Crunch Hype

Apple has disabled the group calling feature within its FaceTime calling service while it works on a patch to fix a nasty bug that allows eavesdropping. Apple’s status page shows that group calling via FaceTime is “temporarily unavailable” — that’s a stop-gap move while the company to deliver a more permanent fix to the problem this week. […]

Jigsaw, the cybersecurity-focused division owned by Google parent Alphabet, is now allowing political organizations in Europe to sign up for its anti-web-flooding technology for free. Until now, the free-to-use technology designed to protect political campaigns and websites against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks — dubbed Project Shield — was only available to news sites and journalists, human […]

The rise of Starbucks in China, like that in the west, is closely linked to its function as a “third space” for people to hang out between home and work. In recent years, a bevy of coffee entrepreneurs are trying to topple the American giant’s dominance in China and lately, an unexpected contender — WeWork […]

Grab is Southeast Asia’s top ride-hailing firm thanks to its acquisition of Uber’s local business last year. Its biggest competitor gone, the company is on a push to go beyond transport and become an everyday ‘super app’ and that strategy just embraced video streaming today. That’s because Grab is integrating video-on-demand service HOOQ — a […]

Sandbox’s magic happens in a largely empty room. The gear mounted onto the walls (VR headsets, PC backpacks, and tracked toy assault rifles) gives more than a little indication that there’s more afoot, but nothing really clicks until your team is strapped in and the headsets shove you into a fast-paced wave shooter. The startup, […]

Update: Fortnite is back up, with the game and all other features operational. We have recovered. We will continue to monitor the situation to catch any further problems. — Fortnite (@FortniteGame) January 29, 2019 Fortnite is currently down for many players. The Twitter account for the Epic Games’ title, now the most popular video game in […]

The newly minted social media star congresswoman is wasting no time in tearing into tech companies. In a recent letter, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined Maine representative Chellie Pingree in calling out tech companies for supporting an event they believe to be inconsistent with big tech’s ostensibly climate-friendly attitude. Ocasio-Cortez is a noted champion of a Democratic package […]

Men and women's wellness startup Hims has raised $100 million on a $1 billion pre-money valuation.

You might want to turn off FaceTime for a few days. A newly discovered bug in iOS allows FaceTime callers to listen in before you accept the call. Word of the bug started spreading this morning after Chicago artist Benji Mobb demonstrated it in a tweet, later being spotted by by 9to5Mac. The bug relies […]

Photo-sharing app and social network Instagram was briefly taken offline on Monday afternoon, causing nothing of consequence to occur other than a brief respite from one source of the constant deluge of inconsequential information to which we all voluntarily submit ourselves. The service died at about 4:20, tragically the very moment when millions of people […]

A former Munchery employee is demanding wages in a new lawsuit and more former employees speak out.

In a press event today, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that it is pursuing criminal charges against Chinese mobile giant Huawei. Following a story from The Wall Street Journal earlier this month, TechCrunch previously reported that the indictments were set to be unsealed soon. A grand jury in Seattle has charged Huawei with conspiracy to […]

In news that will surprise few but still alarm many, a study has found that kids 2-5 years old who engage in more screen time received worse scores in developmental screening tests. The apparent explanation is simple: when a kid is in front of a screen, they're not talking, walking, or playing, the activities by which basic skills are cultivated.

Los Angeles is partnering with on-demand shuttle-based service Via as part of a pilot program that will give people rides to three busy public transit stations. The pilot program, which launched Monday, aims to solve the first- and last-mile problem that makes it challenging for people to get to and from public transit stations. Under […]

It was way easier for candidate Gavin Newsom to endorse single-payer healthcare coverage for everyone than it is now for Gov. Newsom to deliver it.

In November, Facebook announced a new plan that would revamp how the company makes content policy decisions on its social network — it will begin to pass off to an independent review board some of the more contested decisions. The board will serve as the final level of escalation for appeals around reported content, acting […]

Apple is kicking off the Entrepreneur Camp in Cupertino. Eleven female-founded app development companies have been invited to Cupertino for multiple workshops and meetings with Apple employees, and Apple used that opportunity to share a new number when it comes to App Store revenue. Since the creation of the App Store, Apple has given back […]

Owners of the upcoming Porsche Taycan will get three years of free charging at hundreds of Electrify America public stations that will blanket the U.S. in the coming months. And in many cases, that will include access to DC fast chargers that will allow the Taycan, which is designed to have an 800 volt battery that […]

iOS is easily one of the best things AirPods have going for them. Flip open the cap and, boom, there are the headphones and case, each sporting their respective battery levels. Pairing AirPods to your desktop has been doable as well, albeit markedly less convenient. Guilherme Rambo of 9 to 5 Mac has a convenient […]

Sapphire Ventures launches a dedicated sports and entertainment fund as investment in esports skyrockets.

Apple has released an update on its spending in the U.S. According to the company, Apple is now working with 9,000 different companies in the U.S. Those companies mostly work on hardware components and chipsets for Apple’s devices. You may remember that Apple announced last year it would spend $390 million to expand Finisar’s production […]

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. Dropbox snares HelloSign for $230M, gets workflow and e-signature Dropbox’s SVP of engineering Quentin Clark sees this as more than simply […]

Apple is slowly building a lineup of content subscriptions. According to a report from Cheddar, Apple may also be working on a gaming subscription. Alex Heath managed to get five people to talk about the rumored service. If Apple goes ahead and launches such a service, users could pay a monthly subscription fee to access […]

Kite, a San Francisco-based startup that uses machine learning to build what is essentially a very smart code-completion tool, today announced that it has raised a $17 million funding round. The round was led by Trinity Ventures, with personal participation from now-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. In addition to the funding, Kite also today announced that […]

I get a little giddy at the notion of another iPod. It’s almost entirely nostalgic, of course. And Apple long ago abandoned my own favorite, the definitely dea iPod Classic. The touch, on the other hand, just kind of faded away. “The king is gone, but he’s not forgotten,” Neil Young once sang. But 2019 […]

For the past few years, China has been rolling out a Black Mirror / Harry Potter-esque social rating policy known as the Social Credit System (SCS). Far from just a credit score in the financial sense, an SCS score can determine whether a person can buy business class tickets on trains (or take the train at all) […]

Apple is sending out a message to app developers: stop tricking users into subscriptions. The company updated its guidelines for mobile developers to more clearly spell out what is and what is not allowed, according to 9to5Mac, which spotted the recent changes. The improved documentation comes at a time when subscriptions are becoming something of a […]

Recharge, the business which got its start pitching pay-as-you-go rentals of unused hotel rooms, is adding private homes to its inventory of spaces — offering the first 100 signups in cities where the plan is available a guaranteed income of $1,000 per month. “To celebrate the launch and continue to expand our community early Recharge […]

Smartphone numbers are down all over — but things look especially stark in China these days. Tim Cook cited softened demand in the world’s largest smartphone market as a key factor in its lowered guidance, and Apple is far from alone in feeling the pinch. Today, Canalys reported another large drop in the country for […]

Nvidia can’t stop falling. The company has cut its guidance for its upcoming earnings report. The company expects to generate $2.2 billion instead of $2.7 billion as it had previously announced. That’s a huge cut of 18.5 percent. Shares are currently trading at $139.60, down 12.83 percent compared to yesterday’s closing price of $160.15. Nvidia […]

Parsley Health has just opened a new, fully redesigned space on Fifth Avenue in New York City, marking the first true Parsley Health Center. Since launch, the startup has been operating out of clinics in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. But TechCrunch got the chance to check out Parsley’s new Fifth Avenue location, […]

Last year, Europol and its many law enforcement partners took down and seized webstresser.org, one of the most notorious “booter” sites for launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which was claimed to have launched millions of attacks. But the coalition of feds isn’t stopping there. Now, Europol wants to go after its thousands of users. As […]

Earlier this month, Roku announced it would soon begin selling subscriptions to premium video services directly from its own TV and movies hub, The Roku Channel. Today, those subscriptions are going live, allowing Roku users to sign up for channels like EPIX, Showtime, STARZ and others, then stream them without needing to install the channel’s […]

Facebook continues to feel the heat over its role in how people communicate — and more importantly, miscommunicate — globally, so today in Europe it redoubled its efforts to counter critics by rolling out new controls specifically around election misinformation ahead of European Parliament elections this spring. It unveiled its latest efforts to fight “fake […]

Are more Theranos -style scandals looming for investors in healthcare startups? A team of researchers associated with the Meta Research Innovation Center at Stanford thinks so. They’ve published a paper warning investors in life sciences startups that a systemic lack of transparency exists in their portfolio companies — creating the possibility for more multi-billion dollar implosions and […]

Subscription ebook and audiobook service Scribd says it’s grown to more than 1 million subscribers. It still has a long way to go before reaching the heights of Netflix (nearly 150 million subscribers) or Spotify (87 million paying subscribers), but the announcement should help put any lingering doubts to rest around whether there’s a sizable […]

Dropbox announced today that it intends to purchase HelloSign, a company that provides lightweight document workflow and eSignature services. The company paid a hefty $230 million for the privilege. Dropbox’s SVP of engineering, Quentin Clark, sees this as more than simply bolting on electronic signature functionality to the Dropbox solution. For him, the workflow capabilities that […]

Contentsquare, the cloud-based software that helps businesses understand how and why users are interacting with their app, mobile and web sites, has raised $60 million in further funding. Leading the Series C round is global investment company Eurazeo. It adds to $42 million in Series B funding raised around a year ago, and includes participation […]

For the second time inside a year, private health information belonging to people in Singapore has been compromised. Following a hack disclosed last summer that affected the patient records of up to 1.5 million citizens, Singapore’s Ministry of Health revealed today that personal details and the HIV-positive status of 14,200 people were posted online by a convinced […]

Curve, the London fintech that lets you consolidate all of your bank cards into a single Curve card and app to make it easier to manage your spending, has added support for Amex cards. In effect the feature is being re-instated, having existing fleetingly when Curve was in testing back in 2016 before being unceremoniously […]

South African internet conglomerate Naspers is best known for backing Chinese tech giant Tencent, but it also operates a vast network of online classifieds businesses. That network just got a little larger after Naspers took full control of Russia-based Avito through a new $1.16 billion all-cash investment to top up its ownership to over 99 percent. Avito […]

Monzo, the U.K. challenger bank that now boasts 1.5 million current account customers, has partnered with fintech startup Flux to bring itemised receipts and loyalty points to its banking app. Due to be officially unveiled at a joint event in London on Wednesday, the new functionality means that if you’re a customer of Monzo — […]

Male impotence, substance abuse, right-wing politics, left-wing politics, sexually transmitted diseases, cancer, mental health. Those are just a few of the advertising labels that Google’s adtech infrastructure routinely sticks to Internet users as it watches and tracks what they do online in order to target them with behavioral ads. Intimate and highly sensitive inferences such […]

Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing startup which claims over 550 million registered users, is deepening its focus on electric vehicles after it announced a joint venture with BAIC, a state-owned automotive giant. ‘Jingju’ — as the venture is called — is a partnership between Didi and BAIC affiliate Beijing Electric Vehicle that will develop “next-generation connected-car […]

A group of current and former BuzzFeed employees are asking the company to pay out paid time off to all recently laid-off staff. In response, Lenke Taylor, BuzzFeed’s human resources lead, said it wants to meet with staff and is “open to re-evaluating” its decision on PTO. In an open letter to Smith, BuzzFeed’s CEO […]

Samsung Electronics said Sunday it will replace plastic packaging used for its bevy of products from mobile phones and tablets to home appliances and wearables with paper and other environmentally sustainable materials like recycled/bio-based plastics. Samsung will start making the switch in the first half of the year. The company aims to only use paper packaging materials […]

Urgently, the roadside assistance startup that connects car owners who need help with tow truck and other services, has raised $21 million in a Series B round that includes the venture arms of BMW, Porsche and Jaguar Land Rover. BMW has also signed Urgently as a vendor partner for its own roadside assistance platform (known […]

Robert Ackerman Jr. Contributor Robert Ackerman Jr. is the founder and a managing director of AllegisCyber, an early-stage cybersecurity venture firm, and a founder of DataTribe, a cybersecurity startup “studio” in metropolitan Washington, D.C. More posts by this contributor Cyber breaches abound in 2019 The healthcare industry is in a world of cybersecurity hurt As […]

Ken Miller Contributor Share on Twitter Ken Miller Ken Miller is a Technology Partner at the Omidyar Network. Previously he was an Executive at PayPal and Intuit, and early Board Advisor to Square. More posts by this contributor As hyper-conservative media surged, Republicans’ trust in news cratered Data shows a downward demographic spiral for Republicans […]