August 2019
Y Combinator Demo Day, revenue-based VC funding, Pivotal, Dell, Tumblr, WeWork, and more
Editor’s note Due to bad travel logistics (thanks SFO), I wasn’t able to get the mid-week edition of the Extra Crunch roundup newsletter out. Sorry about that. Instead, here is…
The new Disney+ streaming service is oriented around fans and families
You can tell a lot about a service by what it prioritizes on its home screen. With the new Disney + service, the focus is initially organized by fan base,…
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Driving Volkswagen’s all-electric ID Buggy concept
The VW electric ID Buggy concept is delightful and bright, stout and smiling. It’s a vehicle fit for the sunshine and sand dunes, or perhaps a less committing slow roll along the beach. And so my first drive in a prototype of the all-electric buggy — along the coast near Spanish Bay in Monterey, Calif.,…
In this week’s newsletter: Andreessen Horowitz’s latest investment, Pietra, is tackling the $250 billion jewelry market.
Graphcore founder Nigel Toon to talk about AI chips at Disrupt Berlin
It’s easy to forget that Silicon Valley starts with ‘silicon’, and that there would be no technology innovation without innovation at the silicon level. And Graphcore is well aware of…
Confirmed: Disney is making an Obi-Wan series with Ewan McGregor
The rumors have been suggesting it for a while now, and fans have been pretty much begging for it… and it’s happening: Ewan McGregor will return to the role of…
Here’s the first trailer for the upcoming Disney+ Star Wars series, The Mandalorian
It’s here! About ten months after we learned that Jon Favreau would be heading up a Star Wars series called “The Mandalorian” on Disney’s soon-to-launch streaming service Disney+, we have…
Vape lung has claimed its first victim, and the CDC is investigating
A person has died from what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention speculate is a vaping-related condition. Nearly 200 other cases of varying severeness have been reported nationwide, described…
Disney introduces “She Hulk”, “Moon Knight” and “Ms. Marvel” to Disney+ streaming service
As part of its big reveal of the slate of shows coming to Disney+ streaming service, Marvel head Kevin Feige introduced three new shows that would be joining the Marvel…
Trump adds tariffs to $550 billion of Chinese imports in trade war reprisal
President Trump announced Friday on Twitter that tariffs on Chinese imports will increase 5 percentage points in a tit-for-tat response to China’s own plans to place new duties on U.S.…
It’s finally Bag Week again! The most wonderful week of the year at TechCrunch. Just in time for back to school, we’re bringing you reviews of bags of all varieties: from…
Chinese tariff retaliation, presidential tweets and market unease sends exchanges plummeting
After a week of modest gains, major stock indexes plummeted on Friday as China retaliated against U.S. tariffs by imposing $75 billion worth of tariffs on U.S. goods coming into…
Walmart came out swinging earlier this week in a lawsuit that accused Tesla of breach of contract and gross negligence over problems with rooftop solar panel systems installed at the…
How Pivotal got bailed out by fellow Dell family member, VMware
When Dell acquired EMC in 2016 for $67 billion, it created a complicated consortium of interconnected organizations. Some, like VMware and Pivotal, operate as completely separate companies. They have their…
Waxed canvas messengers from Trakke, Waterfield and Mission Workshop are spacious and rugged
It’s nearing the end of Bag Week 2019, where we highlight the best receptacles for the tech we cover daily, and we’ve got a few more winners for you. Earlier…
Netflix tests human-driven curation with launch of ‘Collections’
Netflix is testing a new way to help users find TV shows and movies they’ll want to watch with the launch of a “Collections” feature, currently in testing on iOS…
Backup service IDrive launches a face recognition API for developers
I did a bit of a double take when I first saw this announcement. IDrive, an online cloud storage and backup service, is launching a face recognition API today that…
Daily Crunch: Overstock CEO resigns
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…
Watch a Waymo self-driving car test its sensors in a haboob
Waymo, the self-driving car company under Alphabet, has been testing in the suburbs of Phoenix for several years now. And while the sunny metropolis might seem like the ideal and…
Is Knotel poised to turn WeWork from a Unicorn into an Icarus?
The day of reckoning for the “flexible office space as a startup” is coming, and it’s coming up fast. WeWork’s IPO filing has fired the starting gun on the race…
It’s perfectly natural for a red-blooded American to, once they have procured their first real drone, experiment with attaching a flame thrower to it. But it turns out that this…
The Pad & Quill Gladstone Briefcase offers plenty of storage in a beautiful design
Pad & Quill makes some of the most handsome leather goods for the modern world, and its Gladstone Leather Briefcase is no different. This bag harkens back to the day…
UK’s health data guardian sets a firm line for app development using patient data
The UK’s health data watchdog, the National Data Guardian (NDG), has published correspondence between her office and the national privacy watchdog which informed the ICO’s finding in 2017 that a…
Samsung’s settled into a nice little twice-yearly schedule for releasing flagships. That’s allowed the company double the opportunity to introduce some nice upgrades to their high-end Android handsets. Nearly six…
India today addressed a long-standing challenge that has been affecting the country’s booming startup ecosystem. As part of a raft of measures to boost overall economic growth from a five-year low, Finance…
The 2020 Chevy Bolt EV now has a 259-mile range thanks to some cell chemistry tinkering
The 2020 Chevy Bolt EV now has 259 miles of range, a 9% increase from previous year models of the electric hatchback, according to the EPA. To get there, the…
CEO Jeremy OBriant never intended to create Torch, an agile growth marketing agency based in San Francisco. He started his career as a CPA, but after leading a growth team…
Oh hey, y’all, it’s Friday! It’s August! Which means it’s a great day for Facebook to drop a little news it would prefer you don’t notice. News that you won’t…
Nonprofits and NGOs: Exhibit at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2019
Nonprofit groups and NGOs are now invited to apply for exhibit space in Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt SF on Friday, October 4th. Founded in 2014, TechCrunch Include leverages our extensive…
Japan’s ispace now aims for a lunar landing in 2021, and a Moon rover deployment in 2023
One of the private companies aiming to deliver a commercial lunar lander to the Moon has adjusted the timing for its planned mission, which isn’t all that surprising, given the…