News aggregator Digg may no longer be the internet force it once was, but it still offers an interesting and engaging selection of curated news articles and videos across a number of categories, from science and technology to viral Internet memes. Now, the company will bring thos … | Continue reading
Looker, a data visualization and business intelligence startup announced a new component today that brings Looker data directly into Slack conversations without having to access the program separately. The new tool is called Looker Slack Bot and is built using the Slack bot techn … | Continue reading
The rise was like a tech startup fairytale. Within three years of founding, this unicorn company had raised more than $1 billion in venture capital — closing an astonishing $950 million in its final private round at a nearly $5 billion valuation. Revenue growth was skyrocketing f … | Continue reading
YouTube and Google Play Movies & TV will now participate in T-Mobile’s “Binge On” program, which offers cellular subscribers the ability to watch a variety of services without those streams counting against users’ data plans. Google’s participation comes following its recent crit … | Continue reading
During an afternoon call with me, Airmada CEO Dan Danay, outlined his autonomous drone product offering that he and co-founder Boris Lipchin are preparing for Y Combinator Demo Day next week. They duo plan to disrupt the commercial drone market with everything from automated mari … | Continue reading
Most social media platforms deter users from creating multiple profiles to prevent shenanigans like harassment and fraud. Galaxia, however, wants people to create a new profile (which it calls a “persona”) for each facet of their identity. Created by photo-sharing network Mobli, … | Continue reading
Late last week rumours began to spread that GoButler, the messaging-based virtual assistant that let you request anything on-demand, was heading to the deadpool, with March 11th the alleged date. Well, that day came and went and the startup is very much alive. Read More | Continue reading
Distribusion, the Berlin-based startup that’s built a platform to make it easy for travel companies and travel search engines to sell ‘intercity’ bus tickets, has picked up €6 million in funding. Backing comes from Northzone, Creandum, and HR Ventures. Existing seed investor Früh … | Continue reading
Okta, a company mostly known for cloud identity management, made a foray into enterprise mobility management (EMM) at the end of 2014. Today, it announced a partnership with Box to support device-level security for the Box mobile app. The company is hoping this is the start of a … | Continue reading
Amazon and Fitbit are teaming up to make it even easier to see your daily fitness progress. Or rather, hear about it. Fitbit users who own an Amazon Echo can now ask Alexa about their progress throughout the day via an integration with the Alexa API. All the user has to do is say … | Continue reading
Is your startup looking to take that next big leap forward? Many companies have gotten their start by displaying in Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt, and we want your company to be our next success story. Read More | Continue reading
I’m moving into a columnist role at TechCrunch and onto some new projects. One is called Roam Co-Living. It adaptively re-uses space for communal living and location independent workers in other parts of the U.S. and world, starting in Miami and Indonesia. Although this work will … | Continue reading
Handshake, a maker of wholesale order apps for mobile, will target new overseas markets after raising a $14 million Series B. The round was led by Sozo Ventures and includes returning investors Emergence Capital, SoftTech VC, BOLDstart Ventures, MHS Capital, Point Nine, and Prima … | Continue reading
Smartphone sales are slowing down, and it looks like Apple might see its first iPhone sales decline in the next quarter. That pinch is now being felt by one of Apple’s key suppliers. UK company Imagination Technologies announced today that it is restructuring its company. It will … | Continue reading
If Facebook announces the “Messenger Bot Store” at F8, as many predict, it would be arguably the most consequential event for the tech industry since Apple announced the App Store and iPhone SDK in March 2008. Even Steve Jobs could not have foreseen the impact of what he describe … | Continue reading
The founders of Ask.fm — the popular social Q&A app that became embroiled in a cyberbullying media storm before being acquired by IAC — have backed new dating app Mint. Read More | Continue reading
Vietnam is emerging as a technology market of note in Asia. Weeks after U.S. VC firm 500 Startups announced a fund for the country, Vietnam-based fintech startup Momo has landed a $28 million investment round from banking giants Standard Chartered (SCB) and Goldman Sachs. Read Mo … | Continue reading
As Apple continues to battle the US government’s desire to workaround the security of its mobile operating system, European encrypted email startup, ProtonMail, is choosing the latest skirmish in the crypto wars to launch its end-to-end encrypted email service out of beta — switc … | Continue reading
WeChat, China’s smash hit messaging app, has long been a bellwether for the future of mobile messaging. It was first to popularize putting brands in chat and integrating third-party services, two trends Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Messenger and others are jumping on, and it looks … | Continue reading
The UK government has announced a little extra tax relief aimed at encouraging what the chancellor termed ‘micro-entrepreneurs’ in yesterday’s budget — albeit the other beneficiaries here are likely to be gigantic tech platforms like Airbnb if Brits take up the invitation to rent … | Continue reading
Mondo, the yet-to-launch U.K. banking startup that is creating quite a lot of buzz amongst the London tech scene and beyond, is opening its Beta to the public today — albeit one that is limited in functionality while the company seeks a full banking license. Read More | Continue reading
A German court yesterday ruled against Apple in a video streaming patent case brought by Swiss company Kudelski’s OpenTV unit against the Cupertino company back in 2014. Read More | Continue reading
SpoonRocket, the on-demand food delivery startup that shut down yesterday in the U.S., has a buyer. That buyer is Brazil-based iFood, a food delivery platform looking to dominate the on-demand economy in Latin America as well as other emerging economies. Terms of the deal were no … | Continue reading
The economic prospects for Latin America in 2016 are grim. With political instability in some of the region’s largest economies, as well as a general slump in prices in oil and other commodities, businesses and consumers are facing a depression and, in the case of Venezuela, econ … | Continue reading
Rumors are flying today that Apple is moving part of its cloud business from AWS to Google’s Cloud Platform. We did some asking around and yes, it does appear that Apple has made some moves to diversify its iCloud storage, tapping Google for some of that business. This is another … | Continue reading
If I had to choose a sound to identify the second year of my daughter’s life it would probably be one of the collaborations between Sesame Street superstar Cookie Monster and one of the hot pop stars of the day. Though “Me want it (but me wait)” will never win any lyricist awards … | Continue reading
Minecraft in all its blocky glory is setting up shop on mobile virtual reality on the Samsung Gear VR.I had a chance to demo the game at an Oculus media event during GDC in SF this week and there was a decent amount of hype surrounding the wildly popular game making its mobile VR … | Continue reading
The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation today approved the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill. In an amendment to the bill filed by Senators Heller and Cantwell, the Senate committee instructs the FAA to create rules for delivery … | Continue reading
Munchery, the on-demand meal delivery startup with over $117 million in funding, has lost Pascal Rigo, who came on board to Munchery as chief customer experience officer just five months ago. Rigo had formerly spent three years at Starbucks as SVP of food, after the coffee giant … | Continue reading
The maker movement is hot. Worldwide, there are about 2,000 maker spaces and 26 percent of cities in the U.S. have them. I sat down with Inventables CEO Zach Kaplan to learn about what’s driving the movement and where it’s headed. “I think it’s a bunch of things,” Kaplan said. “O … | Continue reading
A number of startup studios are in the midst of a years-long experiment, providing back-end assistance, office space, and mentoring to talented, ambitious people in order to create a startup with them, often based around their expertise. Betaworks was the first to try it, opening … | Continue reading
Last week I sat down with apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak to hear about his newest creation, Silicon Valley Comic Con. The event, which will be held this weekend at the San Jose Convention Center, will play host to celebrities like Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, and Stan Lee. Wo … | Continue reading
I bought an Apple Watch six months ago. This was no casual purchase. As an Apple fan, a watch collector and with more than 20 years of experience in the design innovation space, I had extremely high expectations of the purchase. While I have enjoyed the stylish Apple Watch’s feat … | Continue reading
It’s finally here. After teaming up with Michael J. Fox to tease us with self-lacing Nike Mags on Back To The Future day in October, Nike has finally announced a mass production shoe that will feature real-life power laces. Meet the HyperAdapt 1.0. Announced today at the Nike Inn … | Continue reading
It’s time to take wearable devices to the next level. Plume Labs and DigitasLBi have teamed up for an interesting experiment. What if pigeons could fly around London with tiny backpacks to measure air pollution during peak hours? I’m not sure if they were drunk when they thought … | Continue reading
Microsoft today announced that it is partnering with Dominion Virginia Power and the Commonwealth of Virginia to build a 20 megawatts solar energy plant in Virginia. Microsoft — like its competitors AWS, Google and others — has long been investing in renewable energy projects. Mo … | Continue reading
A medtech startup called AliveCor today unveiled what may be the first medical-grade EKG band for the Apple Watch, the Kardia Band, pending its FDA clearance. The product is intended to help wearers detect cardiac arrhythmia conditions that can cause stroke, as well as indicate w … | Continue reading
Three years after launching a $100 million initiative to create a Watson-inspired tech platform that finds “commercially viable solutions to the continent’s grand challenges,” Watson’s African equivalent—Lucy—is shaping up and IBM’s Africa research facility is more defined in st … | Continue reading
If your site isn’t easy to use on mobile, Google penalizes it by ranking it lower on its mobile search results pages. To give publishers even more of an incentive to offer mobile-friendly pages, Google today announced that, in May, it will increase the importance of having a mobi … | Continue reading
For nearly a year Jawbone and Fitbit have been in the courts and Jawbone just threw down new allegations. In a motion to amend the original filing, Jawbone wants to add a new defendant to the case that formerly worked at Jawbone but defected to Fitbit, bringing a host of confiden … | Continue reading
More bad news for LivingSocial, the beleaguered commerce platform that competes with the likes of Groupon in offering deals on events and services local to its users. Today, LivingSocial announced that it would lay off 160 employees, which the company tells me is just over 50% of … | Continue reading
Korea is sizzling, and the fact isn’t lost on Altos Ventures or its backers. The early-stage venture firm, with an office on Sand Hill Road and in Seoul, has just raised an oversubscribed $110 fund to invest exclusively in the country, the second fund of its type for Altos, which … | Continue reading
Today, we have a variety of apps to manage our days – calendars, task lists, reminders, notes, and more. But the apps don’t always interoperate, and having the information in separate silos can make it hard to get a handle on how to properly manage our time, or how our tasks conn … | Continue reading
Online advertising is one of those subjects that we can rely on to get almost everyone to roll their eyes. And lately, it seems that investors have become skeptical, too.Still, you can’t understand the business of many big, consumer Internet companies without understanding advert … | Continue reading
I spent a good part of my day yesterday attending the On-demand Economy conference at MIT. It was an interesting if somewhat academic look at the changes facing us as individuals, organizations and as a society as we shift to an on-demand world. What struck me beyond how this new … | Continue reading
I recently took the opportunity to visit with influential friends and colleagues in the New York City technology space. I sat with longtime friend Nick Chirls, founder of Notation Capital, and discussed early- and later-stage seed funding. Similarly, at a dinner with friend and … | Continue reading
Startups working on high-quality immersive visuals and the tech to achieve them are in demand these days, and today one that focuses specifically on interactive outdoor and indoor 3D mapping is announcing a round of funding to help fuel its growth.London-based eeGeo, which works … | Continue reading
Turn-by-turn navigation application Waze announced this morning a handy new feature that will make it easier for those who are planning to drive to an upcoming appointment, meeting or other important trip: Waze Planned Drives. The option allows you to tell the app when you need t … | Continue reading