Crunch Hype

Apple today announced that it would follow moves by other major tech firms by canceling the in-person element of its annual World Wide Developers Conference in June. Rather than holding the big event in San Jose as it has in recent years, the company will move to an online-only format. “We are delivering WWDC 2020 […]

Because of the current state of the global coronavirus pandemic, Airbnb has announced updates to its policies that provide reservation cancellations without charge for stays booked in specific areas. Guests who booked reservations through Airbnb in Mainland China, South Korea, Italy and the United States are now eligible to cancel their stays without incurring any […]

The 36th annual Space Symposium event, which was set to take place between March 30 and April 2 this year, has officially been postponed in light of the current coronavirus pandemic. There isn’t a timetable for rescheduling the event, and organizers at the Space Foundation says it’s working with its stakeholders on future dates and […]

The JEDI contract award process might never be done. Following legal challenges from Amazon after the Pentagon’s massive, $10 billion cloud contract was awarded to Microsoft in October, the Pentagon indicated in court documents last night that it wishes to reconsider the award. It’s just the latest plot twist in an epic government procurement saga. […]

As COVID-19 continues to change how many workers and students approach their daily labors, demand for some remote work friendly products is booming.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency approval for use of a new test that can increase the rate of testing patients by up to 10 times compared to methods in use currently, Bloomberg reports. That speed improvement refers specifically to the technical capabilities of the testing process, meaning access to testing is […]

As America’s fractured Congress inches closer to an agreement on a comprehensive bailout for the economic hardships businesses and workers are facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, stocks are poised for a big rally on Wall Street. The move is more than welcome after stock markets yesterday recorded their worst day in over 30 years. All […]

In Asia, where I work as a partner at an early-stage VC, startups are regularly rolling out a minimum viable product (MVP) and then transacting on messaging apps.

Princess Cruises, the cruise liner forced to halt its global operations after two of its ships confirmed on-board outbreaks of coronavirus, has now confirmed a data breach. The notice posted on its website, believed to have been posted in early March, said the company detected unauthorized access to a number of its email accounts over […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Today was something a bit special. We’d originally hoped to have this episode in person, as a group, but the world isn’t flying as much right now so we had to make do. Regardless, please say hello and […]

May is traditionally a month of big developer conferences, with Facebook F8, Google I/O and Microsoft Build often happening within the same two-week period. But not this year. After F8 and I/O were already canceled in favor of online events, Microsoft is now unsurprisingly following suit, too, and canceling the in-person element of Build, which […]

Pressure from the global pandemic has broadband companies loosening the arbitrary restrictions on the connections users pay for — and this may be the beginning of the end for the data caps we've lived in fear of for 20 years. Here's why

Epic Games announced today that it’s buying Cubic Motion, a computer vision startup that’s been building out a platform for capturing more realistic facial animations with a complex camera rig and software platform. The game studio behind Fortnite and the Unreal Engine has already done plenty of work with the UK-based startup, creating a number of […]

Amazon issued guidance Thursday in response to the COVID-19 outbreak recommending that global employees who are able to work from home to do so through the end of March. “We continue to work closely with public and private medical experts to ensure we are taking the right precautions as the situation continues to evolve,” an […]

Google said on Thursday that an employee at its office in Bangalore, India has tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus and the firm has asked all the other employees in that office to work from home on Friday out of abundance of caution. “We can confirm that an employee from our Bangalore office has been […]

While you’ve probably spent a lot of today thinking about the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s worth remembering that other health issues aren’t going away — and that heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States. Heartbeat Health is a startup working to improve the way that cardiovascular care is delivered, and it […]

With tech companies wise to many of the tactics that Russia’s now-infamous troll farms used to seed disinformation during the 2016 election, those campaigns are getting creative. According to a pair of reports out from Facebook and Twitter, a disinformation campaign run by individuals with links to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) is back and […]

No surprise, really, that 5G smartphone sales are on the way up. Frankly, there’s really no other way to go, according to the latest numbers from NPD’s Mobile Phone Tracking. The firm noted that 5G handsets accounted for less than 1% of total sales in the U.S. The hurdles are also what you’d expect: namely, […]

If there’s one thing certain during a pandemic, it’s that hackers will use it for their own gain. Don’t be too surprised. Every time there’s a major news story, a world event or even regular national events like tax preparation season, hackers jump at the chance to take advantage of the uptick in chatter to […]

Stay with me here. As we enter the full throes of coronavirus spread in the US, it’s becoming incredibly evident that we cannot depend on the Federal apparatus to clearly communicate any of the necessary information citizens need. From the CDC removing exact testing numbers from its site to the President saying it would just […]

Verizon said Thursday it will boost investment in network infrastructure, increasing its capital guidance by $500 million, to prepare for the rise in telecommuting and online learning amid the coronavirus outbreak. Verizon has not seen any measurable increases in data usage, even as some business, schools and other organizations are asking its employees to work […]

Censorship takes many forms, but even the most restrictive countries can’t block every single path for information they’d rather not get in (or out). Reporters Without Borders has identified a surprising new platform for hosting banned content: Minecraft. The organization, collaborating with reporters, Minecraft pros and, of course, a creative agency, has produced an enormous […]

Well, that was terrible. During the day’s wild trading session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped by just under 10% in what was the largest single-day percentage decline since the stock market crash in 1987 (when markets were sufficiently scarred to institute failsafe measures for the future, to prevent similar, shocking declines). Investors shrugged […]

Yext says that in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s making its Yext Answers site search product free for 90 days. You might not see an obvious connection between site search and a worldwide pandemic. You might even think this sounds like a marketing gimmick. But Yext CEO Howard Lerman said that for the past […]

Are you working from home? Are you lonely? Do you miss human interaction? Did you finally get your home office setup looking good? Then join us today for our first ever (and possibly last) TechCrunch-Equity Livestream-Hangout Extravaganza. From Team Equity we’ll have Danny Crichton, Alex Wilhelm, new addition Natasha Mascarenhas, our producer Chris Gates, TechCrunch […]

The coronavirus pandemic has left governments floundering, businesses unprepared and citizens scrambling for hand sanitizer like it’s worth its weight in gold. The sense of general unpreparedness has a lot of people on edge. Not surprising, since we’re on the edge of a global health emergency and it’s impossible to predict exactly how government, travel […]

Bollinger Motors, the Michigan-based startup known for its rugged electric SUV and pickup truck, unveiled Thursday a chassis designed for a Class 3 commercial vehicle that has the potential to expand its customer base. The move reflects a broader trend among EV startups to at least consider commercial applications for its vehicles in an effort […]

For the second time this week trading on the New York Stock Exchange halted for 15 minutes this morning when a market drop triggered the exchange’s internal circuit breaker, shortly after 9:30am. The control, part of the NYSE’s automatic provisions to pause trading, has been put to the test since markets first began realizing the […]

GitHub today announced new features for GitHub Classroom, its collection of tools for helping computer science teachers assign and evaluate coding exercises, as well as a new set of free tools for teachers. The first of these is autograding, which does exactly what the name promises. Teachers can now add tests to their workflows that […]

We’ve got a barrage of news related to the COVID-19 pandemic, while Comscore partners with Twitch and the ACLU sues over facial recognition in airports. Here’s your Daily Crunch for March 12, 2020. 1. US institutes 30-day travel ban on Europe, taps SBA and tax deferrals to stimulate the economy Let’s see if I can […]

With the White House’s surprise decision to bar foreign nationals from Europe from entering the United States, the already battered airline industry is facing yet another challenge. Unsurprisingly, we are now seeing even more cancellations across the industry as even U.S. citizen and legal permanent residents can now only enter the United States through 11 […]

Fintech startup Revolut has introduced a new trading feature for premium users. Starting today, Premium and Metal users can access gold exposure from the app. Revolut works with a gold services partner (London Bullion Market Association) so that money that you spend on gold exposure is backed by real gold held by this partner. In […]

A few months ago, Atlassian acquired Code Barrel, the Sydney-based company behind the popular Automation for Jira low-code tool for — you guessed it — automating many aspects of Jira. Unsurprisingly, Atlassian then set out to integrate many of these features into the core Jira experience and today, the company is launching these new built-in […]

Hopefully, this list will help you and your company stay out of startup purgatory.

Amazon today rolled out an Alexa-enabled voice-powered shopping feature in India as the e-commerce giant looks for new ways to engage with customers in one of its key overseas markets. The American giant said the feature, currently rolling out to Android users, is available “primarily in English,” though it understands proper nouns and regional words […]

Citing sensitivities to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, dating app Tinder is canceling the international release of its apocalyptic-themed, in-app video series, “Swipe Night.” The company had planned to release the first season of the show to 10 new markets across Europe and Asia this quarter, in light of its recent success in boosting key app […]

"At this earliest stage, we’re investing on conviction, which is built by our sector-focused teams and our long-standing industry expertise."

A leading civil liberties group is suing Homeland Security, claiming the agency is keeping the details of its airport face recognition program secret, which it says raises “profound civil liberties concerns.” The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit in a New York federal court on Thursday, demanding that the agency turns over records to […]

Measurement firm Comscore announced this morning a partnership with Amazon-owned game streaming site, Twitch. The deal will see Comscore measuring video streaming activity across Twitch, including gaming and esports, as well as other audience viewing metrics. This will allow advertisers to get a better understanding of video viewing behavior on Twitch, which helps them in […]

Before leaving SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza in November 2018, co-founder Julia Collins knew what her next move would be: climate-friendly food. Today, Collins is announcing Planet FWD’s $2.7 million seed round led by BBG Ventures with participation from Cleo Capital, Cowboy Ventures, Precursor Ventures, Kapor Capital and others. What’s unique about this round, Collins told TechCrunch, […]

Toys are better now. There, I said it. Don’t get me wrong, I treasure the tub of action figures gathering decades of dust in my parents’ attic, but get a load of this Super Mario Lego play set. I would have happily used up all the nights of Hanukkah on the thing. Caveats: I haven’t […]

Bitcoin is going through a remarkably bad day. It turns out all assets are having a rough month — including cryptocurrencies. A couple of hours ago, the average price of BTC dropped by 15% in just 20 minutes. On CoinGecko, 1 BTC was worth around $7,250 across different exchanges at 10:30 AM GMT. At 10:50 […]

Far from replacing humans, Artificial Intelligence is actually coming to the aid of a very old profession that has fallen out of fashion to such an extent that people are increasingly not joining it. I speak of the rarified world of the Actuary. Actuaries deal with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty using […]

Vault, an at-home healthcare practice specializing men’s medicine has announced the raise of $30 million in funding from Tiger Capital Group, Declaration Capital and Redesign Health to reach more potential patients and expand to more areas beyond New York, Florida, Tennessee and Texas, where it currently offers treatments. Founder and CEO Jason Feldman, who formerly […]

Blade, the French startup behind Shadow, announced plans to overhaul its subscription tiers back in October. The company is now bringing the new plans to the U.S. with a new entry tier at $11.99 per month as well as more powerful options in the coming months. Shadow is a cloud computing service for gamers. For […]

Ecosia, a not-for-profit search engine which uses ad generated revenue to fund planting trees, is set to get a visibility boost in Chrome. A change Google is making to its chromium engine will see it added as a default search engine choice in up to 47 markets for the version 81 release of Google’s web […]

Unitary, a startup that’s developing AI to automate content moderation for “harmful content” so that humans don’t have to, has picked up £1.35 million in funding. The company is still in development mode but launched a trial of its technology in September. Led by Rocket Internet’s GFC, the seed round also includes backing from Jane […]

American stock markets plunged on Wednesday, after the World Health Organization officially declared the spread of COVID-19 a pandemic. In Asia, meanwhile, almost all the major stock indexes were also trading lower the morning after the WHO’s announcement, with the Asia Dow Index down 4% by midday. Morning trading in East Asian markets was ongoing […]

After “strongly encouraging” it earlier this month, Twitter said today that working from home is now mandatory for all employees around the world due to COVID-19 concerns. In announcement, the company said “we understand this is an unprecedented step, but these are unprecedented times.” The World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic yesterday. There […]

In a Wednesday evening address from the Oval Office, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would issue a thirty-day travel ban for travel from the European Union, a ban that would exclude the United Kingdom and has a number of notable exceptions. He is also looking to Congress, the Small Business Administration and the […]