at driver’s platform Teslascope. Fallout Shelter is the latest — and one of the more modern games — […]

An eighth Amazon employee has died of COVID-19. The news comes as the company is under scrutiny for failing to be more transparent about the wider number of infections among its warehouse workers. A spokesperson confirmed the reports of the death, telling TechCrunch, “We are saddened by the loss of an associate who had worked […]

SaaS stocks are at it again, and I think I’ve got it figured it out. More precisely I think I’ve figured out what other people think is going on. After rigorous fact-checking by both reading tweets, making VCs talk to me on the phone, and chatting with the CEO of a $27 billion cloud company […]

Organizers of the New York International Auto Show, once hoping to hold the rescheduled event in August, have decided to scrap the entire year. The show has been officially canceled for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers announced Friday. The next show will take place April 2 to April 11, 2021. Press days will […]

The debate over device encryption isn’t dead, it was merely resting. And it just won’t go away.

Working from home isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and a slew of companies just announced longer-term initiatives to make their remote work practices either extend or permanent. That means for some it’s the perfect time to take their at-home videoconferencing setup even further, so we’re going to take a closer look at various core elements […]

High-quality data is the fuel that powers AI algorithms. Without a continual flow of labeled data, bottlenecks can occur and the algorithm will slowly get worse and add risk to the system. It’s why labeled data is so critical for companies like Zoox, Cruise and Waymo, which use it to train machine learning models to […]

Another tech company is joining the list of those planning on going remote for the long haul: Box . Box CEO Aaron Levie announced this morning that the company will “remain a digital-first organization” moving forward. While it sounds like they’re still working out exactly what that entails, one key aspect is that Box employees […]

The lead data regulator for much of big tech in Europe is moving inexorably towards issuing its first major cross-border GDPR decision — saying today it’s submitted a draft decision related to Twitter’s business to its fellow EU watchdogs for review. “The draft decision focusses on whether Twitter International Company has complied with Articles 33(1) […]

Minecraft is one of the most popular games on the planet, so it’s natural that Microsoft, after buying creator Mojang some years back, would attempt to apply the genre’s playful, blocky aesthetic to other genres. After modest success with the Story Mode adventure game and Pokémon GO-like Minecraft Earth, they’ve tried their hand at a […]

The global pandemic has halted travel, shunted schools online and shut down many cities, but the future of college-town America is an area of deep concern for the startup world. College towns have done exceedingly well with the rise of the knowledge economy and concentrating students and talent in dense social webs. That confluence of […]

SpaceX has received approval on its mission to launch NASA astronauts for the first time ever on May 27, having passed a key Flight Readiness Review (FRR) conducted by the agency to ensure everything is go for launch. This final stretch check, conducted over the past few days after the Crew Dragon spacecraft was mounted […]

You read that right. The big announcement came yesterday — TechCrunch Disrupt is now fully virtual. What does this mean for Startup Battlefield? More opportunity. The best companies from across the globe, an even bigger launch platform, the eyes of more investors from around the world and press exposure at the biggest conference TechCrunch has […]

Tuca & Bertie was wonderful. It was a hilarious and heartfelt examination of adult relationships, coupled with whimsical animated visuals. And like most good things in this world, it was simply too beautiful to live. The Netflix series, which starred comedians Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong as two mismatched bird best friends was canceled after […]

Steve Case and Clara Sieg of Revolution recently spoke on TechCrunch’s new series, Extra Crunch Live. Throughout the hour-long chat, we touched on numerous subjects, including how diverse founders can take advantage during this downturn and how remote work may lead to growth outside Silicon Valley. The two have a unique vantage point, with Steve […]

Thriva emerged in 2016 as an at-home blood-testing startup allowing people to check, for instance, cholesterol levels. In the era of a pandemic, however, at-home blood testing is about to become quite a big deal, alongside the general trend toward people proactively taking control of their health. It has secured a £4 million extension to […]

Facebook takes more steps to support and expand a remote workforce, IBM announces layoffs and TechCrunch’s big annual conference is going virtual. (I know, I know — I have mixed feelings about it, too.) Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 22, 2020. 1. Facebook makes big remote work moves with plan for new hubs in […]

The next few quarters will be the most challenging time that many founders have experienced. More so than ever, survival is not a given.

IBM confirmed reports from overnight that it is conducting layoffs, but wouldn’t provide details related to location, departments or number of employees involved. The company framed it in terms of replacing people with more needed skills as it tries to regroup under new CEO Arvind Krishna. “IBM’s work in a highly competitive marketplace requires flexibility […]

Apple is facing fresh questions from its lead data protection regulator in Europe following a public complaint by a former contractor who revealed last year that workers doing quality grading for Siri were routinely overhearing sensitive user data. Earlier this week the former Apple contractor, Thomas le Bonniec, sent a letter to European regulators laying […]

Statespace has today raised a $15 million Series A financing round led by Khosla, with partner Samir Kaul joining the board. Existing investors, such as FirstMark Capital, Lux and Expa, also participated in the round, as well as newcomer June Fund. Statespace launched out of stealth in 2017 with a product called Aim Lab, which […]

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. A cluster of related companies recently caught our eye by raising capital in rapid-fire fashion. TechCrunch covered a few of them, and I read coverage of others. Looking back through my notes and the media […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. First, a big thanks to everyone who took part in the Equity survey, we really appreciated your notes and thoughts. The crew is chewing over what you said, and we’ll roll up the best feedback into show tweaks […]

There are a number of different technologies both proposed and in development to help smooth the reopening of parts of the economy even as the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic continues. One such tech solution launching today comes from Brian McClendon, co-founder of Keyhole, the company that Google purchased in 2004 that would form the […]

Cake has crafted the Swedish edition of electric motorcycle design starting in the dirt. The Stockholm-based mobility startup’s debut, the Kalk OR, is a 150-pound, battery-powered two-wheeler engineered for agile off-road riding and available in a street-legal version. In appearance, Cake’s Kalk has a minimalist stance and doesn’t evoke “motorcycle” in any conventional sense. That […]

Xiaomi, the Chinese comapny famous for its budget smartphones and a bevy of value-for-money gadgets, said in a filing on Thursday that it has backed more than 300 companies as of March, totaling 32.3 billion yuan ($4.54 billion) in book value and 225.9 million yuan ($32 million) in net gains on disposal of investments in […]

M17 Entertainment announced today that it has sold its online dating assets to focus on its core live-streaming business in Asia and other markets. Paktor Pte, which operates Paktor dating app and other services, was acquired by Kollective Ventures, a venture capital advisory firm. The value of the deal was undisclosed. In its announcement, Taipei-based […]

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio Platforms has agreed to sell 2.32% stake to U.S. equity firm KKR in what is the fifth major deal the top Indian telecom operator has secured in just as many weeks. On Friday, KKR announced it will invest $1.5 billion in the top Indian telecom operator, a subsidiary of India’s […]

Google has announced a new, welcome and no doubt long-asked-for feature to its Maps app: wheelchair accessibility info. Businesses and points of interest featuring accessible entrances, bathrooms and other features will now be prominently marked as such. Millions, of course, require such accommodations as ramps or automatic doors, from people with limited mobility to people […]

Run The World, a year-old startup that’s based in Mountain View, Calif., and has small teams both in China and Taiwan, just nabbed $10.8 million in Series A funding co-led by earlier backer Andreessen Horowitz and new backer Founders Fund. It’s easy to understand the firms’ interest in the company, whose platform features every functionality […]

Magic Leap has reportedly received a $350 million lifeline, a month after slashing 1,000 jobs and dropping its consumer business. Noted by Business Insider and confirmed by The Information, CEO Rony Abovitz sent a note to staff announcing the funding, courtesy of unnamed current and new investors. The who — and more importantly, why — […]

We’ve been on a roll with our Extra Crunch Live Series for Extra Crunch members, where we’re talking to some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley about business, investment and the startup community. Recent interviews include Kirsten Green from Forerunner Ventures, Charles Hudson from Precursor Ventures and investor Mark Cuban. Next week, we’re pleased […]

Fitbit’s activity-tracking wearable devices are already being used by a number of academic institutions to determine if they might be able to contribute to the early detection of COVID-19 and the flu, and now Fitbit itself is launching its own dedicated Fitbit COVID-19 Study, which users can sign up for from within their Fitbit mobile […]

The headline says it all. TechCrunch’s big yearly event, Disrupt, is going fully virtual in 2020. As you can imagine, this is largely due to the impact that the coronavirus has had on the world. But it also gives us a chance to make our event even more accessible to more people than ever before, […]

In a live-streamed town hall, Mark Zuckerberg gave an overview for what he expects in the near future as Facebook pursues accommodations to keep workers productive and safe during the COVID-19 crisis. The move comes as large tech companies reassess the viability of their iconic Silicon Valley campuses, now empty as the pandemic keeps most […]

Like most of us, you’ve probably been stuck inside for months now. Sitting around, pacing your home, watching a lot of bad television. Would anything possibly be better than finally getting some time outdoors to commune with nature and catch a little ultra high-def television? Up to now, outdoor sets have largely been the realm […]

One of the biggest technology takeaways of the last couple of months has been that organizations need confident, wide-ranging digital strategies to stay afloat, and Facebook — in its wider bid to build products to serve businesses — is taking note. In the same week that the social network doubled down on business tools for […]

The novel coronavirus disease has reminded millions that handwashing is a great way to avoid preventable diseases. Christine Schindler, the CEO and co-founder of PathSpot, has been preparing for the past three months for the past three years. “I’ve been obsessed with handwashing,” Schindler said, who has a background in biomedical engineering and public health. […]

Twitter is giving users tools to avoid abusive or annoying replies, MakeSpace raises $55 million and Sphero gets a new CEO and a new spinoff. Here’s your Daily Crunch for May 21, 2020. 1. Twitter is testing a feature that limits who can reply to your tweets Users can pick from one of three options: […]