Oct 28th
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The Latest
Transportation
Tesla names Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Walgreens executive to board as part of SEC settlement
6:42 am PST • December 28, 2018
Tesla has added two independent directors to its board — Oracle founder, chairman and CTO Larry Ellison and Walgreens executive Kathleen Wilson-Thompson — as part of a settlement with U.S. securities…
Venture
Bradley Tusk on mobile voting, Uber’s IPO race with Lyft and the Dems taking over the House
6:10 AM PST • December 28, 2018
Hello! Welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. As you know, typically, a few of us try…
We are living in an interstitial period. In the early 1980s we entered an era of desktop computing that culminated in the dot-com crash — a financial bubble that we…
A project by students at Carnegie Mellon could save lives. Called the HopeBand, the wristband senses low blood oxygen levels and sends a text message and sounds an alarm if…
Transportation
Grab raises fundraising target to $5B as Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing war heats up
12:35 am PST • December 28, 2018
Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm Grab is aiming to start the new year with a bang and an awful lot of bucks. The company, which acquired Uber’s local business earlier this…
Venture
Venture capital, global expansion, blockchain and drones characterize African tech in 2018
12:01 am PST • December 28, 2018
2018 saw Africa’s tech sector become more dynamic and international. Here’s a snapshot of the news that shaped African tech over the last year.
Media & Entertainment
Indonesia unblocks Tumblr following its ban on adult content
9:32 pm PST • December 27, 2018
Indonesia, the world’s fourth largest country by population, has unblocked Tumblr nine months after it blocked the social networking site over pornographic content. Tumblr — which, disclaimer, is owned by…
TestCard Diagnostics makes a postcard sized at home urine test
4:21 PM PST • December 27, 2018
Recorded on December 12, 2018. The innovative medtech behind the “urine test-in-a-postcard” concept. Its accompanying mobile app provides an immediate result.
Transportation
Porsche’s top-of-the-line EV to get the Turbo name and a $130,000-plus price tag
4:18 pm PST • December 27, 2018
Porsche’s upcoming Taycan, which is expected to go on sale next year, will have at least three variants of the all-electric sports car, including an all-wheel drive version. But it’s…
Hardware
Watch the ANYmal quadrupedal robot go for an adventure in the sewers of Zurich
4:01 pm PST • December 27, 2018
There’s a lot of talk about the many potential uses of multi-legged robots like Cheetahbot and Spot — but in order for those to come to fruition, the robots actually…
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Your startup may have the coolest tech, be in the biggest market and have the smartest team, but no matter what your board says, revenue is not the primary indicator.
Startups
Iota Biosciences raises $15M to produce in-body sensors smaller than a grain of rice
1:26 pm PST • December 27, 2018
Fitness trackers and heart-rate monitors are all well and good, but if you want to track activity inside the body, the solutions aren’t nearly as convenient. Iota Biosciences wants to…
Media & Entertainment
People lost their damn minds when Instagram accidentally went horizontal
12:41 pm PST • December 27, 2018
Earlier today, when Instagram suddenly transformed into a landscape-oriented Tinder-esque nightmare, the app’s dedicated users extremely lost their minds and immediately took to Twitter to be vocal about it. As…
Reid Hoffman denies direct knowledge of funding disinformation in the Alabama Senate race
11:35 am PST • December 27, 2018
One of Silicon Valley’s prominent billionaires is in hot water after funding deceptive social media campaigns with echoes of Russia’s own political playbook. Reid Hoffman, who co-founded LinkedIn in 2003…
Startups
TrueFacet, which sells pre-owned, authenticated watches and jewelry, is raising a $10 million round of funding
11:18 am PST • December 27, 2018
The secondary luxury goods market has been growing wildly in recent years, with more shoppers opting to both sell their lightly used luxury goods like clothing and jewelry for cold,…
Transportation
Elon Musk argues comments on Twitter are protected speech in request to dismiss ‘pedo guy’ lawsuit
11:10 am PST • December 27, 2018
Elon Musk has filed a motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed against him by the British cave rescuer who sued the billionaire entrepreneur for calling him a pedophile. Musk’s…
Startups
Cap table management tool Carta valued at $800M with new funding
10:30 am PST • December 27, 2018
Carta, formerly known as eShares, has raised $80 million from Meritech and Tribe Capital.
Transportation
Elon Musk lays out ambitious plan for Tesla Supercharger network in Europe
9:02 am PST • December 27, 2018
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is making some audacious promises again for the company’s network of electric fast chargers, known as Superchargers. This time, he’s aiming for 100 percent Tesla Supercharger…
Alexa wasn’t the only thing that crashed over Christmas due to an influx of new users. Apparently, Philips Hue has been having an outage, as well. A multi-day outage, in…
Media & Entertainment
Instagram accidentally rolled out tap-to-advance feed, removes it
8:07 am PST • December 27, 2018
Instagram confirms that a bug this morning mistakenly rolled out a massive change to its feed that replaced the traditional scrolling with horizontal tap-to-advance, like with Stories. In October, TechCrunch…
