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In a few weeks, Tesla buyers will have to pay more for an option that isn’t yet completely functional, but that CEO Elon Musk promises will one day deliver full autonomous driving capabilities. Musk tweeted Saturday that the price of its full self-driving option will “increase substantially over time” beginning May 1. Tesla vehicles are […]

Jarno M. Koponen Contributor Jarno M. Koponen is working on intelligent systems and human-centered personalization. He currently is product lead at Yle, one of the leading media houses in the Nordics. More posts by this contributor A new hope: AI for news media AI on your lock screen New machine learning technologies, user interfaces and […]

Even the best growth marketers fail to get content marketing to work. Many are unwittingly using tactics from 4 years ago that no longer work today.

Welcome back to this week’s transcribed edition of Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast that unpacks the numbers behind the headlines. And because it’s another week, why not another emergency episode? This time Kate Clark and Alex Wilhelm popped in the studio an hour before they were due to record the regular episode in order to […]

A day after the big Episode IX reveal, Disney and subsidiary Lucas film announced that it will be donating $1.5 million to FIRST . The non-profit group was founded by Dean Kamen in 1989 to help teach STEM through initiatives like robotics competitions. Disney’s money will go to provide education and outreach to the underserved […]

This has now gone on so long that many of us in the tech-focused journalism space are sick of saying the word.

Harry Potter, the Platform, and the Future of Niantic After deep dives into the story of Niantic’s spinout from Google and its creation and development of Pokémon GO, TechCrunch editor Greg Kumparak turns his attention to Niantic’s future, looking at how Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is not just uniting wand-wielders, but also the company’s ambitions […]

Jordan Peele fans who go to his latest film “Us” hoping to find another “Get Out” may be disappointed: Where Peele’s directorial debut lent itself to straightforward political allegory, the follow-up feels murkier and stranger. “Us” is a nightmarish journey into a world invaded by sinister doppelgangers. The film does, eventually, offer a rationale for […]

Amazon-owned game-streaming site Twitch is today publicly launching its first game. But it’s not a traditional video game — like those the site’s creators stream for their fans. Instead, the new game is called “Twitch Sings” and is a free karaoke-style experience designed for live streaming. The game, which was launched into beta last year, […]

On the heels of a trove of 773 million emails, and tens of millions of passwords, from a variety of domains getting leaked in January, Microsoft has faced another breach affecting its web-based email services. Microsoft has confirmed to TechCrunch that a certain “limited” number of people who use web email services managed by Microsoft […]

In this week's startups newsletter: Uber files its S-1, Defy Partners nabs $262M and the Vision Fund backs a travel business.

Researchers at Princeton University have built a web app that lets you (and them) spy on your smart home devices to see what they’re up to. The open source tool, called IoT Inspector, is available for download here. (Currently it’s Mac OS only, with a wait list for Windows or Linux.) In a blog about […]

Drones are great. But they are also flying machines that can do lots of stupid and dangerous things. Like, for instance, fly over a major league baseball game packed with spectators. It happened at Fenway Park last night, and the FAA is not happy.

A hacker group has breached several FBI-affiliated websites and uploaded their contents to the web, including dozens of files containing the personal information of thousands of federal agents and law enforcement officers, TechCrunch has learned. The hackers breached three sites associated with the FBI National Academy Association, a coalition of different chapters across the U.S. […]

In China, the laws limit work to 44 hours a week and require overtime pay for anything above that. But many aren’t following the rules, and a rare online movement puts a spotlight on extended work hours in China’s booming tech sector. People from all corners of society have rallied in support for improvements to […]

Here's how pitch decks are successfully bringing in funding today, according to DocSend.

Hint: investors want to know why you are the team to build your product now, and more data from DocSend.

2018 was by all means a very rough year for Facebook . The company, which spent the year reeling from the Cambridge Analytica scandal and a general bubbling-up of public anger, also had to deal with animosity toward the company’s founder, and gave the executive a lot of cash to handle a full security detail […]

The Los Angeles startup scene has come a long way in the three-and-a-half years since Marlon Nichols, Troy Carter and Trevor Thomas launched Cross Culture Ventures. The city and its surrounding Orange County exurbs were at the beginning of a venture capital surge that has seen invested capital in the region rise from $3.63 billion […]

Facebook’s board is undergoing its biggest shakeup in memory. On Friday, the company announced that Peggy Alford would be nominated to join the company’s board of directors. “Peggy is one of those rare people who’s an expert across many different areas — from business management to finance operations to product development,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg […]

Before robots get to do the fun stuff, they’re going to be tasked with all of the things humans don’t want to do. It’s a driving tenet of automation — developing robotics and AI designed to replace dull, dirty and dangerous tasks. It’s no surprise, then, that warehouses and fulfillment centers have been major drivers […]

In the almost weekly tradition of Facebook talking about something embarrassing they did on a Friday, the company is now fessing up to the fact that thousands of their next-gen virtual reality headset controllers have “easter-egg” messages inscribed on internal components that weren’t meant to be on non-prototype editions. “Tens of thousands” of unreleased consumer […]

The OpenStack project, which powers more than 75 public and thousands of private clouds, launched the 19th version of its software this week. You’d think that after 19 updates to the open-source infrastructure platform, there really isn’t all that much new the various project teams could add, given that we’re talking about a rather stable […]

What is Niantic? If they recognize the name, most people would rightly tell you it’s a company that makes mobile games, like Pokémon GO, or Ingress, or Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. But no one at Niantic really seems to box it up as a mobile gaming company. Making these games is a big part of […]

Updating the federal government's digital infrastructure seems like a Herculean task akin to cleaning out the Augean stables. Where do you even start shoveling? Former Googler and current head of the U.S. Digital Service Matt Cutts says it's not quite that hard — but he's had to leave his Silicon Valley startup outlook at the door.

In a press conference today in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, the president laid out a number of initiatives focused on helping accelerate the U.S. role in the 5G race. “This is, to me, the future,” Trump said, opening the press conference flanked by Ajit Pai, Ivanka Trump and a room full of communications representatives […]

In a new interview with Recode, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made some notable comments on what by all accounts is the most important law underpinning the modern internet as we know it. Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act is as short as it is potent — and it’s worth getting familiar with. It […]

Quiz Khalifa aka Host Malone aka Trap Trebek aka HQ Trivia’s Scott Rogowsky has been pushed out of the live mobile gaming startup. The two split due to disagreements about Rogowsky attempting to take a second full-time job hosting sports streaming service DAZN’s baseball show ChangeUp while moving to only hosting HQ on weekends, TMZ first […]

If you're lucky enough to travel abroad, you know it's getting easier and easier to use our phones and other gadgets to translate for us. So why not do so in a way that makes sense to you? This little gadget seeking funds on Kickstarter looks right up my alley, offering quick transcription and recording — plus music playback, like an iPod Shuffle with superpowers.

Juul Labs is today launching a pilot for its new Track & Trace program, which is meant to use data to identify exactly how Juul devices wind up in the hands of minors. Juul vaporizers all have a serial number down at the bottom, by the Juul logo. However, it wasn’t until recently that Juul […]

With a new chief executive officer and $4 million in fresh funding from investors including the Los Angeles-based investment firm, Upfront Ventures, Territory Foods is poised for growth. The company recently hired powerhouse executive Abby Coleman, the former vice president of marketing and strategy at Quidsi and head of e-commerce at Diapers.com as its new […]

Hot on the heels of announcing the details of the upcoming Disney+ streaming service (which will feature plenty of Star Wars content), Disney and Lucasfilm just released the first trailer for “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” The unveiling came at the end of a panel at this year’s Star Wars Celebration event in Chicago, […]

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. Uber files for IPO Uber has filed its S-1, setting the stage for the transportation company to go public next month. […]

Adam Zagaris prides himself on being an outside general counsel who helps startups get day-to-day paperwork done efficiently and well — particularly when they are facing off against tough, bigger partners. Although he started his career at big Silicon Valley law firms, he has built a streamlined practice at Moonshot Legal in recent years that […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

Dashlane, a popular password manager and all-round identity management solution, has raised another $30 million in funding, the company announced today. The funding — this time a round of debt financing from Hercules Capital — follows prior investment from FirstMark Capital, Rho Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, TransUnion and Silicon Valley Bank. The company is also […]

It’s 2019, and most institutional money managers are still taking a wait-and-see approach to crypto assets, concerned in part about market manipulation schemes and other nefarious actors. Though many top establishments are beginning to kick the tires — Harvard just made its first bet on a token offering, following an investment last year by Yale […]

Investors seem to think that Disney is on the right track with its plans for the new streaming service, Disney+. On the heels of yesterday’s announcement of the streaming service’s November 12 launch date and slate of programming, Disney’s stock price is currently up 9% to $127.23 in morning trading on the New York Stock […]

Earlier this week, Amazon confirmed that it would be acquiring Canvas, a little known Colorado based startup that creates autonomous driving systems for warehouse fulfillment. It’s the latest in a long line of moves that finds the company looking seriously at automation for the future of retail plans. Last year, the company announced the launch […]

Several enterprise virtual private networking apps are vulnerable to a security bug that can allow an attacker to remotely break into a company’s internal network, according to a warning issued by Homeland Security’s cybersecurity division. An alert was published Friday by the government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency following a public disclosure by CERT/CC, the vulnerability […]

Bird is gearing up to launch in more than 50 additional cities throughout Europe this spring. Bird began its expansion into Europe less than one year ago. Today, Bird operates its scooters in Paris, Brussels, Vienna, Zurich and other European cities. This launch will increase its European fleet size more than ten-fold. “World class brands […]

A comic format review of Nintendo's Labo VR Kit

Apple has added another step to prevent users from accidentally signing up for an iOS app’s subscription — or, from being tricked into it by a scammy app not playing by the rules. The company recently rolled out a subscription confirmation dialog box that pops up as one final step to ensure you meant to […]

Pan-African e-commerce company Jumia listed on the New York Stock Exchange today, with shares beginning trading at $14.50 under ticker symbol JMIA. This comes four weeks after CEO Sacha Poignonnec confirmed the IPO to TechCrunch and Jumia filed SEC documents. With the public offering, Jumia becomes the first startup from Africa to list on a major global […]

Facebook upset millions upon millions of users five years ago when it removed chat from its core mobile app and forced them to download Messenger to communicate privately with friends. Now it looks like it might be able to restore the option inside the Facebook app. That’s according to a discovery from researcher Jane Manchun […]

A games publisher in China is following the path of its larger peer Tencent to back a wide spectrum of startups for financial gains. Beijing Kunlun Wanwei, or Kunlun, announced in a filing this week that it plans to inject $50 million into autonomous driving startup Pony.ai in exchange for a 3 percent stake. Pony.ai […]

PayU, the Naspers-owned payments company that competes with the likes of PayPal but focuses mainly on emerging markets, has made an acquisition to expand its business in India. It has acquired Wibmo, a startup based out of the U.S. (Cupertino, to be exact) that mostly operates in India. PayU is paying $70 million for the […]

LumApps, the “social intranet” for the enterprise, has closed $24 million in Series B funding. The round is led by previous backer IdInvest, and will be used to scale LumApps’ global sales and marketing and accelerate product development. Founded in Paris in 2012 — and now also with offices in London, Tokyo, San Francisco and […]

Uber’s exits from China, Russia and Southeast Asia were billed as failures from the company, but the ride-sharing giant has already made billions on paper from those moves, according to its IPO filing. Uber released its much-anticipated S1 on Thursday U.S. time and reporters and analysts are frantically digging into a treasure trove of previously-unreleased […]

While the world marvels at the first black hole image ever taken, a Chinese photo-sharing community is setting off a huge public outcry over its use of the landmark photo and a wider debate over copyrights practices in China. As soon as the European Southern Observatory released the black hole photo on April 10, Visual […]