Crunch Hype

As promised back in January by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, the company today is rolling out an even darker version of the app’s existing dark mode. Before, Twitter’s dark theme was more of a blue-ish shade instead of a true black, which not everyone seemed to like. Now, there’s an optional setting that makes the […]

Building a startup is incredibly tough. There are the constant ups and downs, the moments of sheer ambiguity and terror. And so, few moments in a startup’s life are as triumphant — and crystal clear — as closing a round of funding. Yes, yes, raising venture capital shouldn’t be celebrated as a milestone, and the […]

Drake’s latest collaboration isn’t with Kanye or Kendrick, it’s with Marissa Mayer. The rap superstar has joined a bevy of Silicon Valley investors, including Strauss Zelnick, Comcast, Macro Ventures, Canaan, RRE, Courtside and Marissa Mayer, to fund Players’ Lounge, an esports startup looking to pit gamers against each other in their favorite titles with some […]

[Editor’s note: This article is a part of our latest initiative to demystify design and find the best brand designers and agencies in the world who work with early-stage companies — nominate a talented brand designer you’ve worked with.] A brand is far more than logos and colors. A consistent brand identity not only communicates […]

MoviePass may still be trying to figure out how to make a movie ticket subscription service financially viable, but it can be credited for at least correctly identifying consumer demand for such a thing. There’s now a market for movie tickets by subscription from it as well as rivals like Sinemia, AMC Stubs A-List, Cinemark […]

Why resort to rock, paper, scissors to see which members of your early-stage startup or investment firm get to attend Disrupt SF 2019? Group discounts make it possible to bring the whole team, and that means more inspiration, connection and opportunity for your company. TechCrunch offers group discounts for every pass level, so don’t miss […]

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. HUD hits Facebook with housing discrimination charges over ad targeting The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development this morning hit […]

A program that allows drug agents to obtain a pool of billions of call records from AT&T is “still active,” according to a watchdog report. The report, published Thursday by the Justice Department inspector general, confirmed the program — named in the report only as Project C — continues to provide access to “billions” of […]

Moolah Mobile is teaming up with SurgePhone Wireless to offer people a new way to pay their cell phone bills — by putting ads on their homescreens. Moolah CEO Vernell Woods (pictured above) said the startup has already been offering gift cards and other rewards to users who view its homescreen ads. So this is […]

Forge, the marketplace for trading private company shares formerly known as Equidate, announced that it will be acquiring custodial trust company IRA Services for a purchase price of $55 million. IRA Services is a trust company that provides custodial services for retirement accounts managed by individuals and mid-to-large sized Institutions. Stripped of financial jargon, the […]

In a new Medium post this morning, 2020 presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar outlined her plans for infrastructure spending, which she says will be “her top budget priority.” The bulk of the plan details what you’d more or less expect from a Democratic presidential candidate, including the repair and replacement of roads and bridges, reliable public […]

Consumer spending in mobile apps across both Apple’s App Store and Google Play will grow by 120 percent to reach $156 billion worldwide by 2023, according to a new report out today from app store intelligence firm, Sensor Tower. The forecast estimates that both stores will more than double their revenues during the next five […]

Here’s a well-earned retirement. Kazuo Hirai, the former CEO who spearheaded Sony’s turnaround in recent years, is leaving the company following 35 years of service, according to an announcement made today. Hirai became Sony CEO in 2012, replacing Sir Howard Stringer with a mission of bringing the good times back to the then-bloated electronics giant through […]

From Extra Crunch Jon Evans has a comprehensive look at the most compelling futures for “Crypto 2.0.” With the trading frenzy out of the way (at least for the time being), engineers and product designers can now get back to the real world of improving these systems. Digital accessibility expert Beth Franssen has a piece […]

The latest report by a UK oversight body set up to evaluation Chinese networking giant Huawei’s approach to security has dialled up pressure on the company, giving a damning assessment of what it describes as “serious and systematic defects” in its software engineering and cyber security competence. Although the report falls short of calling for […]

In the past few years it’s become increasingly evident that while social media was a fantastic new way to get into the minds of people and understand what they thought in order to sell them things, you couldn’t just rely on the blathering of millions of people. You also had to literally ask them questions. […]

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development this morning hit Facebook with charges of housing discrimination. The filing states that the the online giant has violated the Fair Housing Act through its ad targeting tools, which allow sellers to limit listings based on categories like race, sex and nation of origin. The charges are […]

Xiaomi is back with another teaser of the foldable concept device it first showed off in January. This time around, in a video posted to its Weibo account, the Chinese company showed off the device working in tablet mode and, after folding, regular phone mode to illustrate how seamlessly it can be tucked up and […]

Spotify just started selling a new subscription in Ireland called Premium Duo, as The Verge spotted. You guessed it, this subscription tier is designed for couples, roommates and all combinations of two persons who live under the same roof. It is a bit more expensive than a Premium account and a bit less expensive than […]

Government services, for many, epitomize the worst of bureaucracy: they are, at their low point, large, lumbering organizations working under strained budgets, staffed by lifer employees who don’t get much say in improving things, and lots of paperwork. But as ageing public information infrastructure grinds to a halt and public services start making the switch […]

Kong, the open core API management and lifecycle management company previously known as Mashape, today announced that it has raised a $43 million Series C round led by Index Ventures. Previous investors Andreessen Horowitz and Charles River Ventures (CRV), as well as new investors GGV Capital and World Innovation Lab also participated. With this round, […]

Microsoft today announced a major expansion of its Azure IP Advantage program, which provides its Azure users with protection against patent trolls. This program now also provides customers who are building IoT solutions that connect to Azure with access to 10,000 patents to defend themselves against intellectual property lawsuits. What’s maybe most interesting here, though, […]

The Dakar Network Angels group launched this month, making its first investment in francophone Africa to cleantech venture Coliba. The Ivorian startup—that uses a mobile app to coordinate waste recycling—will receive mentorship and a minimum of $25K in seed funds. The deal is part of Dakar Network Angels’ mission of convening experts and capital to […]

点击查看本文中文版。 Rela (热拉), a popular dating app for gay and queer women, has exposed millions of user profiles and private data because a server wasn’t protected with a password. Rela disappeared from app stores in May 2017 after it was reportedly shut down by Chinese regulators, though the government never confirmed it took action. But […]

Apple’s latest-generation Apple Watch doesn’t just have a curved display and a new industrial design, one of the major features of the Watch when it launched last year were its advanced health-tracking capabilities, particularly in regards to heart health and AFib detection. Those features arrived in the US in December, but users abroad have had […]

Palantir just landed a landmark contract with the U.S. Army worth north of $800 million. The Washington Posts reports that the Silicon Valley data analytics company was tapped over traditional defense contractor Raytheon on the project, which tasks Palantir with delivering a comprehensive combat intelligence hardware and software suite to replace the Army’s outdated system, […]

Apple’s continued to improve the MacBook line’s butterfly switch keyboards. In fact, the technology is on its third generation, which added a rubberized membrane designed to fix ongoing issues and reduce that loud clacking sound. But even the most devoted Apple fans have continued to have gripes, from stuck keys to random misfires. True story: […]

Here’s an interesting twist on the story from last week about the break-up between Shopify and Mailchimp, after the two said they were at odds over how customer data was shared between the two companies. It turns out that before it parted ways with Shopify, Mailchimp quietly made an acquisition of LemonStand, one of the e-commerce […]

The ride-hailing giant may charge up to $10 more per share than originally planned.

The fight against robocallers is just getting started, and the wheel of justice turns slowly, but the FTC just took down a handful of major operations responsible for billions of unwanted calls, some of them adding additional fraud to the mix. The money coming out of the cases is surprisingly small, however — but there's a reason for that.

The direct-to-consumer mattress business has raised $100 million from Target, NEA and Norwest Venture Partners.

Every founder wants an eye-catching website or app, but it’s easy to overlook a basic fact: not all your potential visitors will experience your content with their eyes.

Extra Crunch offers members the opportunity to tune into conference calls led and moderated by the TechCrunch writers you read every day. This week, TechCrunch Editor-in-Chief, Matthew Panzarino, offered his analysis on the major announcements that came out of Apple’s keynote event this past Monday. Behind a series of new subscription and media products, Apple […]

Autonomous delivery startup Nuro, fresh with nearly $1 billion in capital from SoftBank, is bursting with ideas — as some recent patent filings (and our recent deep dive into the company) suggest. And we can’t wait to learn more about what Nuro has planned. It’s only fitting that Nuro co-founder and CEO Dave Ferguson is […]

A security researcher warned Asus two months ago that employees were improperly publishing passwords in their GitHub repositories that could be used to access the company’s corporate network. One password, found in an employee repo on the code sharing, allowed the researcher to access an email account used by internal developers and engineers to share […]

What lies beneath the murky depths? SolarCity co-founder Peter Rive wants to help you and the scientific community find out. He’s just led a $7 million Series A for Sofar Ocean Technologies, a new startup formed from a merger he orchestrated between underwater drone maker OpenROV and sea sensor developer Spoondrift. Together, they’re teaming up […]

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Chris Schaepe is out at Lightspeed Venture Partners, after telling his partners about having hired Rick Singer, the Newport Beach, Ca., businessman in the middle of the college bribery scandal. According to Axios, which broke the news of Schaepe’s departure, Schaepe insists he didn’t knowingly participate in any bribery schemes, but […]

Something strange is happening in the world of cryptocurrencies. To the investor, the speculator, or the casual observer, the industry is in the midst of the “crypto winter” marked by dwindling public interest and stagnant prices after last year’s massive plunges. But to the engineer or the founder, it is an industry which has never […]

Developments in the self-driving car world can sometimes be a bit dry: a million miles without an accident, a 10 percent increase in pedestrian detection range, and so on. But this research has both an interesting idea behind it and a surprisingly hands-on method of testing: pitting the vehicle against a real racing driver on a course.

While Magic Leap’s first augmented reality headset launch wasn’t the earth-shattering drop they had sort of pitched the world on, the company is about to see a major corporate partnership push their device in front of more consumers’ eyes. Next week, the $2,295 headset will be going up for sale at flagship AT&T stores in […]

Twitch today announced the launch of a new feature called “Squad Stream,” which offers a way for up to four creators to go live and stream together within one window. The feature will allow creators to grow their communities by teaming up with others, as it gives streamers increased exposure by playing to a wider […]

Facebook is abandoning a longstanding policy of allowing white supremacy to flourish on its platform under the guise of terms like white nationalism and white separatism. Motherboard first reported that the decision came out of a conversation on platform moderation out of Facebook’s Content Standards Forum yesterday and will go into effect next week. Under […]

You know how kings used to have trumpeters heralding their arrival wherever they went? Proxy wants to do that with Bluetooth. The startup lets you instantly unlock office doors and reserve meeting rooms using Bluetooth Low Energy signal. You never even have to pull out your phone or open an app. But Proxy is gearing […]

Though Apex Legends continues to be a bright spot for EA, the game publisher and the industry as a whole still have hurdles ahead. Today, EA confirmed that it laid off 350 people in marketing, publishing and other departments. Kotaku obtained an email sent to employees by EA CEO Andrew Wilson, which said that the […]

At last year’s Microsoft Ignite conference, the CEOs of Microsoft, Adobe and SAP took the stage to announce the launch of the Open Data Initiative. The idea behind this effort was to make it easier for their customers to move data between each others’ services by standardizing on a common data format and helping them […]

Listen up, founders. We’re scanning the globe for the absolute best early-stage startups that want to make the absolute most of their Disrupt San Francisco 2019 experience. How can you do that? Apply now to participate in Startup Battlefield and our TC Top Picks program. One application puts you in the running for both opportunities […]

Microsoft has won a restraining order in a U.S. court in order to take control of domains used by an Iranian hacker group. The software and cloud giant applied to the court in order to take control of 99 websites used by the hacker group, known as Phosphorus or APT 35, in various hacking operations. […]

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. Alibaba, Tencent and other major names form $1.45B ride-hailing venture For the last two years, Didi has been the dominant car-hailing […]

Ed Byrne Contributor Share on Twitter Ed Byrne is an entrepreneur, investor and co-founder of Scaleworks. More posts by this contributor Don’t fear the big company ‘kill zones’ How do you know your product is priced too low? One way is when you raise the price between 13 and 18%, you have almost no churn, not many […]

At a time when tech giants have come under fire for failing to protect the private data of their users, Twitter took over one of its user’s accounts for fun and then tweeted jokes about reading the account’s private messages. The account, to be clear, was willingly volunteered for this prank by social media consultant […]