Crunch Hype

We’re counting the days until we head to Lagos, Nigeria to host TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Africa 2018 on December 11. The region’s startup scene is taking off and, with more than 300 tech hubs connecting and mentoring entrepreneurs across the continent, it’s a great time to be an early-stage startup founder. Think you’ve got the right […]

These days, no cloud platform is complete without support for GPUs. There’s no other way to support modern high-performance and machine learning workloads without them, after all. Often, the focus of these offerings is on building machine learning models, but today, Google is launching support for the Nvidia P4 accelerator, which focuses specifically on inferencing […]

We all know what Android for smartphones is. A free, (almost) open source operating system for smartphones. But right now there is no equivalent of the “Android for robots.” Instead there are many, many proprietary systems. A new startup plans to address this problem in order for the robotics market to really take off, and […]

For several years, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has been working to improve the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, which is designed to help developers protect data as it moves around the internet. Facebook created an API library called Fizz to enhance the latest version, TLS 1.3, on Facebook’s networks. Today, it announced it’s […]

The flood underinsurance problem is arguably the largest unsolved problem in insurance. Over the last ten years, an average of $41bn per year of flood damage has gone uncovered by insurance, leaving people, businesses and governments to pay the bill. It’s estimated that there are $50bn of losses caused by floods around the world. Currently, […]

A colleague, who shall remain nameless (because privacy is not dead), gave a thumbs down to a recent column in the NYT. The complaint was that the writer had attacked tech companies (mostly but not exclusively Facebook) without offering any solutions for these all-powerful techbro CEOs’ orchestral failures to grasp the messy complexities of humanity […]

Let’s be honest, if you use a receiver as the hub of your home entertainment system, you probably only use about a quarter of the buttons, dials and inputs on it, at most. Not everyone needs all the bells and whistles of a receiver-driven surround sound system. For those looking to get their sound with […]

Most of the data around web browser market share puts Google Chrome or Safari at the top – with their percentage of the market varying by platform and region. But new research from analytics provider Mixpanel finds that many sources are overlooking a major contributor of mobile web browser events here in the U.S.: Facebook. […]

Troubled theater subscription service MoviePass is rejiggering its subscription plan once again. The company announced via press release that, due to consumer feedback, it won’t be raising the monthly subscription fee to $14.95 a month. Instead, things are staying at $9.95. The baddish news is that the $10 month plan is shifting from unlimited to […]

An unescapable fact of Facebook’s ubiquity is that as more Pages and people compete for limited News Feed attention, the percentage of a business’ followers who see their posts declines. Reach dropped 52 percent in just the first half of 2016, for example. Some admins consider it a conspiracy to get Pages to pay for […]

The New York Times announced on Friday how it’s adding its own take on Facebook-style News Feed to its mobile app. Yes, literally a news feed. The publication says it will now allow its iOS app users to customize their reading experience through a new feature called “Your Feed,” which consists only of those channels […]

We’re still waiting for a rescheduled time for the July Mavic 2 event, but here’s something while you wait, I guess. It’s the Spark, but with a bear face. Honestly, there’s not really much to add that isn’t already covered by the few thousand words we already wrote about the DJI Spark. Read those, but […]

A team of researchers at Duo Security has unearthed a sophisticated botnet operating on Twitter — and being used to spread a cryptocurrency scam. The botnet was discovered during the course of a wider research project to create and publish a methodology for identifying Twitter account automation — to help support further research into bots […]

Another acquisition for French carpooling platform BlaBlaCar: It’s picked up Russian Internet giant Mail.Ru’s relatively recent rival offering, BeepCar, in what’s being billed as both an acquisition and a partnership. BlaBlaCar says the move is aimed at consolidating its international growth. “Through this acquisition, we are doubling down our commitment to develop carpooling in Russia, […]

Business travelers have become an increasingly important part of the Airbnb business, according to a new blog post. The company says that Airbnb for Work, which launched in 2014, has seen bookings triple from 2015 to 2016, and triple again from 2016 to 2017. In fact, Airbnb says that almost 700,000 companies have signed up […]

When weighing up the likely success of challenger banks in the U.K., two predominant schools of thought emerge. Those who are bullish say that incumbent banks provide a lousy user experience, rip off customers, and innovate incredibly slowly — and therefore are ripe for the taking. Challenger banks just need to focus on what they […]

There’s yet more Alex Jones/Infowars news. Facebook yanked four of the conspiracy theorist’s videos from its platform last week, and now it has finally taken more stringent action after it removed four Infowars pages from the social network entirely. Over the weekend Spotify, Stitcher and Apple all removed Infowars audio content from their platforms days after YouTube […]

Didi Chuxing is going pedal to the metal for its automobile services business after it announced it will invest $1 billion into the division, which is also getting a rebrand. The Chinese ride-hailing firm had been tipped to spin out the business and raise $1.5 billion from investors ahead of an IPO, according to a recent Reuters […]

TechCrunch Startup Battlefield MENA 2018 represents our first foray into the rapidly developing startup scene in the Middle East and North Africa, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to help identify and showcase the top tech startups in the region. Our premiere startup pitch competition takes place on October 3 in the Beirut, Lebanon. Tickets […]

China is rising in many ways — the economy, consumer spending and technology — but still many of its population looks overseas, and particularly to the West, for cues on lifestyle and health. That’s a theme that’s being seized by LemonBox, a China-U.S. startup that lets Chinese consumers buy U.S. health products at affordable prices. […]

Apple has followed the lead of Google and Facebook after it removed Infowars, the conspiracy theorist organization helmed by Alex Jones, from its iTunes and podcasts apps. Unlike Google and Facebook, which removed four Infowars videos on the basis that the content violated its policies, Apple’s action is wider-reaching. The company has withdrawn all episodes of […]

In July 2018, the tech sector’s leisure class — venture capitalists — kicked investments into overdrive, at least when it comes to financing supergiant venture rounds of $100 million or more. With 55 deals accounting for just over $15 billion, July likely set an all-time record for the number of huge venture deals struck in a single month.

Orange is the New Black is back for a sixth season, dealing with the fallout from season five and shifting the location to the maximum security wing of Litchfield Prison. On the latest episode of the Original Content podcast, we’re joined by Megan Rose Dickey to discuss the latest developments on one of Netflix’s longest-running […]

Another week, another high-profile hack. This week it was (checks notes) Reddit. What makes this one marginally more interesting is that the victims were using two-factor authentication, i.e. SMS codes texted to them to verify their identities when their accounts were accessed — which turned out to be little more than a speed bump for […]

Is the dystopian future of shoestrong budget weaponized drone attacks here already? The BBC and AP are reporting claims by the Venezuela government of an assassination attempt on its president using a couple of drones carrying explosives. President Nicolás Maduro was giving a speech at a military event in Caracas which was being screened live on television […]

If you were at Disrupt London four years ago you may remember more than a little awkwardness during an investor panel when two VCs that had invested in European payday loans firm Wonga declined to comment on what had gone wrong at their portfolio company in the wake of a £220M write down. Yesterday Sky News reported that those same […]

Time is running out for the best entrepreneurial tech minds and makers across the Middle East and North Africa to compete in TechCrunch Startup Battlefield MENA 2018, which takes place in Beirut, Lebanon on October 3 at the Beirut Digital District. Applications to our premier startup-pitch competition close in just 24 hours. We’ve been traveling around […]

Did you ever think Patrick Stewart would return to the role of Jean-Luc Picard? Neither did he. But he will! Sir Pat Stew himself just announced the news on Instagram, timed to line up with an on-stage announcement at the Star Trek Las Vegas 2018 convention: I will always be very proud to have been […]

Data sovereignty is on the rise across the world. Laws and regulations increasingly require that citizen data be stored in local data centers, and often restricts movement of that data outside of a country’s borders. The European Union’s GDPR policy is one example, although it’s relatively porous. China’s relatively new cloud computing law is much […]

Boston has regained its longstanding place as the second-largest U.S. startup funding hub. After years of trailing New York City in total annual venture investment, Massachusetts is taking the lead in 2018.

Some companies keep products a closely guarded secret, like they were nuclear codes or ingredients to a popular cola. Others seem less concerned about the whole thing, as long as it keeps people talking. Based on all we’ve seen from the Galaxy Note 9 to date, it seems that Samsung falls firmly into the latter […]

Apple touts the cybersecurity of its iPhone, but less can be said for the exclusive manufacturer who makes the processor for the iPhone. Semiconductor foundry TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, was hit by a virus late Friday night, which forced it to shut down several factories according to Debbie Wu at Bloomberg. The virus […]

After months of back-and-forth negotiations, Washington moved rapidly this past week to fend off the increasing transcendence of China’s tech industry, with Congress passing expanded national security controls over M&A transactions and the Trump administration heaping more pressure on China with threats of increased tariffs. We’ve been following the reforms to CFIUS — the Committee […]

For being the richest company ever with $243 billion in cash, Apple sure cuts corners in the stingiest ways. The hardware giant became the first trillion-dollar company this week. Yet it’s tough to reconcile Apple earning $11 billion in profit per quarter with it still screwing us over on cords and keyboards. The “it just […]

Facebook Dating doesn’t plan to launch a standalone dating app, which should temper expectations about how deeply it’s diving into Tinder and Match Group’s territory. The feature will be based inside Facebook’s main app, alongside its many other utilities buried beyond the home screen. It’s not ready for the public yet, but company employees are […]

A company called Rentlogic has raised $2.4 million to take the guesswork out of determining whether that cheap, beautiful New York apartment is actually a deathtrap wrapped in a brownstone’s clothing. Renting in New York is murder already, but using Rentlogic, apartment hunters can figure out if their new housing situation could actually kill them (or put them […]

EA became the subject of online scrutiny this week when it was discovered that the gaming giant deleted a reference to Colin Kaepernick on the soundtrack for Madden 19. The former 49ers quarterback was name-checked by rapper Big Sean on a verse of the YG song “Big Bank,” only to have the mention deleted. The […]

Digital media company Kin has announced a slate of new video series from singer/actress Jordin Sparks, Bachelorette JoJo Fletcher and Jordan Rodgers (who successfully proposed to Fletcher over on the series). The company also revealed more details about its programming with Vanessa Lachey (who had already signed on with her husband Nick). She’ll be hosting a […]

GameFly, the video game rental company, will be shutting down its streaming service at the end of the month, Variety reported earlier this week. This closure comes just over three years after the streaming service launched in 2015. GameFly, the no-console streaming service for gamers, offered packages for $7 and $10 per month that gave users unlimited access […]

Sometimes smart contracts can be pretty dumb. All of the benefits of a cryptographically secured, publicly verified, anonymized transaction system can be erased by errant code, malicious actors or poorly defined parameters of an executable agreement. Hoping to beat back the tide of bad contracts, bad code and bad actors, Sagewise, a new Los Angeles-based startup, […]

A Y Combinator-backed startup, JetLenses, is taking on the major contact lens e-commerce sites, like 1-800-Contacts, Lens.com, and other online ordering systems offered by major retailers, such as Walmart. The startup’s goal is to bring down the cost of prescription products by automating the overhead associated with these businesses, in areas like prescription verification, order […]

NASA has announced the names of the first astronauts who’ll fly to the International Space Station on American-made, commercial spacecraft. The crews will fly to the space station on rockets built by NASA commercial partners Boeing and SpaceX. “Today, our country’s dreams of greater achievements in space are within our grasp,” said NASA administrator Jim […]

Forking over your cold, hard cash isn’t the only way you can score a ticket to Disrupt San Francisco 2018 on September 5-7. We’re looking for volunteers willing to trade their time to help us produce our biggest, most ambitious Disrupt conference ever. And what do you get in return? One complimentary Innovator Pass that gives […]

Crypto skeptics rejoice! A new way to short the cryptocurrency market is coming from dYdX, a decentralized financial derivatives startup. In two months it will launch its protocol for creating short and leverage positions for Ethereum and other ERC20 tokens that allow investors to amp up their bets for or against these currencies. To get […]

Even as the wealth of Jeff Bezos balloons and Amazon eats everyone’s online retail lunch, there are still a few other e-commerce entrepreneurs faring rather well. In 2011, eBay purchased GSI Commerce for $2.4 billion, at the same time divesting wholly from the sports merchandise business in Fanatics and significantly from the sites ShopRunner and Rue […]

Foundry Group, the Boulder, Colo.-based venture firm co-founded 11 years ago by startup whisperer Brad Feld, has raised a $750 million seventh fund to target early-stage and growth-stage companies, as well as to invest in other venture funds. It sounds like — and is — a lot of money, though the firm notes that it encompasses all of its […]

Lemonade, the New York-based insurance platform, looks set to drop the lawsuit it filed against German company ONE Insurance, its parent company Wefox, and Wefox founder Julian Teicke. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court Southern District of NY, alleged that Wefox reverse engineered Lemonade to create ONE, infringed Lemonade’s intellectual property, violated the […]

Some people leave lights, music or the TV on when they’re away from home in an attempt to ward off burglars, but a new Alexa skill called “Away Mode” has a different idea. Instead of lights and noises, you can keep your home safe from unwanted visitors by playing lengthy audio tracks that sound like […]

As employers duke it out over hiring the best possible candidates, especially ones coming out of school, they are starting to get a little bit more creative with their incentive packages — and that includes offering an option for paying down student debt. Goodly is a new startup that’s looking to help those employers offer […]

“I tried walking around in a Homer mask, but the latex is hard to breathe in. My head gets so sweaty and my glasses fog up. It’s not worth it for me,” Matt Groening laughs. “But what a way to go, suffocating on a Homer Simpson mask.” The cartoonist bemoans his inability to go incognito […]