Crunch Hype

Fintech startup Bunq is announcing a handful of new features today, such as a way to track group expenses without creating a joint account, a web app and better Siri integration. If you usually track vacation expenses and group expenses from your phone, chances are you’ve been using two different products — a mobile app […]

It's hard to avoid spoilers on the internet these days — even if you're careful, a random tweet or recommended news item could lay to waste your plan to watch that season finale a day late or catch a movie after the crowds have subsided. But soon an AI agent may do the spoiler-spotting for you, and flag spoilerific reviews and content before you even have a chance to look.

AT&T’s acquisition of HBO goes beyond just offering premium TV programming — the company revealed on Tuesday that it’s going to call its new WarnerMedia streaming service HBO Max, and that this will launch next spring, with more than 10,000 hours of content available to subscribers. It’ll have Friends, dear readers, which is all that […]

We’ve known it was coming since late last year, but now it’s final: IBM has wrapped up its $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, completing what is one of the largest tech acquisitions of all time. IBM originally announced its intent to acquire the Linux developer in October of last year. The U.S. Department of […]

The Volkswagen Beetle is taking a bow, after its return and restyle in 2011 (and earlier rebirth in 1997 — the one with the built-in flower vase). The last of the most recent generation of Beetles has already come off the production line, and will be put on display at the Volkswagen museum in Puebla […]

Frederic Moll has to be one of the most successful inventors and entrepreneurs who is not yet a household name. Moll’s successes include the 22-year-old, publicly traded Intuitive Surgical, a robotic surgical systems manufacturer now worth around $61.4 billion, and Hansen Medical, a company that developed tools to manipulate catheters. Most recently, the serial medical device […]

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. New Instagram features flag potentially offensive comments, allow you to quietly ‘restrict’ users Instagram seems to be trying to find ways […]

Amazon revealed its ‘Project Kuiper’ plan to establish a constellation of broadband internet satellites in low-Earth orbit earlier this year, but now we know a bit more about the specifics of its plan thanks to an FCC filing first reported by Geekwire. The filing seeks permission from the U.S. communications regulator to launch a total […]

The Raspberry Pi 4 is a great little beast, but Tyler Ward identified a flaw in the USB Type-C connector. The Raspberry Pi Foundation confirmed to TechRepublic that the design flaw is real, and that your Raspberry Pi 4 might not work with all USB-C cables. It’s not really a dealbreaker, but you can expect […]

Netflix’s most recent season (serialized sequel might actually be more accurate) of Stranger Things is breaking records: The streaming company shared that 40.7 million accounts have been watching the show since it became available on the service on July 4. That’s more than any other Netflix show or movie in its first four days of […]

The legal battle between President Donald Trump and his reply guys and Twitter critics is entering a new phase now that a New York-based appeals court has ruled that the President can’t block them from viewing his Twitter feed, according to multiple outlets. That decision upholds a previous ruling that the President violated the First […]

Mobile marketing company AppLovin is announcing that it has acquired SafeDK. While AppLovin started out as a mobile ad business, it now bills itself as “a comprehensive mobile gaming platform,” offering tools for game developers around user acquisition, monetization, analytics and (through Lion Studios, launched last year) publishing. SafeDK, meanwhile, allows developers to manage all […]

Early-stage hardware startup founders, it’s your turn to step into the spotlight and launch your innovative inventions to the world’s top investors. We’re inviting you to apply to compete in our hardware-focused pitch competition, Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhen on November 11-12. You might even walk away with $25,000 and a whole new business trajectory. This is our […]

Nintendo’s latest mobile game is now available for iOS devices, a day before its official target launch date. The game is based on the Nintendo game created in 1990 for the NES and Game Boy, and re-released/re-made a bunch of times over the years for various Nintendo consoles. Dr. Mario World, the iOS game available […]

The U.K. data protection authority said it will serve hotel giant Marriott with a £99 million ($123M) fine for a data breach that exposed up to 383 million guests. Marriott revealed last year that its acquired Starwood properties had its central reservation database hacked, including five million unencrypted passport numbers and eight million credit card […]

CEO Merrill Brown says he founded The News Project to address one of the big problems in the journalism business: “It costs too much to launch and operate news sites.” It’s an issue that Brown knows well — he’s a former journalist, journalism executive and educator who served as the founding editor in chief of […]

Apple officially stopped selling the 12-inch MacBook today, a computer that hasn’t had an update since June 2017 and that is also maybe one of the most contentious Macs in Apple’s lineup. The 12-inch MacBook at one time seemed like Apple’s path forward (plenty of Apple fans and analysts saw it as a sign of […]

Extra Crunch offers members the opportunity to tune into conference calls led and moderated by the TechCrunch writers you read every day. TechCrunch’s Connie Loizos recently sat down with VC-turned-professional coach Jerry Colonna for a chat about founder mental health, his less than predictable career path and his new book Reboot: Leadership and the Art […]

BMW has finished a nearly two-year project to bring 100 electric vehicle charging stations to America’s national parks. The automaker partnered in 2017 with several U.S. agencies, including the National Park Foundation, National Park Service, and Department of Energy, to donate 100 electric vehicle charging stations in and near to national parks throughout the United […]

The all-electric Mini Cooper was once just a demonstration car and a dream for EV fans, but now it’s a car people will actually be able to buy, with truly competitive range and a ground-up purely electric drivetrain. The new Mini Cooper SE is the brand’s first purely electric small car, with a range of […]

You can get access to Uber’s controversial Quiet Ride button that lets you ask your driver for silence if you’ll pay a 20% to 40% premium atop the UberX price. Today the Uber Comfort tier launches in 43 cities and smaller states in the US plus Ottawa, offering those willing to pay the premium access […]

Building apps and tools on the web shouldn’t just be for the technically inclined. In the early days of the web, it was easy to make your MySpace account, for example, unique to your personal aesthetic. Glitch is doing that for the modern era. Glitch, formerly known as Fog Greek Software, is an online community […]

Facebook will take a cut of up to 30% on fan subscriptions, beginning on January 1, 2020. The social network is revealing its plans as part of a broader slate of monetization-related announcements this week at VidCon. The news confirms a TechCrunch report earlier this year that Facebook would be taking a 30% share of subscription […]

Apple just announced a handful of key updates to its most popular Mac devices, timed for back to school purchases. The entry-level MacBook Pro gets the biggest bump from the this update, bringing the TouchBar and TouchID do the low end model for the first time. The 13-inch system also gets the updated keyboards announced […]

Unmortgage, the London-based startup that lets you buy as little as 5% of a home and rent the rest, has announced a partnership with Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI) to create a new fund to be used to purchase properties offered via the platform. The AllianzGI-managed fund is targeting a size of £500 million, according to […]

Creating products aimed at smaller business users is a promising but challenging category in the area of enterprise software — they make up the vast majority of businesses today, but collectively are a fragmented customer base that is price sensitive and individually represents small ARPU. Today, a company that has found a way to tap […]

NiYo Solutions, a Bangalore-based ‘neo-bank’ that helps salaried employees and blue-collar workers access company benefits and other financial services, has raised $35 million in a new funding round to expand its business in the nation and explore international markets for some of its products. The four-year-old startup, which serves small and medium businesses and other […]

What started as an accident has turning into a venture firm with a global reach and backing from a some of the biggest corporations in the automotive and transportation industries. Maniv Mobility, the Israel-based venture capitalist firm, said Tuesday it has closed a new $100 million fund backed by 12 corporations, including the venture arms […]

Quip, maker of electric toothbrushes, is making use of its most recent acquisition to launch a dental insurance alternative to customers in New York City this summer. Called Quip Care, the service operates on the back of Afora, a dental insurance alternative startup Quip acquired last May. With Quip Care, the goal is to modernize […]

India ordered an investigation into Google’s alleged abuse of Android’s dominance in the country to hurt local rivals in April. A document made public by the local antitrust watchdog has now further revealed the nature of the allegations and identified the people who filed the complaint. Umar Javeed, Sukarma Thapar, two associates at Competition Commission of India […]

Staffbase, a mobile-first platform that enables employees to communicate, access work-related services and stay updated with company information, has raised $23 million in Series C funding. The investment is led by Insight Partners, with participation from existing investors e.ventures, Capnamic Ventures, and Kizoo Technology Capital. It brings total raised by Staffbase to $35 million since […]

Habito, the London startup that has spent the last three years dragging the mortgage process online, is to begin direct lending via its own range of mortgages. Starting with ‘buy to let’ mortgages, the move represents the first time the fintech startup has expanded beyond brokerage after it received regulatory approval to become a mortgage […]

The race to become the first publicly traded company dedicated to human spaceflight is over, and Virgin Galactic has won. The company will be listing its shares on the New York Stock Exchange through a minority acquisition made by Social Capital Hedosophia; the special purpose acquisition company created by former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya as […]

Spotify’s Lite app is now official. The app has been in beta since last year, and now Spotify is officially releasing it in 36 countries worldwide. The app is designed to work on patchy or weak internet connections and, at just 10MB, it is small enough to cater to lower-end devices that have limited storage […]

Global ride-hail startup InDriver launches its app-based service in Kampala (Uganda) this week. After going live in Nairobi in June—the online taxi company now operates in four African countries: Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, and Tanzania Founded in Russia and now headquartered in New York, InDriver’s mobile-app allows passengers to name their own fare for nearby […]

Tesla owners and customers hoping for a refreshed Model S or Model X are going to be waiting indefinitely. Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Monday night that there will be no “refreshed” Model X or Model S coming. In automotive speak, refreshed typically means small revisions to a vehicle model that extend beyond the typical […]

A vulnerability in the Mac client for popular web conferencing app Zoom may allow any website to join a video call without permission, writes software engineer and security researcher Jonathan Leitschuch. In a Medium post published today, Leitschuch detailed the vulnerability, writing that it may remain an issue even if users have uninstalled the Mac […]

Competing with a company that counts you as an investor is hardly conventional — some might call it strange — but for Uber it’s a situation that is not only normal but essential. That’s according to the ride-hailing giant’s CTO, Thuan Pham, who talked about the complicated rivalry Uber has with China’s Didi Chuxing, which […]

Amazon warehouse workers in Minnesota are planning to strike during Prime Day on July 15, one of the company’s biggest sales events. Bloomberg reports that about 100 employees are expected to walk out for a total of six hours to demand changes in labor practices, including converting more temporary workers to employees and relaxing productivity […]

Volkswagen and Autodesk teamed up to celebrate the 20th anniversary of one of the automaker’s biggest R&D facilities with an iconic vintage VW Microbus that looks retro on the outside but packs a ton of tech on the inside, including an electric powertrain and significant weight savings afforded through use of ‘generative design.’ That’s the […]

HQ Trivia’s troubles continue after a failed mutiny to oust the CEO, a 92% decline in downloads since versus a year ago, and layoffs of 20% of its staff last week. Now TechCrunch has learned HQ has failed to install a new CEO after months of searching. Meanwhile, users continue to complain about delays for […]

Just in time for tonight’s Home Run Derby, Major League Baseball is rolling out a new feature on its Ballpark app that utilizes Apple’s Business Chat feature for a customized in-person experience. MLB says it’s the first league to roll out the feature, letting users ask location-specific questions — though Apple Business Chat has been […]

SpaceX has been awarded a new contract by NASA to launch the agency’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE. This research spacecraft will study polarized light from sources including neutron stars, pulsar wind nebulae and supermassive black holes, and provide much more imaging than existing space-based observation resources. The mission will help scientists in the […]

Instagram announced two new features today that it said are designed to combat online bullying. In both cases, the Facebook -owned service seems to be trying to find ways to limit bad behavior without outright blocking posts or banning users. “We can do more to prevent bullying from happening on Instagram, and we can do […]

The International Space Station is such a unique and important test bed that practically every spacecraft that docks with it carries new experiments for the crew to run. This month's mission is no different, bringing biological tests that could be important for long-distance space travel — as well as some new docking hardware for the station.

It was late afternoon on May 12, 2017. Two exhausted security researchers could barely unpack the events of what had just happened. Marcus Hutchins and Jamie Hankins, who were working from their homes in the U.K. for Los Angeles-based cybersecurity company Kryptos Logic, had just stopped a global cyberattack dead in its tracks. Hours earlier, […]

While the FCC and Congress hammer out new rules to (hopefully) banish robocalls forever, there are some short-term solutions that can help in the meantime — and one may arrive in just a few weeks. A new FCC proposal allows the agency to go after scam calls that originate overseas or use other methods to evade existing spoofing laws.

Hey startup founders — don’t miss your opportunity to receive the VIP treatment and showcase your early-stage startup at Disrupt San Francisco 2019. Apply to be a TC Top Pick and exhibit in Startup Alley for free. But get moving and fill out the application before the July 19 deadline. It’s now o’clock, people. Applying […]

TechCrunch Sessions is heading to San Jose on July 10 — just a few days from now — to dig into the future (and present) of transportation. The agenda at TC Sessions: Mobility is packed with startups and giants in the tech industry. TechCrunch has brought together some of the best and brightest minds working on […]

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. It was a really bad month for the internet In the past month, there were several major internet outages affecting millions […]