The Latest

Alibaba continues to put its chips into the cloud after it announced the opening of four new data centers across the world. A new facility in the Middle East (Dubai)…

Alibaba gives its fast-growing cloud computing business another global push

A timely, if a little surprising, piece of M&A this morning from Oracle: the enterprise services company announced that it has acquired Dyn, the popular DNS provider that was the subject of a…

Oracle acquires DNS provider Dyn, subject of a massive DDoS attack in October
Fintech

What does Trump mean for tech M&A?

5:30 am PST • November 21, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeFMr94_oN8 After Donald Trump’s unexpected presidential victory earlier this month, the tech community has been trying to assess how the new administration will impact them. There are concerns that there will…

What does Trump mean for tech M&A?

Google has invested a total of $4.5 million CAD ($3.4M US) in AI research in Montreal’s Institute for Learning Algorithms, with an academic fund covering three years that will help…

Google opens new AI lab and invests $3.4M in Montreal-based AI research

Snapchat has been dropping its Spectacles-selling Snapbot vending machines at various spots across the country, but Monday marks the first time it’s put them on the east coast – and…

Spectacles finally arrive in NYC with a Central Park Snapbot store

TechCrunch Disrupt in London is on December 5-6! One month to go! It will be the place to come talk about new technology, your startup, other startups, everyone’s startups! Grab…

AR pioneer Omar Tayeb, of Blippar, is speaking at Disrupt London, Dec 5-6

Facebook has followed Google’s lead by trumpeting plans to expand its presence in the UK — despite ongoing uncertainty over the impact of this summer’s Brexit vote for the country…

Facebook plans to boost UK headcount by 50% as gov’t signals corporate tax rate cut

The Climate Corporation (owned by Monsanto) has acquired Estonia-based farm management startup VitalFields. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, although we’re told the VitalFields team will be joining The Climate…

Monsanto-owned The Climate Corporation acquires Estonia’s VitalFields

With all of the bingeing and football watching on Thanksgiving, it can prove tough to remember to, you know, actually get up and move at some point. But that’s sort…

The Apple Watch will try to get wearers moving on Thanksgiving

Self-driving taxi startup Nutonomy is expanding its autonomous vehicle trials to the U.S. after agreeing to a partnership with City of Boston and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

Self-driving car startup Nutonomy to begin road tests in Boston

Where we’ll be next

Samsung has denied that devices in its Galaxy S7 range are affected by the same battery safety issue that forced it to kill off the Galaxy Note 7.

Samsung says its Galaxy S7 smartphones are safe and do not have battery issues

Looks like tis the season for Apple replacement programs. Days after the U.S. tech giant addressed ‘touch disease’ on certain iPhone 6 Plus devices, so Apple has announced a battery…

Apple is replacing faulty batteries on ‘a very small number’ of iPhone 6s devices
AI

There is no IoT

7:00 pm PST • November 20, 2016

There’s a general malaise growing around IoT. After years of hype, more hype and even more hype, people are now starting to wonder: Where is this shiny, artificially intelligent, fully…

There is no IoT

Facebook’s issues with viral false news reports dominated headlines this week, so naturally it came up as a key topic of discussion when I spoke to TechCrunch’s special projects editor…

Facebook’s fake news problem and fantasy sports: Listen to TCBC 9 with Jordan Crook

In living organisms, evolution is a multi-generational process where mutations in genes are dropped and added. Well-adapted organisms survive and those less fortunate go extinct. This is Natural Selection. Resilience…

Why nature is our best guide for understanding artificial intelligence

Harry Weller, who has long led the East Coast venture practice of New Enterprise Associates from Washington, D.C., passed away unexpectedly last night. He was 46. Weller had joined the…

Harry Weller, a “Midas List” VC and the head of NEA’s East Coast practice, has passed away

In Boston this weekend, software developers, hardware engineers, artists and entrepreneurs gathered for the Hacking Arts 2016 conference and hackathon at MIT. Of twelve finalists, the following teams took top…

Harmony Space wins top prize at MIT Hacking Arts for music learning app that feels like Pokémon GO

Not even 24 hours after we got the last Snapchat Spectacle vending machine location, there’s a new one: near the Grand Canyon in Arizona, closest to the small town of…

Spectacle-selling Snapbot deployed at the Grand Canyon

Beyond Nokia: A love story

4:00 am PST • November 20, 2016

It was October 2011. Verena Rentrop and Elsie Parumog, two Nokia staff stationed on opposite sides of the world, were having a routine work chat when something more pressing came up.…

Beyond Nokia: A love story

Last week I caught up with Matt Robinson, co-founder and CEO of London-based property tech startup Nested. Prior to this he co-founded GoCardless, a fintech company also based in London.…

Listen to Nested CEO on reluctant founders, fundraising, and why you shouldn’t do a startup