Crunch Hype

Twitter today announced a new feature that will allow users to appeal a tweet that’s in violation of Twitter’s rules directly within the Twitter app. When users post content in violation of Twitter’s guidelines, that tweet can be flagged or reported, resulting in an account suspension or lockout. Before, users would have to visit an […]

Slack and other consumer-grade productivity tools have been taking off in workplaces large and small — and data governance hasn’t caught up.

Last week’s Handle video was different than past Boston Dynamics releases. Sure, it showcased the same sort of impressive robotics that have made every video from the company a viral hit, but this one took a very different approach than other recent releases: It put the robot to work. There were some clear aesthetic differences: […]

Google just smoothed over one spat with the LGBT community, but it’s already well into the next one. Last week, in an effort to monitor the ethical development of artificial intelligence and presumably to assuage public concern, Google launched an eight person advisory group dedicated to the task. Controversially, Google included Heritage Foundation President Kay […]

The scales are about to tip in favor of streaming music becoming the number one driver of global recorded music revenues – a shift that appears to be on track for sometime this year. According to a new industry report, global recorded music revenues jumped 9.7 percent in 2018 to reach $19.1 billion – up […]

Anaxi, the software development tool that helps developers get a better view of their projects in Jira and GitHub, is launching a small but nifty addition to its iOS and web apps today that allows developers to cut down on the steady stream of notifications and updates those services create. The company, which was founded […]

WordPress said it’s fixed a bug in its iOS app that inadvertently exposed account tokens to third-party sites. In an email to customers seen by TechCrunch, the content management giant said it “uncovered an issue with the WordPress iOS application with how it handles security credentials.” The company has disconnected affected accounts from the app […]

Arizona Beverages, one of the largest beverage suppliers in the U.S., is recovering after a massive ransomware attack last month, TechCrunch has learned. The company, famous for its iced tea beverages, is still rebuilding its network almost two weeks after the attack hit, wiping hundreds of Windows computers and servers and effectively shutting down sales […]

As eBay continues to restructure its business, it’s shuttering one of the efforts it had made to expand its commercial footprint outside its own marketplace and walled garden. The company announced today that on May 1 it will be shutting down the eBay Commerce Network — a network that it ran across some 2,000 publishers […]

Perch, a home-buying and selling platform, has raised $220 million in a combination of equity ($20M) to fund operations and debt ($200M) to finance home purchasing. The equity investment was led by existing investors FirstMark Capital, with participation from Accomplice and Juxtapose. Perch declined to disclose the debt lender in the deal. Perch was founded […]

Jeffrey Katzenberg’s upcoming mobile streaming service Quibi had added another notable name to its roster of executive talent. The company announced it has hired Tom Conrad, previously VP of product at Snap (maker of Snapchat), and a co-creator of Pandora, where he served at Chief Technology Officer. At Quibi, Conrad will be Chief Product Officer, […]

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. Walmart partners with Google on voice-enabled grocery shopping Walmart is rolling out a new voice ordering capability, Walmart Voice Order, which […]

It’s been a pleasure, this past month, to launch a weekly series investigating issues in tech ethics, here at TechCrunch. As discussions around my first few pieces have taken off, I’ve noticed one question recurring in a number of different ways: what even IS “tech ethics”? I believe there’s lots of room for debate about […]

Densify, a Toronto company that helps customers optimize their cloud resources to control usage and spending, announced a new tool today specifically designed to optimize container usage in the cloud. Company CEO Gerry Smith, says that as containerization proliferates, it’s getting more difficult to track and control cloud infrastructure resource usage as software development and […]

Meet Alcatraz AI a startup that wants to replace all the bade readers in your office with a Face ID-like camera system. Alcatraz has integrated multiple sensors to identify faces and unlock doors effortlessly. If you think about it, it’s weird that fingerprint sensors took off on mobile but everybody is still using plastic badges […]

For ten days in March, millions were caught in the same massive spam campaign. Each email looked like it came from someone the recipient knew: the spammer took stolen email addresses and passwords, quietly logged into their email account, scraped their recently sent emails and pushed out personalized emails to the recipient of that sent […]

While the public is asking, “When are we going to ride in autonomous cars?” Technology companies have been moving apace to test them on designated roads. In China’s capital city Beijing, eight firms drove a total of 153,600 kilometers (95442.6 miles) through their autonomous fleets in 2018, and Baidu, the country’s largest search engine service […]

Ford today is taking the wraps off the latest generation of the Escape . It’s a major re-work inside and out with new sheetmetal and powertrain options. The 2020 Escape is sportier, loaded with technology, and with hybrid and electric options, clearly built for the future. The Escape has been Ford’s most affordable SUV since […]

Guest writing for Extra Crunch / TechCrunch We have published a smattering of interesting guest posts on TechCrunch and Extra Crunch from experts in their fields who want to spread their smart ideas to more people. Know someone who is brimming with ideas that deserves a larger platform? Definitely drop us a line and read […]

At an education event in New York today, LEGO announced the launch of Education Spike. The company’s latest STEAM offering is designed for use in classroom settings — specifically grades sixth through eight (~ages 11 to 14). The kits combine LEGO bricks with sensors, motors and the “Prime Hub.” In spite of title that sounds […]

Following the latest wave of price cuts at Amazon’s Whole Foods announced Monday evening, Walmart today introduced its own plans to challenge Amazon on grocery shopping through a partnership with Google. The company is rolling out a new voice ordering capability, Walmart Voice Order, which works across Google Assistant-powered platforms, including Google’s smart speakers and […]

MIT Media Lab spinoff Formlabs is one of the few 3D desktop 3D printing companies that has managed to buck the trends of a shrinking field. The startup found success by embracing stereolithography (SLA) printing, a technology that was previously the realm of hulking, industrial printers. Previously far too expensive an unwieldy for many prototypers […]

FireHydrant, a NYC startup wants to help companies recover from IT disasters more quickly, and understand why they happened with the goal of preventing similar future scenarios from happening again. Today, the fledgling startup announced a $1.5 million seed investment from Work-Bench, a New York City venture capital firm that invests in early stage enterprise […]

Amazon-owned Whole Foods announced a third round of price cuts that will see the grocer discounting hundreds of items, offering an average savings of 20 percent. Produce is an area of specific focus in this wave of price cuts, with lowered prices on seasonal items including greens, tomatoes, tropical fruits, and more. In addition, Amazon […]

Pixeom, a startup that offers a software-defined edge computing platform to enterprises, today announced that it has raised a $15M funding round from Intel Capital, National Grid Partners and previous investor Samsung Catalyst Fund. The company plans to use the new funding to expands its go-to-market capacity and invest in product development. If the Pixeom […]

According to a new report from reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and shared by MacRumors, the next-generation iPhone should likely feature two-way wireless charging. This feature would let you charge other devices using your iPhone. Other flagship smartphones already feature two-way wireless charging, such as the Samsung Galaxy S10, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and […]

Cloud Foundry, the open source platform-as-a-service project that more than half of the Fortune 500 companies use to help them build, test and deploy their applications, launched well before Kubernetes existed. Because of this, the team ended up building Diego, its own container management service. Unsurprisingly, given the popularity of Kubernetes, which has become somewhat […]

LittleBits, Disney and UC Davis announced this morning that they’ve joined forces for the launch of Snap the Gap. The program is designed to give girls a jumpstart into the ever-important world of STEM learning with an online program, littleBits starter pack and a one-year mentorship with a STEM professional. Snap the Gap will begin […]

San Diego-based Edgybees today announced the launch of Argus, its API-based developer platform that makes it easy to add augmented reality features to live video feeds. The service has long used this capability to run its own drone platform for first responders and enterprise customers, which allows its users to tag and track objects and […]

Since it was founded in 2009, Okta has been focused on protecting identity — first for individuals in the cloud, and later at the device level. Today at its Oktane customer conference, the company announced a new level of identity protection at the server level. The new tool, called Advanced Server Access, provides identity management […]

Facebook -owned messaging platform WhatsApp has launched a fact-checking tipline for users in India ahead of elections in the country. The fact-checking service consists of a phone number (+91-9643-000-888) where users can send dubious messages if they think they might not be true or otherwise want them verified. The messaging giant is working with a […]

Spark has managed to attract one million users on iOS and macOS over the years. But every time I’ve written about Spark, I’ve received many comments asking when the app would be available on Android. The answer is today. Spark is an email client developed by Readdle, the company behind many popular productivity apps, such […]

Chef, the popular automation service, today announced that it is open sourcing all of its software under the Apache 2 license. Until now, Chef used an open core model with a number of proprietary products that complemented its open-source tools. Most of these proprietary tools focused on enterprise users and their security and deployment needs. […]

After raising $37 million to bring its on-the-spot stock market analytics tools to a wider range of publishers and other internet partners, TradingView today has announced its first acquisition to supercharge the services that it offers to investors, wherever they happen to be online. The startup has acquired TradeIt, which has built an API for […]

I’m in the process of looking for a pup friend to bring home with me, but I quickly found that it’s not an easy process. There are tons of places offering up pups, including breeders, shelters and rescues. But it’s not always clear if these places are legitimate. This is where Good Dog, a startup […]

YouTube has placed new restrictions on the channel of a UK far right activist which are intended to make hate speech less easy to discover on its platform. Restrictions on Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s YouTube channel include removing certain of his videos from recommendations. YouTube is also taking away his ability to livestream to his now close […]

Car companies are making big investments in technology to help ensure that they are not cut out of the next generation of transportation and automotive manufacturing, and today came the latest development in that trend. The BMW Group and Microsoft announced they would team up in a new effort called the Open Manufacturing Platform, aimed […]

Elvie has created a silent wearable breast pump and a smart pelvic floor exerciser.

There’s a changing of the guard within Google’s Asia Pacific business. In recent weeks, personnel changes within two of its most important roles show the search giant is entering a new era of management for its fast-growing business across the continent. Scott Beaumont, a British executive who previously ran Google in China and Korea, stepped […]

Mswipe, an Indian fintech company that develops point-of-sale terminals for merchants, has pulled $30 million in new funding as it bids to triple its reach to 1.5 million merchants over the next year. The company’s previous funding as a Series D in 2017 that ended up at just over $40 million, thanks to a $10 […]

Sqreen has raised a Series A round of $14 million. Greylock Partners is leading the round, existing investors Y Combinator, Alven and Point Nine are also participating. The startup wants to improve security when it comes to web applications and cloud infrastructure. Sqreen doesn’t require you to alter your code or put up a firewall. […]

Lightspeed Venture Partners and GIC have co-led the investment in ezCater only 10 months after its $100 million Series D.

Well, on Friday we thought we’d have to wait another few weeks to hear about Valve’s plans for its first virtual reality headset, but the company (accidentally?) seems to have let a few details and images slip regarding its high-powered contender to consumer VR headsets built by Oculus and HTC. A product page for the […]

A little over a year after it introduced Syndicates to the India market, AngelList — the U.S. service that helps connect companies with investors — is rolling out its own fund in the country with the backing of some stellar names. Dubbed ‘The Collective,’ the syndicate includes money from Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal — Flipkart, […]

Just since months after raising $7 million in Series A funding, German SME banking provider Penta has been acquired by Finleap. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, although I understand that the acquisition sees Finleap and Penta’s co-founders becoming the challenger bank’s sole owners, with all other shareholders exiting. Launched in late 2014 by Hitfox […]

Sometimes, gentle reader, we report on things at TechCrunch because it’s information that we think you, as a member of our community should know, given your interests and sensibilities. This is one of those times. Do yourself a favor and watch the clip for Jim Jarmusch’s zombie movie. The movie’s trailer bills it as “the […]

Today, investors took off their rose-colored glasses (and pink-colored mustaches) and looked at Lyft’s shares with fresh eyes after Friday’s ebullient debut. And — judging by the company’s share price at the end of the day — what they saw wasn’t exactly to their liking. Lyft’s shares suffered a pretty blue Monday in trading on […]

The ubiquitous corporate messaging service Slack is following in the footsteps of Spotify’s subscription music service and heading to the New York Stock Exchange for trading through a direct listing, according to the Wall Street Journal. Slack, which reportedly had somewhere near $900 million on hand last October when it was prepping for its initial […]

There’s no shortage of so-called femtech startups raising money right now, and little wonder why. Aside from the growing market opportunity — the global fertility services market is expected to reach $31 billion by 2023, says the consultancy Allied Market Research, nearly double where it stood in 2016 — more women are clamoring for information […]

The story of how blood testing company Theranos rose to prominence, then collapsed following accusations of fraud, is getting told and retold in many forms: There’s reporter John Carreyrou’s book “Bad Blood,” plus an upcoming feature film adaptation starring Jennifer Lawrence, plus a podcast from Nightline called “The Dropout” — and “The Inventor,” a new HBO […]