Crunch Hype

Google today announced that its second- and third-generation Cloud TPU Pods — its scalable cloud-based supercomputers with up to 1,000 of its custom Tensor Processing Units — are now publicly available in beta. The latest-generation v3 models are especially powerful and are liquid-cooled. Each pod can deliver up to 100 petaFLOPS. As Google notes, that […]

A set of new features for Android could alleviate some of the difficulties of living with hearing impairment and other conditions. Live transcription, captioning, and relay use speech recognition and synthesis to make content on your phone more accessible — in real time.

Last year at Google I/O, Google introduced a host of new digital wellbeing tools aimed at helping people better manage their screen time, track app usage, and configure their device’s ‘do not disturb’ settings. Today, Google is updating its suite of tools to include a new feature called “Focus Mode” that lets you temporarily disable […]

One of the more bizarre, yet intriguing, demos from last year’s Google I/O is now available for real users. AR walking directions in Google Maps is finally rolling out to Pixel users today. Augmented reality directions will let users better orient themselves when they pop open Google Maps and will give users more visual cues […]

Devices shipping with Android Q will receive over-the-air security patches without having to go through device manufacturers. A lack of steady security updates has been a major pain point for Android users over the years. Google finally has a fix for the problem. At its annual developer conference Tuesday, the tech giant said it’ll bypass […]

If you’re going to go carrier exclusive, Verizon (disclosure: our parent company’s parent company) is probably about as good as any. Ultimately, however, exclusives invariably do more harm than good when it comes to growing your footprint. That’s no doubt a key part of why Google had a rocky financial quarter when it came to […]

Hello old friend. I knew you would be back. I didn’t know how or when, but I knew we would be reunited again. It turns out all it would take was a cratering smartphone market to bring you back around. Google, of course, famously stood its ground on the importance of the 3.5 mm for […]

Last week’s earnings didn’t go the way Alphabet wanted. The fault primarily lies at the feet of the company’s ad business, but the hardware side didn’t come out great, either. Like the rest of the industry, Google’s been struggling to sell smartphones. Sundar Pichai cited “year over year headwinds” in reference to Pixel 3 sales […]

The Home Hub has been a hit for Google, eclipsed only by the Mini in its smart home hardware line. That’s for good reason, of course. The device is the ideal size and priced well, making it a minimally invasive device for a living room or kitchen. Among other things, it marked a great alternative […]

For those with speech impairments, artificial intelligence-powered voice recognition technology simply doesn’t work for them. Google is trying to fix that. Today at Google I/O, Google unveiled Project Euphonia, to explore how artificial intelligence can better recognize those with speech impairments and other types of speech patterns. “We also want to help those with speech […]

Being able to browse the web without leaving the usual local traces is a valuable tool for a lot of reasons, and now you can do the same thing in Google Maps. Incognito mode prevents any movements or searches in Maps from being linked to your account or stored locally.

Google is bringing a system-wide dark mode to Android Q. It’s called Dark Theme and it’s exactly what you would expect, changing white page elements to solid black across the OS for friendlier night-time viewing. You’ll be able to activate dark mode by tapping a dedicate tile in Quick Settings or it can be auto-triggered […]

At its I/O developer conference, Google today announced that Android now has over 2.5 billion users. That’s up from 2 billion the company announced two years ago. This means overall Android growth remains on pace, though it’s not exactly accelerating. From September 2015 to May 2017, the company added about 400 million new users. It […]

Google is making some updates to its impressive visual translation tech from Google Translate and throwing it into Lens. You can snap a photo of a sign in a foreign language and it will translate it to your chosen language. A version of this work was already visible inside the Google Translate app, but the […]

In addition to Google’s plan to bring a more powerful, next-generation Google Assistant to Pixel phones, the company also introduced new personalization features for its digital assistant. The update will take into account user preferences to help when choosing what to listen to, what to do on the weekend, or even what to eat. For […]

A next-generation Google Assistant that can handle more complex tasks across apps — quickly switching from hailing a ride, to checking the weather and taking a selfie — is coming to new Pixel phones later this year. An early demonstration of the more robust Google Assistant was shown Tuesday at Google I/O 2019, the company’s […]

Google’s Assistant app for your phone is getting a voice-enabled driving mode, the company announced today at its annual developer conference. The idea is to bring relevant activities front and center. The Driving Mode dashboard features personalized suggestions for navigation, messages, calling and media. Within driving mode, for example, you can see if you have […]

Google Search is getting an upgrade with better news coverage and now, podcast indexing. At the company’s developer conference Google I/O this morning CEO Sundar Pichai kicks things off with an announcement that Google News’ “Full Coverage” feature, first launched last year, would now make its way directly to Google Search. Additionally, the exec said […]

At its I/O developer conference, Google today announced that it is bringing the camera — and augmented reality – to Google Search. As the company demonstrated, you could search for something like “great white shark” and then see it in front of you through your phone’s camera. The company showed similar examples with a 3D […]

Square has acquired conversational artificial intelligence startup Eloquent Labs to help its merchants improve customer service. Eloquent Labs, which raised a $1.5 million seed round back in early 2017, offers a conversational assistant named Elle to small businesses. The idea is that Elle will help merchants common customer service-related issues like returns, product tracking and […]

As medical devices move to networked technologies, securing those devices becomes increasingly important. Regulators, seemingly late to the threat that unsecured medical devices posed, only began requiring protections for medical devices like pacemakers and insulin pumps two years ago, and since then new technology companies have leapt into the breach to begin providing security services […]

Google’s annual developer conference starts today, beginning as usual with a consumer-focused keynote where the company unveils new technology — devices, software, services and more for the first time. Today, we’re expecting to get news about Google’s new budget Pixel device, the Pixel 3a; its new mobile operating system Android Q; a new smart hub […]

Shape Security has been helping big companies stay safe from fraudulent activities like password reuse and bot traffic on their publicly facing websites and apps. The company now wants to help smaller companies have that same type of protection, and today it announced a new cloud service called Connect aimed at that market. “We’re an […]

After spending a decade working at international design and branding agencies, Kristine Arth launched her own independent branding agency called Lobster Phone last April. Since then, she’s launched 22 brands under her unofficial tagline “I don’t sleep.” Lobster Phone, however, is all about creating iconic brands with bold personality, which Kristine passionately delivers to her […]

In November, Amazon launched an Alexa app for Windows 10 PCs which allowed PC owners to speak to Alexa in order to set reminders, timers, alarms, create to-dos, track their calendar, control their smart home get news, information and more, and even play music. Now, that app is getting an update — amid Microsoft’s suite […]

Founded in late 2013, OnePlus did the impossible, coming seemingly out of nowhere to take on some of the biggest players in mobile. The company has made a name by embracing a fawning fanbase and offering premium smartphone features at budget pricing, even as the likes of Samsung and Apple routinely crack the $1,000 barrier […]

Digital ad spending in the United States exceeding $100 billion for the first time last year, according to the latest internet advertising report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Specifically, total domestic spending reached $107.5 billion, a 22 percent increase from 2017. Mobile advertising has become increasingly dominant, growing 40 percent year-over-year, to $69.9 […]

Facebook’s efforts to shut down harmful and malicious content on its platform have landed it in a European courtroom, after an anti-drug abuse organization in Poland claimed that a freeze on its Facebook Pages is a violation of its rights to free speech. The Civil Society Drug Policy Initiative (Społeczna Inicjatywa Narkopolityki in Polish, which goes […]

The FBI have arrested several people suspected of involvement in running Deep Dot Web, a website for facilitating access to dark web sites and marketplaces. Two suspects were arrested in Tel Aviv and Ashdod, according to Israel’s Tel Aviv Police, which confirmed the arrests in a statement earlier in the day, Local media first reported […]

Fli Charge Technology is today announcing it was acquired by an affiliate of Birch Lake Associates. As part of the purchase, industry veteran Khalid Zitouni is taking offer the chief executive position as the company looks to expand its reach for Fli Charge’s clever power delivery technology. TechCrunch first spied Fli Charge at CES 2018 […]

Marshall, the headphone company and not the loudspeaker company of the same vintage, today announced two new portable speakers. Like the company’s previous offerings, these speakers ooze a retro vibe. The two new speakers, the Stockwell II and Tufton, join the Kilburn II, but stand tall, literally and figuratively, apart from the rest of Marshall’s […]

Sitting silently with your eyes closed isn’t fun but it’s good for you…so you probably don’t meditate as often as you’d like. In that sense it’s quite similar to exercise. But people do show up when prodded by the urgency and peer pressure of scheduled group cycling or aerobics classes. What’s still in the way […]

When Epsagon launched last Fall, the Israeli startup had an idea to monitor serverless, architectures, specifically AWS Lambda. But the company didn’t want to confine itself to monitoring a narrow class of applications, and today it announced it is now able to monitor a broader set of microservice development approaches. CEO and co-founder Nitzan Shapira […]

A security lapse at Canada’s fourth largest cell network Freedom Mobile exposed customer data. Security researchers Noam Rotem and Ran Locar found an Elasticsearch server leaking five million logs containing customer data. The server wasn’t protected with a password, allowing anyone to access the data. Rotem and Locar, who shared their findings exclusively with TechCrunch […]

GM Cruise has raised another $1.15 billion in new equity from a group of investors that includes T. Rowe Price Associates, Honda, Softbank Vision Fund and its parent company GM as the self-driving vehicle company pushes to launch a commercial autonomous ride-hailing service this year. This investment increases Cruise’s post-money valuation to $19 billion, inclusive […]

Facebook said it’s launching a number of new products aimed at small businesses today — which is appropriate, since we’re currently in the middle of National Small Business Week. These new features include Automated Ads, which Director of Product Management Nikila Srinivasan said are “really built for small businesses that are one- to two-person businesses […]

There’s a new cannabis-infused drink company coming together, helped along by the venture firm DCM, which just plugged $5 million in seed funding into the company. Called K-Zen Beverages, the months-old startup represents the second cannabis-related investment for DCM after Eaze, the on-demand cannabis delivery platform. So what’s the appeal? The opportunity to unlock a […]

Tencent, one of Asia’s most valuable companies with a current market cap of around $460 billion, has introduced a new motto after co-founder and CEO Pony Ma said this week he wanted ‘tech for good’ to be part of the company’s vision and mission in the future. The company has not yet officialized the new […]

Barcelona-based Hubtype has raised a €1 million (~$1.1M) seed round led by Madrid-based early stage VC firm, K Fund. The team last raised when the business was founded, back in February 2016, when they took in €235,000 in a mix of public and angel funding. Hubtype targets enterprises and developers with customer service focused tools […]

Hey there hackers, il n’y a pas de temps à perdre! You heard it here first, there’s no time to lose. Today’s the last day you can sign up to compete in the TechCrunch Hackathon at VivaTech 2019 on 17-18 May — days two and three of the conference — in Paris. Come and join […]

As Uber gears up for an IPO, one of its smaller rivals has raised some money as it prepares to take its own turn on the public market. Gett — the ride-hailing startup that focuses primarily on the business market, currently in Israel, the UK, Russia and New York — has picked up $200 million in […]

Aito, a Helsinki-based machine learning startup that is developing “predictive database” technology, has raised €1 million in pre-seed funding, including from Nokia Chairman Risto Siilasmaa (via his investment company First Fellow Partners). Others backing the round are Hermitage, UMO Capital, together with funding from Business Finland. Previous Aito investors include Futurice and the company’s own […]

Urban Jungle, a digital insurance startup targeting so-called “generation rent” with a range of insurance products, has raised £2.5 million in seed funding round. The round is said to be backed by a mixture of new and previous investors, including Rob Devey, ex CEO of Prudential UK, and Simon Rogerson, CEO of Octopus Group. Described […]

There still exists an old-fashioned problem in travel: group travel which requires individuals and groups to plan and book personalized, multi-day tours online. Tourlane is a major player in this sector and has today announced it’s raised $47 million in a round led by Sequoia and Spark Capital alongside investors from the B round, including […]

Fintech continues to be among the biggest topics driving startups and investment in Southeast Asia. The region’s ‘internet economy’ is forecast to grow massively as its 600 million people increasingly come online — already Southeast Asia more internet users (350 million) than the U.S. has people but developing a robust payment landscape underpins those heady […]

Luckin Coffee, the ambitious Chinese upstart that’s going after Starbucks, could raise nearly $600 million from its upcoming IPO. That’s according to a price range released by the Chinese startup. In a new filing, Luckin said it plans to sell 30 million shares at an initial range of $15-$17. That gives an estimated raise of […]

The Federal Trade Commission said today that Google and Apple have removed three dating apps from their app stores because they could potentially be used by sexual predators to find children. In a parental advisory, FTC attorney Lisa Weintraub Schifferle wrote that FastMeet, Meet24 and Meet4U, all made by Ukrainian company Wildec, appeared to violate […]

Apple may be preparing some tweaks to watchOS that will leave you fumbling for your phone less often. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman just published a long list of software tweaks his sources say are coming to iOS, watchOS and macOS at WWDC. One of the most interesting takeaways from the report is that Apple is reportedly […]

Apple may be bringing an Android favorite to iOS at its software developers conference next month. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has published a big list of little software tweaks his sources say are coming to iOS at WWDC. One of the more interesting notes is that Apple is reportedly going to be releasing its own swipe-to-text […]

“We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” That’s the word from Sir Robert Watson, the chair of a massive multinational research effort to survey the impact of human development on the natural world. In the most comprehensive effort undertaken to date, some 145 expert […]