The Consumer Electronics Show, like Burning Man, is a massive event in the middle of the desert. Also like Burning Man it is populated by some of the greatest minds in technology. But, unlike Burning Man, these people are all dressed and only a few of them are on hard psychotropic drugs. Also CES is
Month: December 2018
IBM today announced that it has developed a small sensor that sits on a person’s fingernail to help monitor the effectiveness of drugs used to combat the symptoms of Parkinson’s and other diseases. Together with the custom software that analyzes the data, the sensor measures how the nail warps as the user grips something. Because virtually any
The UK’s second busiest airport, Gatwick, reopened its runway early this morning after a day of shutdown triggered after drones were repeatedly spotting flying nearby. In a media statement issued at 08:00 GMT this morning, the airport said it reopened the runway at 06:00 and that a “limited number” of aircraft are now taking off
One more big consolidation play is underway in the highly competitive European food delivery business, amid more pressure from newer players like Uber Eats and Deliveroo. Today, Delivery Hero announced that it will be selling its operations in Germany — its actual home market — to Dutch rival Takeaway.com for a total consideration of €930
SoftBank’s Vision Fund is set to continue its recent spree of investments in Asian tech unicorns. The mega fund — which is targeted at $100 billion — is planning to invest upwards of $1 billion into Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing leader Grab, two sources with knowledge of the plan told TechCrunch. The investment could reach as much
Twitter was down 11 percent today after a Citron Research report called the platform, the “Harvey Weinstein of social media” and set a low target price of $20. As of publishing today, the stock was down more than 11 percent at $29.29 a share. In their report Citron did not mince words, basing their conclusions on
Social game developer Zynga has entered into an agreement to acquire Small Giant Games, the startup behind the popular mobile game Empires & Puzzles, in a deal expected to total $700 million. Zynga, which has tumbled since its 2011 Nasdaq initial public offering, will initially acquire 80 percent of Small Giant Games for $560 million, composed
Back in March came the surprising news that a satellite communications company still more or less in stealth mode had launched several tiny craft into orbit — against the explicit instructions of the FCC. The company, Swarm Technologies, now faces a $900,000 penalty from the agency as well as extra oversight of its continuing operations.
WhatsApp chat groups are being used to spread illegal child pornography, cloaked by the app’s end-to-end encryption. Without the necessary number of human moderators, the disturbing content is slipping by WhatsApp’s automated systems. A report reviewed by TechCrunch from two Israeli NGOs details how third-party apps for discovering WhatsApp groups include “Adult” sections that offer
Welcome to TechCrunch’s 2018 Holiday Gift Guide! Need more gift ideas? Check out our Gift Guide Hub. Buying the right stuff as a new parent is tough. Buying the right things for a new parent? Even harder. There’s just way, way too much junk out there marketed at new parents. A lot of it seems
Smart speakers that let you control services and other connected devices in your home will continue to be a popular gift choice during the holiday season and into next year, when usage is set to rise by 15 percent to 74.2 million people in the US, working out to 26.8 percent of the US population,
One by one, European countries are slapping Uber with a penalty for the way it handled its 2016 data breach. Today, France’s data protection watchdog, the CNIL, announced it was fining Uber $460,000 (€400,000). This event was a combination of bad security with bad reaction and good timing. Back in 2016, Uber faced a data
Mystery drone operator/s have grounded flights at the UK’s second largest airport, disrupting the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of people hoping to get away over the festive period. The BBC reports that Gatwick Airport’s runway has been shut since Wednesday night on safety grounds, after drones were spotted being flown repeatedly over the
Apple will allow iOS users to gift in-app purchases, not just paid apps, according to a change to the company’s App Store Review Guidelines spotted this week. This means developers may soon have the tools to allow users to purchase virtual goods or even subscriptions through their app, which can then be gifted to others.
Autodesk announced this morning that it intends to buy construction software platform, BuildingConnected for $275 million (net of the startup’s cash on hand). It comes on the heels of the company’s PlanGrid purchase for $875 million just last month. With BuildingConnected, the company gets a network of 700,000 construction-related professionals that help real estate companies
Twitter and Facebook announced this morning they’ve removed a combined total of 30 accounts that were working to spread misinformation in Bangladesh, ten days before the country’s general elections. According to Facebook, the company removed nine Facebook Pages and six Facebook accounts that were engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” Twitter said it removed 15 accounts that
Before Ram Palaniappan founded Earnin, he developed a system for employees at a payments company called UniRush, where he spent eight years as president. If you needed money before payday, he would write you a check from his checking account and when payday rolled around, employees would reimburse him. Despite being paid what Palaniappan thought were
Boosted has scored some serious cash as it looks to move beyond the world of electric skateboards to conquer new forms of personal transportation. The startup announced today that it has closed a $60 million round of Series B funding co-led by Khosla Ventures and iNovia Capital. Stanford’s StartX and Bay Meadows also participated in the round.
After a long year fighting underage use of its products, Juul Labs has today struck a deal with Altria Group, the owners of Philip Morris USA and makers of Marlboro cigarettes. The deal values Juul at $38 billion, according to Bloomberg, and injects the company with a fresh $12.8 billion in exchange for a 35
One of the biggest providers of domain names and web hosting in Europe is changing hands today. One.com, which has around 1.5 million customers mainly across the north of the region, has been sold by private equity firm Accel-KKR to Cinven, another PE player that focuses on investments in Europe. Terms of the deal are
Gamelearn, which develops video games to deliver corporate training, has scored $5 million in Series A funding. Participating in the new financing round is previous backer Kibo Ventures, along with Oak3Capital, All Iron Ventures, UL Invest, and Inveready. The Madrid-based startup says that will use the new capital to boost the company’s production of “serious
Naspers, the South African investment giant, is back at it again in India! Days after backing educational startup Byju’s by leading a $540 million investment, it has led a $1 billion investment in food delivery company Swiggy. The new round sees Chinese internet and Naspers ally Tencent join the party, alongside fellow new investors Hillhouse Capital
The digital revolution has spawned ‘challenger’ banks that operate entirely online, with no high street presence. That phenomenon has taken off in Europe — particularly the UK — but over in Hong Kong, one of the world’s key financial hubs, the digital-only push is coming to the insurance industry. Bowtie, a Hong Kong-based digital insurer, just
In a new blog post, Facebook VP of Product Partnerships Ime Archibong addressed the company’s latest user privacy controversy. The rebuttal is the second round of Facebook’s push back against Tuesday’s report by the New York Times detailing some of Facebook’s special partnerships and extensive data sharing with major tech players. In the new post,
In the city, we’re constantly saturated with the radio waves from ten or twenty different routers, cell towers, and other wireless infrastructure. But in rural communities there might only be one internet connection for a whole village. LibreRouter is a hardware and software project that looks to let those communities build their own modern, robust
If you’re concerned about what you eat, there’s a good chance you’ve looked at the food in the supermarket, or in your fridge, and wondered where it actually comes from. Now urban farming incubator Square Roots is introducing a new way for you to check full history of the produce that you’re about to purchase.
It was several years ago, at a tech conference in Laguna Beach, Calif., that the venture capitalist Bill Gurley issued one of what would become repeated warnings that startups were staying private too long. Comparing companies that refuse to go public to undergrads whose college careers extend several years past the point that they should,
WhatsApp is making group calls easier with a change to the way its mobile app works. Before, users would have to start a 1:1 video call, then add participants – there wasn’t an option to begin a group call at once, the company says. Now, the design has been updated so you can start group
When it comes to shift workers communicating with each other in the workplace when they are not face-to-face, gone are the days of cork announcement boards. Now, the messaging app is the medium, and today one of the startups tackling that opportunity in a unique way has raised a round of funding to get to
M&A activity was brisk in the enterprise market this year with 10 high-profile deals totaling almost $88 billion. Companies were opening up their wallets and pouring money into mega acquisitions. It’s worth noting that the $88 billion figure doesn’t include Dell paying investors over $23 billion for VMware tracking stock to take the company public
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