August 2017
Disrupt Berlin 2017 Startup Battlefield applications are now open!
Startup Battlefield applications for Disrupt Berlin are now open. TechCrunch is hunting for innovative startups to launch on the famous Disrupt stage this December.
Crunch Report | Postmates delivers a personnel shift
The first ICO unicorns have arrived, the Nest Thermostat E is a new cheaper, simpler thermostat, Postmates laid off all its city managers yesterday and the latest SanDisk microSD card…
Spotify’s head of video and podcasts departs amid strategy shift
Tom Calderone, Spotify’s head of video and podcasts, is departing the company amid a shift in content strategy. The news was first identified by Bloomberg. The digital streaming business, known…
Google’s Transformer solves a tricky problem in machine translation
Machine learning has turned out to be a very useful tool for translation, but it has a few weak spots. The tendency of translation models to do their work word…
Please let The Friendship Code and its tech-savvy girls be the new Baby-Sitters Club
Okay, full disclosure, I never read any Baby-Sitters Club book. But you know what I’m talking about, right? We all had some endless series we read where a few kids…
Basis Set Ventures gets real to get to the heart of AI startups
Lan Xuezhao has spent the last few months pulling together $136 million for her new machine intelligence-focused venture capital fund, Basis Set Ventures. I met Xuezhao for tea on a…
Twitch’s new extensions let streamers customize their channel, make money from Amazon sales
Twitch today is introducing a suite of tools called Twitch Extensions that will allow its streamers to customize their channel pages with interactive features, including polls, leaderboards, tickers, schedules, overlays…
Uber hires former Facebook exec and Firefox founder Blake Ross
Uber has hired Firefox co-founder Blake Ross to work with them on product strategy. Ross will be working with the ridesharing company part-time from Los Angeles. He announced it on…
Razer’s gunmetal Blade Stealth is like dressing a gaming laptop in a suit
An all-black exterior, backlit triple snake logo and a keyboard with every color in the rainbow is often what kept corporate types and minimalists away from Razer’s laptop portfolio. Now…
Nest invites press to a “big announcement” on September 20
Earlier today Nest announced a new thermostat but it appears the company has more things to announce. Nest just sent invites to an event on September 20, saying it’s a…
First impressions of Essential’s 360-degree camera attachment
Essential has a unique port around back on its debut Phone, which can handle data and power transfer, and which attaches to accessories via magnets. The first such accessory is…
Black Girls Code raises $154K after turning down six figures from Uber
Last week, we reported Black Girls Code turned down a $125,000 grant from Uber in what Black Girls Code CEO Kimberly Bryant described to me as a multi-layered decision. Shortly…
Samsung secures self-driving car testing permit for California roads
Samsung got approval to test autonomous vehicles on state roads in California, according to the CA Department of Motor Vehicle’s website. The DMV maintains an ongoing list of companies and…
Monitoring construction sites for building safety nets Pillar Technologies $2.75 million
The New York-based company, a former graduate of TechCrunch’s CES Hardware Battlefield 2017 is the latest tech startup working to bring technology to the construction business — one of the industries most resistant…
Facebook’s new Watch video hub rolls out to U.S. users
Facebook’s latest push into video is now live. On Thursday, the new Watch tab popped up for U.S. users as the feature begins its proper roll-out. The Watch tab sits…
The White House has removed an important report on sexual violence from its website
Since Trump took office, how many times have you asked yourself “What fresh hell is this?” Today is one of those days I feel I’m asking every five minutes. Our…
The Moto X4 has Alexa and a multi-device music streaming feature
LG’s V30 is clearly the most hyped handset at this year’s IFA, but Motorola’s got a surprise contender for the most interesting. While the Lenovo-owned company is clearly pumping most of…
The littleBits Droid Inventor Kit lets you build an R2-D2 of your very own
Ever wanted to build an R2-D2 to call your own? You could drop a few million dollars to get all the screen-used parts/props… Or you could spend a few weeks…
Uber catches a break in lawsuit involving alleged ‘Hell’ program
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley has dismissed a lawsuit involving Uber’s alleged use of a program called “Hell.” The lawsuit was originally filed in April by Michael Gonzales, who drove for Lyft…
The Destiny 2 live action trailer is out and it’s hilarious
The Destiny 2 live action trailer is officially out, and it’s one of the most comical video game trailers ever. The live action trailer heralds the coming of the new…
Sony just announced a new camera called the RX0, but breaking from the trend of lower number = fancier camera, this one is a tiny device that combines an action-cam…
A long-time Facebook brand marketing exec has been tapped to lead marketing efforts at Oculus. Rebecca Van Dyck will be joining the virtual reality team as CMO. Her challenge will…
Egyptian technology startups stand on the shoulders of giants
With technology and curious minds, several founders not only built great products and companies, they created the foundation for a strong and resilient technology sector that has been an economic…
More details have emerged about a controversial 2015 patient data-sharing arrangement between Google DeepMind and a UK National Health Service Trust which paint a contrasting picture vs the pair’s public…
You can now catch a Lyft even in rural areas in 40 U.S. states
All 50 states offer some form of Lyft service but now even rural areas in most states can catch a Lyft. According to a company statement out today, Lyft can…
Apple defends the open internet in a letter to the FCC
On the heels of setting the date for its big fall iPhone event, Apple is coming out swinging for net neutrality. In a letter to the FCC, Apple’s U.S. Vice President…
Microsoft’s new Mixer Create app lets you live stream games from your phone
Microsoft’s mobile game streaming app Mixer Create is launching out of beta testing today on iOS and Android, allowing gamers to broadcast the games they’re playing right from their phone.…
Strivr Labs, a virtual reality training startup with some big partners, including Walmart and the NFL, has added some new talent to the team. The company has hired a new…
The future of conversational AI is not a league of anthropomorphic voice assistants that we address by name to handle our problems. We will not unlock our iPhones and ask…
Dharma wants to let anyone borrow a small amount of cryptocurrency
dApps, or decentralized apps, are open-source applications built on top of a blockchain. But here’s the thing – users usually can’t interact with these dApps unless they have tokens issued by…
