Crunch Hype

Here’s one those “why didn’t they do this sooner” deals. HP just announced at CES that it will be the first PC company to integrate Tile’s tracking technology directly into its laptops. The company’s Elite Dragonfly line will be the first get the technology, with a model dropping some point during Q1 of this year. […]

China-based electric car startup Byton might be best known for its massive 48-inch wraparound digital dashboard screen in its upcoming M-Byte SUV as well as a host of other screens sprinkled throughout the vehicle. Those screens might get all the attention, but they are merely the delivery mechanism or “stage” for what Byton hopes will […]

Byton is starting to amass key partners such as global media giant ViacomCBS to bring video content as well as information and other services to the eye-popping 48-inch wraparound digital dashboard screen in its upcoming electric M-Byte SUV. The China-based electric car startup is calling its dashboard screen the “Byton Stage” and the plan to […]

Look around: what is happening? Australia, AI, Ghosn, Google, Suleimani, Starlink, Trump, TikTok. The world is an eruptive flux of frequently toxic emergent behavior, and every unexpected event is laced with subtle interconnected nuances. Stephen Hawking predicted this would be “the century of complexity.” He was talking about theoretical physics, but he was dead right […]

A few days before Christmas, TechCrunch caught up with CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to chat about his company’s public offering, direct listings and his expectations for the 2020 IPO market. We also spoke about CrowdStrike’s product niche — endpoint security — and a bit more on why he views his company as the Salesforce of […]

"No one knows the formula for virality. It’s not possible. If someone knew it, they’d do it again and again. There’s an element of luck and creativity and some spark."

Keep Labs won an Innovation Award Honoree award for CES 2020 but is banned from saying the word “cannabis” on the CES show floor. Weeks later, the CTA, the trade group behind CES, told Keep Labs it could only exhibit if the company’s signage, marketing materials, and the product is free from cannabis product and […]

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. This week, TikTok, currently the world’s hottest social media app, welcomed the new decade by publishing its first transparency report as it encounters rising scrutiny from […]

Hey everyone, happy 2020. Welcome back to Week in Review where I dive deep into a bit of news from the week or just share some thoughts and go over some of the more interesting stories of the week. If you’re reading this on the TechCrunch site, you can get this in your inbox here, […]

The Saturday night before CES seems like a less than ideal time to drop some big smartphone news — but it appears Samsung’s hand was forced on this one. Granted, the smartphone giant has never been great about keeping big news under wraps, but this morning’s early release of a promo video through its official […]

Over the past year, startup banks have proven that they have a shot at disrupting retail banking. These challengers have amassed a war chest of funding, announced some ambitious international expansion plans and attracted millions of customers. And yet, building a bank has proven to be even harder than building a startup in general. Retail […]

Sometimes, in venture capital, it pays to specialize. The latest indicator is a Kansas City, Mo.-based venture firm that’s focused on seed-stage startups that are based anywhere from “Park City to Kansas City.” According to an SEC filing, it just closed on $16.4 million in capital commitments. It’s the third fund for the outfit, Royal […]

Odds are Samsung didn’t plan to leak news about its upcoming handsets the weekend before CES. But honestly, who knows at this point? A little early publicity never hurt. This one comes courtesy of a teaser video that got teased a little earlier than planned by way of the company’s official Vimeo channel. The leak […]

It’s no secret that I hate predictions — not least because the security field changes rapidly, making it difficult to know what’s next. But given what we know about the past year, we can make some best-guesses at what’s to come. Ransomware will get worse, and local governments will feel the heat File-encrypting malware that […]

Bharatiya Janata Party, the ruling party in India, has been accused of running a highly deceptive Twitter campaign to trick citizens into supporting a controversial law. First, some background: The Indian government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) last month that eases the path of non-Muslim minorities from the neighboring Muslim-majority nations of Afghanistan, Bangladesh […]

After years of speculation and hype, major players in Hollywood and Silicon Valley are getting ready to challenge Netflix . It’s only been a few months since Apple launched TV+, followed quickly by Disney launching Disney+. And there’s more to come this year, with AT&T-owned WarnerMedia preparing to release HBO Max, while NBCUniversal does the […]

In this week's newsletter: India's growing pains, Brazil's latest venture funding and how to pitch journalists.

TypingDNA, a four-year-old, 18-person startup that was founded in Bucharest, Romania and more recently moved its headquarters to Brooklyn, New York, has closed on $7 million in Series A funding for something interesting: AI-driven technology that it says can recognize people based on the way they type, both on their laptops and mobile devices. We […]

One Medical, a San Francisco-based primary care startup with tech-infused, concierge services filed for an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission today. Internal medicine doctor Tom Lee founded the startup, now valued at well-over $1 billion dollars, in 2007. Lee exited his company in 2017, leaving it in the hands of former UnitedHealth group […]

It’s the second most wonderful time of the year. As the rest of the world returns to work, nursing a week-long New Year’s hangover, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tech journalists will descend upon Sin City to discover the biggest news the tech world has to offer. CES is about more than just product announcements, however. Granted, […]

Adobe CTO Abhay Parasnis sees a shift happening. A shift in how people share content and who wants to use creative tools. A shift in how users expect these tools to work — especially how much time they take to learn and how quickly they get things done. I spoke with Parasnis in December to […]

The world’s forests are ablaze, under threat from illegal logging and disappearing due to the less dramatic environmental degradation wrought by drought and other signs of climate change. It’s part of the negative feedback loop that seems to be accelerating climate change as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, but one startup company is trying […]

Space attracts a lot of attention as an area of frontier tech investment and entrepreneurship, but there’s another vast expanse that could actually be more addressable by the innovation economy — Earth’s oceans. Seafaring startups aren’t attracting quite as much attention as their spacefaring cousins, but 2019 still saw a flurry of activity in this […]

A few years ago, covering browsers got boring. Chrome had clearly won the desktop, the great JavaScript speed wars were over and Mozilla seemed more interested in building a mobile operating system than its browser. Microsoft tried its best to rescue Internet Explorer/Edge from being the punchline of nerdy jokes, but its efforts essentially failed. […]

Pitch the wrong reporter or publication, and your story won’t see the light of day. Before you start seeking press, you’ll need to look for reporters who have reach, respect and expertise when you choose who to talk to. You’ll also need to be prepared to accept the truth about your business, even if it […]

Nearly a year after stepping down as chief executive of HBO, Richard Plepler and his production company Eden Productions have signed a five-year deal with Apple TV+. Plepler started at HBO back in 1993 and became CEO in 2013. During his time in that role, HBO had continued success with shows new (“True Detective” and […]

Every time I’ve seen Qoobo’s creator, Shunsuke Aoki, in person, he’s always had it nearby, usually in a tote bag. The robotic cat pillow is one of the all-time great conversation starters. It doesn’t make much sense at first glance: a round, fur-covered pillow that wags as you pet it. But in a country with […]

Trussle, the online mortgage broker backed by the likes of Goldman Sachs, LocalGlobe, Finch Capital and Seedcamp, has lost its founding CEO. Ishaan Malhi, who co-founded the fintech startup five years ago, has resigned with “immediate effect,” according to a rather brief press release issued by Trussle this morning. The company is now searching for […]

After acquiring Ukraine startup Looksery in 2015 to supercharge animated selfie lenses in Snapchat — arguably changing the filters game for all social video and photo apps — Snap has made another acquisition with roots in the country, co-founded by one of Looksery’s founders, to give a big boost to its video capabilities. The company […]

Indian tech startups secured nearly $14 billion in 2019, more than they have raised in any other year. This is a major rebound since 2016, when startups in the nation had bagged just $4.3 billion. But even as more VC funds — many with bigger checks — arrive in India, the financial performance of startups […]

According to newly released third-party data, TikTok has reason to dance. The famous short-video application saw its in-app purchase revenue rise 310% on a year-over-year basis, according to Apptopia, a startup that tracks mobile app revenue and usage. (The Boston-based startup has raised $8.2 million to date and competes with AppAnnie.) TikTok’s revenue gains are impressive […]

Lenovo sells pricey ThinkSmart Hub conferencing devices. It also sells far less expensive smart displays. Next week at CES it will announce that it will be crossing the streams on the two distinct product lines with the arrival of the ThinkSmart View. The device looks to essentially be a Google Assistant-style smart display, repurposed for […]

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between. Today we’re taking a quick glance at the venture-backed insurance space. On the heels of ARR milestones set by the well-capitalized Lemonade, another startup in the space, Clearcover, announced a new funding round this week. […]

Tesla said Friday that it delivered 367,500 electric vehicles in 2019 — 50% more than the previous year — a record-breaking figure largely supported by sales of the cheaper Model 3. More than one-third of those deliveries — about 112,000 vehicles — occurred in the fourth quarter. The electric automaker reported production also grew 10% […]

Seems Samsung couldn’t wait a few more days for CES to arrive. The hardware giant this morning just announced the launch of “Lite” versions of its popular handsets, designed to bring key features from the Galaxy S10 and Note 10, without breaking the bank. The devices are a clear response to a sea change in […]

Segway has unveiled a self-balancing vehicle that can go up to 24 mph. Called the S-Pod, it’s designed for sitting while navigating enclosed campuses. Details on how to actually use the vehicle are scarce, but Segway says the “S-Pod uses an adaptive center-of-gravity automatic control system to enable the passenger to easily adjust the speed […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Kate and Alex and the ever-intrepid man behind the dials, Chris, took the time this week to dig into the two biggest stories from the end of 2019 and look into the future. But as you’ll quickly […]

TikTok parent company ByteDance has built technology to let you insert your face into videos starring someone else. TechCrunch has learned that ByteDance has developed an unreleased feature using life-like Deepfakes technology that the app’s code refers to as Face Swap. Code in both TikTok and its Chinese sister app Douyin asks users to take […]

Apple’s cancellation of its AirPower wireless charging mat was one of the company’s few big public flubs, but the concept behind the cancelled product remains attractive: A wireless charging pad that supports multiple devices, and that isn’t picky about how you set down your device in order to make a connection. Wireless charging accessory maker […]

Loft may have better product market fit in Brazil than Opendoor does in the U.S.. And now the São Paulo-based property tech company has growth funding to prove it. Andreessen Horowitz is doubling down on its first Brazil investment with Loft, a two-year-old real estate marketplace. The $175 million Series C was co-led by Vulcan […]

Samsung Electronics announced today that it shipped more than 6.7 million Galaxy 5G smartphones in 2019, surpassing expectations set by the company earlier. In September, Samsung Electronics vice president JuneHee Lee suggested that more than two million Samsung 5G smartphones had already been sold during remarks at IFA, and that the company expected to double […]

In his recently published book “Astounding,” the author Alec Nevala-Lee brings American science fiction’s Golden Age back into focus by following four key figures: John W. Campbell, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard — and Isaac Asimov, who officially turned 100 today (his exact birth date was unknown). Nevala-Lee’s warts-and-all portrait paints Asimov — known […]

If you know nothing else about particle accelerators, you probably know that they're big — sometimes miles long. But a new approach from Stanford researchers has led to an accelerator shorter from end to end than a human hair is wide.

Tech reporters’ inboxes are filled with garbage pitches from misguided founders who assume that the smallest milestone warrants a write-up. Founders dream of seeing their company’s name in headlines without knowing how that might help or hurt them. But with the proper intentions, strategy and timing, they can score press that makes their imagined future […]

If 2018 was when the industry was shocked into sobriety, 2019 would be a year when pragmatism and the challenges of trying to develop and scale a technology got a lot more real. The upshot: the industry is in the midst of its adolescent years, where change can occur suddenly, causing confusion and awkward encounters. It’s a […]

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. The California Consumer Privacy Act officially takes effect The CCPA is now officially the law in California, although there’s a grace […]

Travelex, a major international foreign currency exchange, has confirmed it has suspended some services after it was hit by malware on December 31. The London-based company, which operates more than 1,500 stores globally, said it took systems offline “as a precautionary measure in order to protect data” and to stop the spread of the malware. […]

Mobility mavericks, get ready to strut your stuff at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 on May 14. Don’t miss our second annual day-long conference devoted to technologies that move people and parcels around the world in new, exciting ways. More than 1,000 of the industry’s mightiest minds, makers, innovators and investors will converge in San Jose […]

The first deliveries of Tesla Model 3 sedans made in China will begin January 7, one year after the U.S. automaker began construction on its first factory outside the United States. The deliveries to customers — which Reuters was first to report based on confirmation from a Tesla representative — is a milestone for Tesla […]

CES is a magical place full of gizmos, gadgets and communicable diseases. TechCrunch is hosting another pitch-off event this year. Called Pitch Night, select early-stage companies will take the stage and have 60 seconds to present their wares to TechCrunch editorial and industry experts. This event is free. Obtain a ticket here. Want to pitch […]