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by Sarah Perez on (#43SSM)
Fresh off its biggest shopping day in history, Cyber Monday 2018, Amazon today is making it easy for Alexa owners to participate in Giving Tuesday, the international day of charitable giving that follows the holiday shopping spree kicked off by Thanksgiving Day sales. Starting today, Alexa owners can donate a toy to a child in […]
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Crunch Hype
Link | https://techncruncher.blogspot.com/ |
Feed | http://feeds.feedburner.com/TechCrunch/ |
Updated | 2025-08-03 05:31 |
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by John Artman on (#43SSN)
This year we returned to Shenzhen, the Chinese city known as the world’s ‘Silicon Valley for hardware,’ for an event that was packed full of future-looking discussions, innovative startups, experienced founders, VCs and more. We love Shenzhen. Sure, Beijing has Zhongguancun and Shanghai has its international and diverse entrepreneurial community. But Shenzhen has a certain […]
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by Jon Russell on (#43SNN)
Vietnam’s startup ecosystem is making forward progress. Just a week after 500 Startups’ local entity closed a $14 million fund for early-stage investments, one of the country’s elder statesmen of startups — educational service Topica — has closed its $50 million Series D. The round — which is one of the highest to date for […]
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by Rita Liao on (#43SNQ)
A lot of Chinese millennials may be delaying or opting out of childbearing, but those who have committed to parenting often go all out to ensure their children grow up healthy and do well in school. One company capitalizing on China’s booming mother and infant industry – which is expected to double in market valuation […]
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by Josh Constine on (#43SNS)
Facebook Watch has failed to capture viewers with its content, so it’s hoping to differentiate through the company’s core strength: social. Today Facebook fully launches Watch Party, its co-viewing feature where users can see and comment on the same video at the same time, to all profiles and Pages around the world. Watch Party had […]
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by Sarah Perez on (#43SNV)
YouTube today is launching lower-cost subscription plans for students who want to enjoy an ad-free version of YouTube or its music streaming service, YouTube Music. The new plans are the first significant changes to YouTube’s music subscription program since its launch last year. At that time, YouTube had also rebranded its ad-free YouTube Red subscription […]
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by Kirsten Korosec on (#43SNX)
VW Group has put a new spin on its all-electric I.D. Buzz Cargo van concept. This time, the German automaker has reimagined the concept as a support vehicle for the Volkswagen I.D R, the electric vehicle prototype that had a record-breaking run this year in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb competition. VW Group’s commercial vehicles […]
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by Anthony Ha on (#43SNZ)
Lifelong PlayStation fans have probably decided already if they’re interested in buying the PlayStation Classic — particularly since Sony has already released a list of the 20 games preloaded on the console. But the company has also said it wants to attract players who are new to the platform — the kind who like the […]
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by Megan Rose Dickey on (#43SHJ)
Quip, the dental care startup that got its start selling electric toothbrushes directly to consumers, has raised $40 million. The money comes in the form of equity and debt financing, with about half of the funding coming in an equity deal lead by Sherpa Capital and the other half in debt financing from Triplepoint Capital. “I […]
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by Leslie Hitchcock on (#43S9T)
We’re in the home stretch of Disrupt Berlin 2018. The conference kicks off in just two days, and if you want to attend, the time is officially now o’clock — late registration closes tomorrow on 28 November. Once that happens, it’s auf Wiedersehen. See you next time. Don’t let that happen. Buy your pass to Disrupt […]
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by Frederic Lardinois on (#43S9V)
At its re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, AWS today announced the launch of Arm-based servers for its EC2 cloud computing service. These aren’t run-of-the-mill Arm chips, though. AWS took the standard Arm cores and then customized them to fit its needs.The company says that its so-called AWS Graviton Processors have been optimized for performance and […]
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by Devin Coldewey on (#43S68)
Last night’s 10 minutes of terror as the InSight Mars Lander descended to the Martian surface at 12,300 MPH were a nail-biter for sure, but now the robotic science platform is safe and sound — and has sent pics back to prove it. The first thing it sent was a couple pictures of its surroundings: […]
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by Ron Miller on (#43S1M)
Tonight at AWS re:Invent, the company announced a new tool called AWS Transit Gateway designed to help build a network topology inside of AWS that lets you share resources across accounts and bring together on premises and cloud resources in a single network topology. Amazon already has a popular product called Amazon Virtual Private Cloud […]
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by Rita Liao on (#43RZ9)
China’s biggest chat app WeChat is set to make its payments service more ubiquitous in Japan, a popular outbound desitnation for Chinese tourists. On Tuesday, the Tencent-run messenger unveils a partnership with Japan’s Line chat app on mobile payments. The tie-up allows Japanese brick-and-mortar merchants with a Line Pay terminal to process WeChat Pay transactions […]
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by Ron Miller on (#43RZB)
Many AWS customers have to run in multiple zones for many reasons including performance requirements, regulatory issues or fail-over management. Whatever the reason, AWS announced a new tool tonight called Global Accelerators designed to help customers route traffic more easily across multiple regions. Peter DeSantis, VP of global infrastructure and customer support at AWS speaking […]
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by Catherine Shu on (#43RTX)
Lime launched in the United Kingdom today, starting with a group of dockless electric-assist bikes in a Milton Keynes shopping center. The San Francisco-based startup says it plans to expand into more UK cities over the next few weeks. As in other markets, users in Milton Keynes find and unlock Lime’s bikes, which use battery-powered […]
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by Kate Clark on (#43RR7)
Neeraj Arora was widely believed to be the frontrunner to replace former CEO Jan Koum, who left the company shortly after co-founder Brian Acton earlier this year.
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by Catherine Shu on (#43RNW)
After focusing on Asian markets, particularly in Southeast Asia, Bangkok-based Eko Communications is getting ready to take on Slack, Microsoft Teams, and other enterprise messaging apps in Europe. The startup announced today that it has raised a Series B of $20 million and opened offices in London (which will serve as its new commercial headquarters), […]
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by Josh Constine on (#43RG8)
Facebook’s election war room monitors and dashboards remain, since so does the threat of election interference. Facebook has confirmed to TechCrunch that its election war room that it paraded reporters through in October has not been disbanded and will be used again for future elections. That directly contradicts a report from Bloomberg today about the […]
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by Megan Rose Dickey on (#43RCX)
Apple is looking to better support female-identifying founders through its new Entrepreneur Camp, a technology lab focused on app development. The free two-week camp, which kicks off in January, will give female founders the opportunity to receive one-on-one coding assistance from Apple engineers, as well as attend sessions on design, technology and App Store marketing. […]
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by Devin Coldewey on (#43R8K)
Wildfires are consuming our forests. The institutions and technologies to keep these environments healthy have suffered decades of neglect. DroneSeed is a Seattle-based startup that aims to combat this problem.
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by Sarah Perez on (#43R4H)
Apple today opened registration for thousands of free “Hour of Code†sessions taking place at its Apple Store locations around the world from December 1st through the 14th. The sessions are one of several programs the company has underway focused on helping more people learn to code both inside and outside the classroom. For the […]
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by Brian Heater on (#43R06)
Amazon’s kicking off Re:Invent week with the launch of AWS RoboMaker. The cloud-based service utilizes the widely deployed open-source software Robot Operating System (ROS) to offer developers a place to develop and test robotics applications. RoboMaker essentially serves as a platform to help speed up the time-consuming robotics development process. Among the tools offered by […]
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by Kirsten Korosec on (#43QVN)
First came the voluntary buyouts. Now, GM is ramping up its belt-tightening measures with cuts to factory and white-collar workers, plant closures in North America and the elimination of several car models as it tries to transform into a nimble company focused on high-margin SUVs, crossovers and trucks and investments in future products like electric and […]
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by Brian Heater on (#43QVQ)
Listen, I know you’re tired of deals. I get it. You already woke up at 1AM on Black Friday to head to Best Buy in your pajama pants. But if we just stick together and follow the rules, we’ll get through the holiday gift season in one piece. We got this. What follows is far […]
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by Sarah Perez on (#43QVR)
Google Maps has quietly rolled out a new feature aimed at helping users discover places others have recommended: it now supports hashtags in reviews. For example, if you’re reviewing a restaurant that would make an excellent #datenight spot, you can simply add the appropriate hashtag. Or if the business is #familyfriendly or #wheelchairaccessible, you can […]
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by Connie Loizos on (#43QVT)
It’s Cyber Monday and Amazon has one deal for its customers that’s a little unexpected. The company just announced that it has made available, for free, the same machine learning courses that it uses to train its own engineers. It’s a lot of information to digest — from a programming standpoint. According to a newly […]
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by Connie Loizos on (#43QQ6)
Corvus Insurance, a two-year-old, Boston-based insurance company that uses data across more than 50 criteria to predict and prevent losses for its corporate customers in the food and pharmaceutical industries, has attracted $8 million in funding, shows a newly processed SEC filing that says the capital came from six investors. The company had previously raised […]
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by Jordan Crook on (#43QQ8)
Update: Insight has landed on the surface of Mars! It’ll be a little bit before we know for sure that everything is A-OK, but the most dangerous part — you know, entering the atmosphere of a distant planet at massive speed — is over. Congratulations to the Insight team and we’ll update when we hear […]
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by Brian Heater on (#43QQA)
A month after launching to universal acclaim, Red Dead Redemption 2 is finally getting its online component. Red Dead Online launches in beta this week, with access opening for users starting tomorrow. The roll out is admittedly a bit convoluted. Rockstar is clearly staggering things here, so as to avoid a repeat of the clustereff […]
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by Mike Butcher on (#43QHD)
Regardless of whether it’s immediate future is obvious or not, AR has a future if the amount of investment pouring into the space is anything to go by. In 2016 AR and VR attracted $2.3 billion worth of investments (a 300% jump from 2015) and is expected to reach $108 billion by 2021 – 25% […]
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by Sarah Perez on (#43QHF)
Amazon is shutting down its two-year-old restaurant delivery service in London, according to a report by the Evening Standard, which an Amazon spokesperson confirmed. Customers were sent emails which informed them of the change, saying they would no longer be able to order from Amazon Restaurants UK after Monday, December 3rd, the report said. The […]
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by Jon Russell on (#43QHH)
Coinbase, the $8 billion crypto exchange giant, is one of a bevy of big-name crypto investors backing a project aimed to revolutionize the U.S. securities industry using blockchain technology. Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, told the audience at TechCrunch’s Disrupt event in San Francisco this past September that his company intends to be the de facto marketplace […]
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by Ingrid Lunden on (#43QHJ)
Cyber Monday 2018 is projected to be the highest-selling day of the holiday season this year, with $7.8 billion in online sales. And it’s no wonder: after a weekend of people juggling shopping online with shopping in stores, and hassling with each other in stores, today many go back to work. And so, we see […]
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by Kate Clark on (#43QHM)
Airbnb has poached another Amazon executive. This time, it's Dave Stephenson, who's been hired to lead its upcoming IPO as Airbnb's chief financial officer.
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by Sarah Perez on (#43QHP)
More U.S. consumers were shopping on mobile devices on Black Friday this year, with $2.1 billion in sales coming from smartphones. This trend was also reflected across the U.S. App Store. According to new data from Sensor Tower out this morning, the top 10 shopping apps on the App Store added half a million first-time […]
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by Brian Heater on (#43QD1)
Weeks after reaching a settlement, Samsung issued an apology over factory conditions leading to the illness and death of workers. “We offer our sincere apology to our workers who have suffered with illnesses and their families,†executive Kinam Kim said during a press conference late last week. The apology is the result of longstanding health […]
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by John Biggs on (#43Q9X)
A broken US Postal Service API exposed from over 60 million users and allowed a researcher to pull millions of rows of data by sending wildcard requests to the server. The resulting security hole has been patched after repeated requests to the USPS. The USPS service, called InformedDelivery, allows you to view your mail before […]
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by Rita Liao on (#43Q3C)
News of the world’s first ever gene-edited human babies being born in China caused a huge stir on Monday after the MIT Technology Review and the Associated Press brought the project to light. People in and outside China rushed to question the ethical implications of the scientific breakthrough, reportedly the fruit of a Chinese researcher named He Jiankui from a university […]
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by Leslie Hitchcock on (#43PVF)
Disrupt Berlin 2018 kicks off in just three days, the holidays are upon us, and we here at TechCrunch are feelin’ the season. What better way to celebrate both events than to share the spirit of entrepreneurism and gift-giving with a Cyber Monday special. Today — and today only — when you buy any pass […]
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by Catherine Shu on (#43PJ3)
Update: The story is getting even more convoluted. When contacted by TechCrunch’s Rita Liao, a representative at the hospital that supposedly approved Jiankui He’s study stated “what we can say for sure is that the gene editing process did not take place at our hospital. The babies were not born here either.†She also said […]
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by Catherine Shu on (#43PG1)
Google paid £4,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit that claims it did not do enough to protect a contractor from being racially profiled while working on an undercover project for Google Maps in shopping malls, reports the Guardian. The contractor, a UK citizen of Moroccan descent, said he was subjected to frequent harassment, including being […]
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by Jonathan Shieber on (#43P50)
In a statement issued today, Logitech International said that while it had engaged in discussions with Plantronics about a potential transaction, it had terminated the negotiations. Over the weekend we picked up a Reuters report that the two companies were in talks for a potential $2.2 billion merger. The company declined to comment further.
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by Josh Constine on (#43NSX)
A true apology consists of a sincere acknowledgement of wrong-doing, a show of empathic remorse for why you wronged and the harm it caused, and a promise of restitution by improving ones actions to make things right. Without the follow-through, saying sorry isn’t an apology, it’s a hollow ploy for forgiveness. That’s the kind of […]
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by Jonathan Shieber on (#43NQ6)
Starting Monday, businesses in Ohio will be able to pay their taxes in bitcoin — making the state that’s high in the middle and round on both ends the first in the nation to accept cryptocurrency officially. Companies who want to take part in the program simply need to go to OhioCrypto.com and register to pay […]
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by Natasha Lomas on (#43NMD)
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may yet regret underestimating a UK parliamentary committee that’s been investigating the democracy-denting impact of online disinformation for the best part of this year — and whose repeat requests for facetime he’s just as repeatedly snubbed. In the latest high gear change, reported in yesterday’s Observer, the committee has used parliamentary powers […]
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by Jon Evans on (#43NGN)
What can we learn from DETECTIVE CHINATOWN 2? Quite a lot, actually. The 11th biggest box-office hit of the year, it vastly outgrossed the likes of SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY, A STAR IS BORN, and CRAZY RICH ASIANS. You may never have heard of it, though; like OPERATION RED SEA, the 10th biggest hit […]
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by Lucas Matney on (#43MRN)
As we hang out with family and friends this holiday season, it’s interesting to look back on the Bitcoin mania that we endured one Thanksgiving ago. Aunts and uncles asking about internet money as you passed the mashed potatoes while trying to explain the concept of decentralization in a way that made it seem like […]
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by Ingrid Lunden on (#43MEK)
LinkedIn, the social network for the working world with close to 600 million users, has been called out a number of times for how it is able to suggest uncanny connections to you, when it’s not even clear how or why LinkedIn would know enough to make those suggestions in the first place. Now, a run-in […]
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by Jonathan Shieber on (#43MC6)
Logitech, the manufacturer best known for its computing peripherals like keyboards and web cameras, is in talks to buy Plantronics, a maker of bluetooth-enabled headsets, according to Reuters. The company is reportedly offering as much as $2.2 billion for Plantronics, according to the Reuters report, in what would be Logitech’s biggest acquisition to date. Driving the […]
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