WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging service that claims a billion users, has launched desktop clients for Mac and Windows. The release comes about 15 months after WhatsApp released its first web app. Read More | Continue reading
The news comes just days after rival hyperloop builder Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) announced a licensing deal to power its own prototype with magnetic levitation technology. Both Hyperloop One (formerly Hyperloop Technologies) and HTT are based in L.A. and both ar … | Continue reading
Thus far at TC Disrupt NY, we’ve seen a handshake stalemate between IAB’s Randall Rothenberger and AdBlocker’s Till Faida. We’ve seen the Siri founders debut the next-generation of voice powered AI with . And we’ve seen Fred Wilson talk about New York. Twice. Tomorrow, we have a … | Continue reading
There’s an idea that’s been gaining ground in the tech community lately: Everyone should learn to code. But here’s the problem with that idea: Coding is not the new literacy. We live in an ultra-competitive world, with people turning to all sorts of methods to make ends meet. Sel … | Continue reading
We’re here in Red Hook, Brooklyn for TechCrunch Disrupt NY and Jon Shieber’s beard is getting out of control. It’s getting shaved for the Red Hook Initiative.Use this GoFundMe page to contribute to the cause or donate directly to the Red Hook Initiative here.Jon is a gentle soul … | Continue reading
If you want to 3D print something who do you call? Step forward 3Dprintler, a startup that has made a search engine for locating 3D printing services in your area. The team was chosen as the wildcard company from Startup Alley to present on stage in the 2016 battlefield here at T … | Continue reading
Uber, the world’s biggest unicorn, got its start as a limo service that typically cost more than traditional taxi services. But as Uber looks to add an ever more mainstream audience globally, it has added more lower-cost options, and those are now coming into their own. Uber toda … | Continue reading
Credit card reward programs can be confusing, and each can be totally different from the next. So managing all your points and rewards can quickly become a headache. Enter Birch Finance, a service that helps users manage their rewards programs and points across multiple credit ca … | Continue reading
PlaceAVote wants you.The soon-to-launch startup brings together politically-minded users to debate the bills currently before Congress. PlaceAVote, which is competing in Battlefield at Disrupt NY 2016, allows its users to discuss issues, write explanations of bills, and even vote … | Continue reading
Launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016 is a new service called Bark, aimed at parents who want to keep their kids safe online. Unlike traditional “parental control” software or net nanny-type watchdog applications, Bark’s goal is to strike the correct balance between respe … | Continue reading
Ritual has developed a beaded oil capsule vitamin for sustained release from what it says are the best ingredients found throughout the world to nourish your body. The company launched today onstage at Disrupt NY. Vitamins, even the sustainable release kind, sit within a crowded … | Continue reading
“Cujo protects everything on your network,” the company’s CEO, Einaras Gravrock says, describing his product in the simplest terms possible ahead of its Disrupt NY launch this week. “Think of it as an immunity system for your network.” The Cujo is surprisingly unassuming, a small … | Continue reading
Mozilla is bringing back its Test Pilot program for Firefox. The idea behind Test Pilot is to allow users — and Mozilla’s engineers — to test experimental browser features long before they arrive in the browser. Test Pilot first launched all the way back in 2009 but quietly shut … | Continue reading
The 2016 Volvo XC90 T6 R-Design has an all-new look and a powerful 2-liter supercharged engine with 316 horsepower. But this is TechCrunch, where we’re all about that tablet-like center console and pushing all the buttons to see how well the vehicle can drive on its own. Volvo’s … | Continue reading
It’s the year, or perhaps the decade, of the drone, and the popular craft are only getting cheaper, better, and easier to control — but why should drones be limited to the air? The SeaDrone, demonstrated on-stage at Disrupt NY today, brings the benefits and simplicity of multi-ro … | Continue reading
Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel has agreed to back Trump as a California delegate in Cleveland this summer. Thiel’s level of support for the Donald is unclear but Thiel will be one of 172 selected Golden State delegates headed to the Republican National Convention, and a so … | Continue reading
The world is familiar with bitcoin being used for many things. Online payments, long-distance remittance, even a substitute for gold, but what about credit? Not so much — and that’s where BitPagos, a startup competing in the Battlefield pitch competition at TechCrunch Disrupt New … | Continue reading
“Citizen Kane does not come in year two of VR.” Esteemed VR filmmaker/documentarian/founder/CEO Chris Milk took to the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in NY to discuss the limitations and massive items of potential for the proliferation of VR content, still in its early early early s … | Continue reading
Mark Douglas’ daughter was shopping around for an apartment. But the person showing apartments around just assumed that because she was young she didn’t have the buying power to afford an expensive apartment — and they didn’t have any data to back that up. That’s where HomeMe, an … | Continue reading
Searching for a new job sucks. It sucks even more when you apply for a job you’re super pumped about just to find out that the company doesn’t think you’re cut out for it. #Rude. UpScored, which launched its data-driven end-to-end platform for employers and job-seekers on stage a … | Continue reading
Against a backdrop of a New York investment scene that’s been long on promise and press and somewhat lacking in terms of exits, tech icons Fred Wilson, co-founder of Union Square Ventures, and Tim Armstrong, (my boss’ boss’ boss) chief executive of AOL, have come together to laun … | Continue reading
What makes historical sites and areas significant aren’t generally just what you see at face value. Where pamphlets and audio tours fall short is in truly conveying the deep history that lends significance to these locations. Read More | Continue reading
As first reported by the Verge, Amazon today announced that it is opening a new development center for its Prime Air drone delivery program in Graz, Austria. This new team will focus on “sense-and-avoid” technologies for drones. The team in Austria will augment Amazon’s existing … | Continue reading
Yahoo-owned blogging platform Tumblr quietly launched a new program today called Tumblr Labs that will allow users to opt-in to testing out new and experimental features on the site. Some of the initial experiments are of a more frivolous nature – like being about to change the c … | Continue reading
After rolling out to its Fire tablets, Amazon is ready to bring VoiceView functionality to its line of devoted e-readers. The accessibility feature, targeted at visually impaired users, will be hitting the Paperwhite first, shipping as a bundle with the reader. “Like VoiceView on … | Continue reading
Adi Sideman‘s live streaming app YouNow currently sits at 77th place in the App Store, but it’s wildly popular among youths; Sideman says 70 percent of users are under 24.And talented performers can earn real dollars as comedians, singers, etc. right from their own bedrooms, deli … | Continue reading
The weather’s finally starting to look like spring here in New York City, and it’s time to really put those fitness trackers to good use. For those who rely on a Pebble watch to keep track of their paces, health monitoring gets a bit better today, with version 3.12 of the smartwa … | Continue reading
The Senate Commerce Committee sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg asking him to answer questions about Facebook’s Trending Topics feature. Trending Topics displays trending news headlines and story summaries in a sidebar next to the main news feed, and a former contractor who worked … | Continue reading
Google’s Senior Vice President of Ads & Commerce Sridhar Ramaswamy took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt NY today for a wide-ranging conversation with our own Anthony Ha.Given the current conversation around ad blocking and Google’s reliance on advertising as its main revenue sour … | Continue reading
Customer support powerhouse Zendesk is broadening its ever-expanding number of support channels today, as the company announced a brand new native channel for customer service over the text messages. SMS may be 20-year-old technology, but there’s a lot to be said for short bursts … | Continue reading
What does the future of the financial services industry look like? The founders of two startups with two very different answers to that question took the stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016 conference this morning to discuss how they’re planning to disrupt traditional brokera … | Continue reading
Slack is pushing to become the identity layer for all enterprise apps. The workplace chat app has already captured the eyes, minds (and wallets) of the tech world with its deceptively simple, zippy platform for people to communicate and collaborate with each other on projects. On … | Continue reading
For better or worse, Twitter is the home to a lot of harebrained ideas, a great example of which is the @TweetXstitch account. It creates framed representations of some of the dumbest, funniest and most memorable moments at Twitter, taking ephemeral tweets and immortalizing them … | Continue reading
One of the startups incubated at startup studio Expa is today taking its next step in developing as a standalone company. Kit, a social network where people can share their favorite products — think Pinterest or Product Hunt, but here assembling your “kits” — is appointing its fi … | Continue reading
Despite gripes about the usefulness of Facebook chatbots, “tens of thousands” of developers are building them, Messenger’s head of product Stan Chudnovsky revealed onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt NY. And, 2,500 Shopify merchants have Facebook chatbots too, showing e-commerce compan … | Continue reading
YouTube star and Beme co-founder Casey Neistat jaunted on stage slightly late and sporting neon yellow shoes at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC this morning to talk about his app and what it’s like sharing everything about himself to his millions of online fans every day. He’s got a knack … | Continue reading
Television and Twitch are the next steps for the sport of professional drone racing, with Mountain Dew coming on board as the title sponsor. It’s the first time that drone racing will broadcast on national television, via Discovery Channel and National Geographic, but also will c … | Continue reading
Last week’s App Store issues caused headaches for users who, for several hours during the morning on May 5th, were unable to surface apps using keyword searches. This affected top apps like Uber, Spotify, Google, YouTube, Tumblr and many others, as well as apps from smaller devel … | Continue reading
The food industry is going through an interesting shift in the U.S. We’re moving away from an era of processed food and microwave meals, to one where people are increasingly concerned about the kinds of foods they’re eating, their freshness, sustainability, healthiness, and other … | Continue reading
Get ready for a lot more ads on Instagram and elsewhere that feel ever more personalised. Instagram today is turning up the volume on its ad tech play, courtesy of its owner, Facebook. Today the photo- and video-based social network is adding Dynamic Ads — a retargeting unit that … | Continue reading
Facebook announced this morning that its private photo-sharing application, Facebook Moments, is now available in all countries worldwide, thanks the launch of a new, modified version in the E.U. and Canada. While the U.S. and other international versions of the application take … | Continue reading
Since it launched in 2014, Reserve has often been described as a “dining concierge” — which sounds cool but also maybe a little vague. Basically, the company combines a flexible reservation system with payments. Now Reserve is ready to do more, with the launch of something called … | Continue reading
In a wide-ranging conversation at Disrupt today, Mike George, Amazon’s Vice President of Echo, Alexa and Appstore discussed the past and future of the company’s surprise hit home appliance. George kicked things off by explaining that he wasn’t aware of rumors that the project sta … | Continue reading
Insensi has been working hard on a brand new device to make it easier to communicate with other family members. The device, Ily, is a modern take on landline phones that is so easy to use that children and grandparents don’t need directions. Ily is now available on Kickstarter fo … | Continue reading
While many people in the venture community bemoan the near-term fate of the industry, Fred Wilson, the co-founder of Union Square Ventures and one of the architects of the resurgence of New York’s technology sector,In a far-ranging discussion with TechCrunch’s own Jordan Crook, W … | Continue reading
Congressional gridlock can usually be blamed on stubborn Representatives and Senators. But a new string of ransomware attacks on the House of Representatives could stall legislation more effectively than party infighting or a filibuster. Read More | Continue reading
Talmon Marco thinks he knows what it takes to beat Uber in the on-demand ride sharing business. The Israeli entrepreneur, known for co-founding of messenger service, Viber, is launching Juno in New York City “soon.”Marco spoke up with our Ingrid Lunden on stage at TechCrunch Disr … | Continue reading
Amazon unveiled its own plans to compete in the user-generated video market with the launch of a new service called Amazon Video Direct in a surprise announcement this morning. This service, explains the company, allows creators to upload their own videos to Amazon’s Prime Video … | Continue reading