Crunch Hype

I’m heading back to Europe to hang out in Wroclaw and Warsaw so it’s last call for pitch-off applications. I’ll be at a Wroclaw event, called In-Ference, which is happening on December 17; you can submit to pitch here. The team will notify you if you have been chosen. The winner will receive a table at TC […]

Smart home items make great gifts and what follows are some of the best. From faster Wifi to smart meat thermometers, there’s something here for everyone on your list. I use everything listed here and can attest to their quality. That’s important to me. I’m not going to recommend something I do not use. Throughout […]

TF International Securities Apple analyst extraordinaire Ming-Chi Kuo delivered a less than stellar iPhone forecast this week with the straightforwardly titled note, “2019 iPhone shipments likely to be under 190 million units.” The letter puts the number of Apple handsets well below previous analyst predictions of 212 million for next year. Kuo is largely regarded […]

Researchers at the University of Zurich and EPFL have created a robot that shrinks to fit through gaps, a feature that could make it perfect for search and rescue missions. The researchers initially created a drone that could assess man-made gaps and squeeze through in seconds using only one camera. This extra feature — a […]

Reset the “days since the last Facebook privacy scandal” counter, as Facebook has just revealed a Photo API bug gave app developers too much access to the photos of up to 5.6 million users. The bug allowed apps users had approved to pull their timeline photos to also receive their Facebook Stories, Marketplace photos, and […]

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we had the regular crew back together, which was good fun. Connie took point, we had Danny mic’d up in New York and I was onsite to help the crew natter along with Bubba Murarka, a former VC […]

After receiving a flogging from privacy critics, Facebook is scrambling to make its smart display video chat screen Portal more attractive to buyers. Today Facebook is announcing the addition of a web browser, plus some of Messenger’s Instant Games like Battleship, Draw Something, Sudoku and Words With Friends. ABC News and CNN are adding content […]

Working in video games might sound like a dream job to a 12-year-old Fortnight-loving kid but the day-to-day reality of grinding in the industry can be as unrelenting as fighting an end of level baddie. Games devs are routinely corralled to ‘crunch’ to hit sequential release target deadlines to ensure a project gets delivered on […]

Over the past few years, Chinese automaker giant BYD has been on a partnership spree with cities across China to electrify their public transportation systems, and now it’s extending its footprint across the globe. On Thursday, BYD announced that it has shipped 100 electric buses to Santiago, the capital city of Chile. The step marks […]

Responding to criticism from his recent trip to Myanmar, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said he’s keen to learn about the country’s racial tension and human rights atrocities, but it has emerged that both he and Twitter’s public policy team ignored an opportunity to connect with a key civic group in the country. A loose group […]

TransferGo, the London-based international money transfer startup, has raised just over $17.6 million in Series B funding, including an earlier tranche of funding closed in May. The round is led by Vostok Emerging Finance, and Silicon Valley’s Hard Yaka, with participation from Revo Capital, U-Start Club, and Practica Capital. The figure also includes around $830,000 […]

Netflix loves to test new ideas, and its latest experiment is an odd new feature that lets viewers watch a scene again. A selection of Netflix subscribers noticed the new addition, which serves a pop-up asking if they want to “watch this scene again” after certain ‘highlight’ scenes in a show. The streaming giant confirmed […]

With €20 million in VC backing, Dott plans to release a fleet of multi-colored e-scooters in Paris in early-2019.

Kirsten Green of Forerunner Ventures, Keith Rabois of Khosla, Alfred Lin of Sequoia and Alex Taussig of Lightspeed are backers of Faire.

Vector’s already got the adorable bit down, courtesy of a team staffed by former Pixar and DreamWorks animators. But Anki’s grownup version of Cozmo can use a bit of help when it comes to smarts. Starting next week, the desktop robot will be able to tap into Amazon Alexa’s deep base of answers. The new […]

The company behind the biggest screens in cinema is giving up on bringing VR screens within a few inches of users’ faces. The company announced today in an SEC filing that it will be shutting down its three remaining virtual reality centers, including its flagship location in Los Angeles. Via the filing: In connection with […]

Machine learning models are getting quite good at generating realistic human faces — so good that I may never trust a machine, or human, to be real ever again. The new approach, from researchers at Nvidia, leapfrogs others by separating levels of detail in the faces and allowing them to be tweaked separately. The results […]

A new study from Versus Systems and the MEMES (Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment & Sports) Center at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management examines how gaming and advertising are evolving, and how one influences the other. As Versus Systems CEO Matthew Pierce put it, the goal was to study, “What is the impact on […]

Tumblr is back. Sort of. The social blogging platform reappeared on Apple’s App Store this week, some three weeks after being pulled over child pornography concerns. Ten days ago, the company adopted a scorched earth response to the issue, announcing a blanket ban on adult material as part of a “better, more positive Tumblr.” The […]

With an API strategy in place, businesses can start to realize the full potential AI has to offer.

It’s not often you can put nuclear weapons, terrorism and climate change on the same list as quantum computing, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, but the U.S. government believes all pose an “emerging threat” to its national security. Several key agencies in the U.S. intelligence community were asked what they saw as long-term threats […]

A new scam is making the rounds that promises to disrupt countless offices and schools. The scam is simple: the scammers send an email threatening to detonate a bomb if they don’t get a certain amount of Bitcoin within a specified time frame. Because there is little upside to ignoring a bomb threat at this […]

What does consent as a valid legal basis for processing personal data look like under Europe’s updated privacy rules? It may sound like an abstract concern but for online services that rely on things being done with user data in order to monetize free-to-access content this is a key question now the region’s General Data Protection […]

PornHub, a popular site that features people in various stages of undress, saw 33.5 billion visits in 2018. There are currently 7.53 billion people on Earth. Y’all have been busy. The company, which owns most of the major porn sites online, produces a yearly report that aggregates user behavior on the site. Of particular interest, […]

Google has partnered with Lime to show nearby bikes and scooters in 13 cities worldwide. If there’s a Lime vehicle available nearby, Google Maps will show you how long it will take to get to the vehicle, the estimated price of the ride and total journey time. Similar to the Uber integration in Google Maps, […]

More than a decade after the end of “Alias,” J.J. Abrams and Jennifer Garner are teaming up on a new limited series for Apple. The show, titled “My Glory Was I Had Such Friends,” will be based on the Amy Silverstein memoir of the same name, about how Silverstein’s friends supported her as she waited […]

Lyft is turning its app into a one-stop multimodal transportation app in a few U.S. cities, the latest illustration of its transformation from ridesharing startup to a company that wants to own, or at least be a part of, every way people move from Point A to Point B, whether it’s cars, bikes, scooters or […]

Earlier this year, we told you about a now 18-month-old, Hoboken, N.J.-based cryptocurrency startup working on a “stable coin” whose elastic supply would ostensibly expand and contract to keep its value at about a dollar instead of all over the map. The company’s big idea: to develop a new token that people would actually use, […]

Batteries. Clothing. Household goods. Supplements. Diapers. Furniture. Toys? Yes, toys. It seems Amazon’s private label business is preparing to enter the toy market next. The retailer’s initial toy listings include an indoor play set for toddlers, along with other toys for climbing and playing on, as well as a toy storage system. The listings were […]

When the former CTOs of YouTube, Facebook, and Dropbox seed fund a database startup, you know there’s something special going on under the hood. Jiten Vaidya and Sugu Sougoumarane saved YouTube from a scalability nightmare by inventing and open sourcing Vitess, a brilliant relational data storage system. But in the decade since working there, the pair […]

Earlier this year, Apple Music launched some of its top charts as playlist series. Today, YouTube is doing something similar. The company announced it’s making its YouTube Charts available as playlists in YouTube Music to users across the 29 markets where the music service is live. Each market will receive five of these “charts playlists” — […]

The simplest needs are often the most vital: power and clean water will get you a long way. But in rural areas of developing countries they can both be hard to come by. OffGridBox is attempting to provide both, sustainably and profitably, while meeting humanitarian and ecological goals at the same time. The company just raised $1.6 million to pursue its lofty agenda.

Parallel Domain, the startup that develops software to train self-driving cars in virtual worlds, has added an additional investor to its seed round. Earlier this month, Toyota AI Ventures contributed to Parallel Domain’s $2.65 million seed round led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from Ubiquity Ventures and others. “We’re not only impressed with their technology, but […]

Holberton School, the full-stack software engineering school that opened its first campus in San Francisco in 2015, today announced that it is opening two campuses in Colombia, one in Bogotá and one in Medellin. This marks the school’s first international expansion and comes only a few months after it opened its first East Coast campus in […]

You won't be able to order Whole Foods groceries on Instacart soon.

We love parties almost as much as we love startups, but we go absolutely bonkers for a hot startup-party mashup. That’s why we’re returning to host our 2nd Annual TechCrunch Winter Party in San Francisco on Friday, February 8. Even better news, party-goers — the first batch of coveted tickets to this wild winter romp […]

The fourth test flight of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo took its test pilots to the very edge of space this morning, reaching just over 52 miles of altitude and a maximum speed of Mach 2.9. It's another exciting leapfrog of the aspiring space tourism company's previous achievements.

Since its public debut in fall 2017, Google’s parental control software dubbed Family Link, has been steadily expanding, both in terms of its capabilities and its reach. Today, it’s making the jump beyond smartphones for the first time, with newly added support for Chromebook computers. As on Android devices, parents will now be able to […]

Even the old smart assistant needs a fresh coat of paint from time to time. For those looking to switch things up a touch, Google announced today that Assistant is now capable of speaking in a couple of additional accents for U.S.-based users. Head to the Settings tab on a compatible handset and you can […]

Investors and entrepreneurs are beginning to bring new diagnostic tools to market that promise better results for cancer patients through the identification of mutations in cancer cells that can create more targeted therapies. Earlier this month, research using technology developed by the startup Mission Bio helped identify cellular mutations in acute myeloid leukemia cancer cells that could […]

There’s been a break in the multi-year feud between Google and Amazon, apparently, as Amazon is now — once again — selling Google Chromecast devices on its site. The devices were banned from Amazon back in 2015, when the retailer then decided that only devices supporting Prime Video would be allowed. A year ago, it […]

Yesterday’s analysis of Nvidia’s challneges triggered a surge of mail from readers. The company has lost about half of its value over the past two months, and has mostly blamed a “crypto hangover” for the problem. But as I pointed yesterday, it’s really the three Cs: “Crypto, customers, and China.” There are nuances here worth […]

Both Facebook Watch and Instagram’s IGTV have yet to become superstar video platforms, leaving Facebook at risk as more people seek streaming entertainment instead of status updates. So today Facebook is trying to build some buzz for Watch with new stats and rollouts. The free video hub that combines original content, sports, and cult favorite […]

French startup Tempow has been working on software solutions to improve the Bluetooth protocol. The company just unveiled the Tempow True Wireless Bluetooth profile so that anybody can create AirPods clones. Many companies have tried creating a pair of earbuds with absolutely no wire. But none of them are as good as Apple’s AirPods. Manufacturers […]

Yesterday TechCrunch held its first-ever event in Nigeria — our second in Sub-Saharan Africa. The day was packed with Battlefield presentations from 15 startups from across the region, along with panels featuring some of Africa’s best-known tech entrepreneurs and executives. It was an incredible day and offered a fascinating peek into an absolutely vibrant tech […]

Procore Technologies, a provider of software to manage construction projects, is now worth $3 billion thanks to a new $75 million round of funding led by Tiger Global Management. The new funding shows just how completely software has eaten the world. Once considered an industry that was too analog to ever reap the benefits of […]

Social media has lately been linked to mental health issues, with a recent study showing a causal relationship between the use of social media and depression and loneliness. Wisdo, which just raised $11 million in seed funding from Intel Capital and a handful of angel investors, aims to connect and support people in some of their […]

Popular animated avatar creator app Boomoji, with more than five million users across the world, exposed the personal data of its entire user base after it failed to put passwords on two of its internet-facing databases. The China-based app developer left the ElasticSearch databases online without passwords — a U.S.-based database for its international customers; and […]