The word AI is increasingly bandied about with notable abandon. And, as I like to say, AI is the promise that keeps on promising. So I’m always encouraged when I see a humble but viable use of artificial intelligence, even if just a few years ago we may have simply called the nas … | Continue reading
A panel discussion on finding a balance between security and privacy here at Disrupt New York 2016 touched on various aspects of a complex topic, including strategies for securing customer data and the big risks posed as more types of devices come online. Read More | Continue reading
HTC is officially struggling once again. The Taiwan-based tech company’s latest financials show its sales dropped a staggering 64 percent over the past year. Read More | Continue reading
theSkimm founders Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin came onstage at Disrupt NYC today to tell us how to capture one of the most coveted audiences in media – millennials. Part of it is serving up digestible news that matters to 20 to 30-somethings and being honest about the way yo … | Continue reading
Giphy co-founder and CEO Alex Chung talked about Giphy’s current state at TechCrunch Disrupt NY. Giphy now serves over a billion GIFs a day and has raised around $75 million. And yet, the startup doesn’t generate any money for now. But it doesn’t mean Giphy isn’t already thinking … | Continue reading
PayPal is changing its purchase protection rules to reflect increasing risks associated with crowdfunding. The new language, which will go into effect in June, state that “payments on crowdfunding platforms” will no longer be eligible for Purchase Protection. The move reflects tw … | Continue reading
The launch of the Cloud Native Foundation (CNF) last July caused a few stirs because it brought together a very wide range of companies, including AT&T, Box, Cisco, CoreOS, Docker, Google, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, Twitter and VMware. The idea behind the foundation is to “harmonize em … | Continue reading
TechCrunch is pleased to announce the 20 startups selected to participate in the Disrupt NY 2016 Startup Battlefield. Over the next two days, these companies will compete on tech’s biggest stage for $50,000 and the Disrupt Cup. Read More | Continue reading
MTV gave us a blast from the past last month when it streamed nonstop Prince videos as a memorial to the musician’s untimely death. But, as it turns out, we will start seeing a lot more music video programming on another platform very soon. Spotify — the music streaming startup w … | Continue reading
We’ve got a big day ahead of us, so buckle up!Live from Red Hook in Brooklyn, Disrupt NY is unfolding before our very eyes with badass speakers, awesome demoes and, of course, the world-famous Startup Battlefield. Read More | Continue reading
Lending Club shares are down more than 25% — shaving off hundreds of millions of dollars off the company’s roughly $2.5 billion market cap — after it announced its CEO would resign following an internal review of $22 million in near-prime loan sales to a single investor.Renaud La … | Continue reading
Following the launch of a built-in VPN service in its web browser last month, Opera this morning debuted a free and unlimited mobile VPN app for iOS devices. Called Opera VPN, the app is designed to protect users’ privacy – it removes ad blockers, for example – but it’s also mark … | Continue reading
CoreOS, the company behind the container-centric CoreOS Linux distribution and Tectonic container management service, today announced that it has raised a $28 million Series B round led by GV, the fund formerly known as Google Ventures. Other investors include Accel, Fuel Capital … | Continue reading
Bango, the U.K.-based mobile payments company that provides tech to enable consumers to charge app store purchases directly to their phone bill, has acquired the U.S.-based carrier billing service BilltoMobile from Danal Inc. Read More | Continue reading
In another sign of the challenges facing food delivery startups in India, HSBC said in a recent report that it believes Zomato’s valuation is $500 million—half of the $1 billion valuation the company reportedly was pegged at after its eighth round of funding a year ago. Read More | Continue reading
If you use your PayPal account to support a crowdfunding campaign, you can’t rely on its Purchase Protection plan anymore. The payment platform has announced that after June 25, payments made on crowdfunding platforms will no longer be eligible for the program, which allows users … | Continue reading
Over the past few months I’ve been on a mission: I want to prove that the future is not going to suck. While this project was originally going to end up in a book – and it still will – I’ve started recording a weekly podcast called Technotopia in which I speak to amazing thinkers … | Continue reading
Many artists use as material for art the raw data produced by our societies, seeking innovative means of display or transforming it into a work of art. By blurring boundaries between art and information, data art dispels the myth of the romantic artist while offering a fundamenta … | Continue reading
If anyone wants to text Ryan Leslie and have a one-on-one conversation with a big-deal rapper, here’s his number: 646-887-6978. That’s not a secret. Leslie shares the number publicly and encourages people to message him — it’s a way for him to develop a direct relationship with h … | Continue reading
It’s been a long night at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. But this time, you couldn’t see anyone waiting for a boat. Instead, the Cruise Terminal hosted a very special competition — the Disrupt NY Hackathon. Around 650 engineers and designers got together to come up with something … | Continue reading
Every student has a unique learning style, but it’s tough for teachers to figure out if they learn best through lectures, images, reading, self-directed practice, or group projects. By using publicly available education progress data and personality analysis, Lilwil is able to au … | Continue reading
Researchers often need to go beyond Google to find the kind of medical journal articles and flat data files necessary for their work. But many journal articles are locked away in databases like JSTOR or PubMed, which don’t have the reliable search capabilities of an engine like G … | Continue reading
NYU Shanghai students Sean Kelly and Sam Shi wanted to use VR to help increase access to information. Over the weekend at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon in New York, the duo initially looked at helping students learn brain surgery but they switched their target and developed Te … | Continue reading
An interesting hack presented on stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt New York 2016 is a platform for non-traditional banking services. Called e-susu, the app is designed for people who are involved with informal loan groups to help them better manage the process of lending money wi … | Continue reading
Between Alexa’s built-in functionality and Skills API, you can now use the platform to do almost anything. Simple voice commands let you do things like order a pizza, send someone money on Venmo, or even buy another Echo.But here’s the thing – anyone using your Echo can do these … | Continue reading
Can Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa serve as a matchmaker? That’s the idea behind The Blind Date Club, a project from a team of coders presenting today at the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016 Hackathon. Designed as a voice-activated app for the Echo speaker, The Blind Date Club lets y … | Continue reading
Twelve hours into last night’s Disrupt NY Hackathon, Andre Smith still wasn’t sure what he was doing. “People ask me about what my ideas are before the Hackathon,” he explains in a bit of a sleep-deprived daze. “I have no idea. I was already in deep. I didn’t really have a clear … | Continue reading
You have a bunch of ingredients in your fridge, and you don’t know what you want to cook. You just bought an Amazon Echo, dying to figure out some new things to do with it. Well, you can do both of these with a hack put together at TechCrunch Disrupt NY that does just that. With … | Continue reading
If it’s your birthday, Mother’s Day or some other significant occasion, it’s likely you’ll receive a barrage of text messages, emails and calls. Even if it’s not a special day, between your friends, significant other and boss, there’s probably a fair amount of action on your phon … | Continue reading
Makers of an app called Eliza want to make it as easy for people to track their psychological well-being as it is to track their physical fitness.The Eliza app asks users to record a voice memo, say, venting about an issue they’re dealing with at work or simply reflecting on thei … | Continue reading
Too busy to keep up with your friends? There’s a chat bot for that. Read More | Continue reading
According to the research firm IBISWorld, there are currently more than 65,000 event promoters in the U.S., most of who have limited geographic reach. Even including the industry’s largest player, Live Nation Entertainment, the biggest companies in the space account for no more t … | Continue reading
Coders stayed up all night at the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon this weekend in Brooklyn, New York. With just 24 hours to build something meaningful, it was no easy task. But four gentlemen met at the event and decided to build an app that could help keep homeless people off the s … | Continue reading
One of the biggest limitations of mobile VR at the moment is the lack of input. Google Cardboard is gathering some fixes via sensors from companies like PMD, but Angel Say wanted to make that solution available on the more high-powered Gear VR platform so at this weekend’s TechCr … | Continue reading
At the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016 hackathon, a team of engineers from MasterCard teamed up to create an app that can help travelers visiting a foreign country better understand what food is being described on a menu. Just by pointing their phone at the restaurant’s menu, the app … | Continue reading
When you find yourself in an emergency situation, it’s hard to know what to do. And even if you do, panic can take over. 911bot, a product built at the Disrupt Hackathon here in New York, aims to help you out in a pinch. The Facebook Messenger-based chat bot lets you report emerg … | Continue reading
Sad, mad, glad, confused about the presidential race so far? Well, if you are really lost on who to vote for, IBM may have a solution depending on your mood. Watson Elections, one of the surprisingly few political applications for IBM’s supercomputer, debuted on stage this mornin … | Continue reading
The class of 2015 graduated with an average of $35,000 in student loan debt, the most in history. And yet, executives and hiring managers continue to complain about their inability to fill skilled positions in their companies. This is the skills gap, and we’ve been talking about … | Continue reading
Today voters in Austin, TX went to the polls to weigh in on Proposition 1, an attempt to overturn a bill requiring mandatory fingerprint-based criminal background checks for new Uber and Lyft drivers in the city. The results are in, and with 56 percent of total voters voting agai … | Continue reading
Artificial Intelligence is starting to turn invisible from the outside in — and vice versa. The exact effects and workings of AI technologies are becoming more challenging to perceive and comprehend for humans. Even the experts themselves don’t always fully understand how an AI s … | Continue reading
Disrupt NY, welcome to Brooklyn. TechCrunch’s big conference has moved out of Manhattan, into Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood. The hackathon that opens the event got started to 12:30pm today, with attendees given less than 24 hours to form teams, build products and prepare a pre … | Continue reading
In the 1970s, CFOs sat with CEOs and devised ways for upset consumers to not be able to get compensation easily. They put up automated phone systems and arcane and inflexible policies and rejoiced at how little the company had to “give up” to complaining customers. And this syste … | Continue reading
You did it. You secured your funding. Good for you. You tirelessly developed, pitched, sold, maybe even danced a little. Not a song and dance, but a display of passion, commitment and promise. You successfully instilled the confidence investors need to see before signing on the d … | Continue reading
We’ve all done it. Cornered at a party by some bore talking about his unimaginative app that will “change the world.” All seemingly convincing excuses to leave have already been used by the rest of the group. The last refuge of the rude scoundrel — the smartphone — is in your jac … | Continue reading
Last week Apple released the latest iteration of its “Shot on iPhone” campaign. The new ad was developed for Mother’s Day, and features a slideshow of pictures and videos of moms and their kids. Now, a week later, Apple launched the aptly-named website momsshotoniphone.com, which … | Continue reading
A longtime colleague and friend of mine used to love to say “Let’s just make this easy for them” whenever we discussed an upcoming meeting. I think I winced the first few times I heard it. It didn’t seem like much of a negotiation strategy… at least, that is, until he helped me … | Continue reading
While you were out enjoying your Friday night, NVIDIA kicked off the weekend with a surprise unveil at the DreamHack gaming event in Austin, Texas, debuting its latest gaming GPUs. CEO Jen-Hsun Huang took to the stage at the city’s Emo’s music venue to show case the GeForce GTX 1 … | Continue reading
The Gillmor Gang — John Taschek, Dan Farber, Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, May 6, 2016. Size still matters as we move from primaries to the fall campaign. Can the next Google emerge from the next big search thing, or will the Establishment s … | Continue reading