We’ve given you an extension, and if you’re still procrastinating on getting Disrupt New York 2016 tickets at the lowest possible price point, the time to act is now. Extra early-bird tickets are on sale now through February 24 at the deeply-discounted price of $1,795 per ticket. … | Continue reading
According to Phocuswright, an independent travel and tourism research firm, the global travel market was worth US$1.3 trillion in 2015. The cut in Asia Pacific (APAC) was US$367 billion; of that, the online travel segment was 32 percent of the pie, which totals around US$117 bill … | Continue reading
Twitter is launching a new mobile application for developers that use Fabric, its development platform, that enables them to track the health of their apps.Tracking the health of an app can be particularly tricky when away from a computer. Developers often need to rely on dashboa … | Continue reading
FreeWrite, a smart typewriter that originally launched on Kickstarter as the Hemingwrite, is finally ready for the spotlight. Last year at CES the company showed us a prototype, and we were impressed. As a refresher, the device is a single-purpose computer designed just for writi … | Continue reading
The most annoying part of zero-fee stock trading app Robinhood was that when you signed up, there was a 3-day delay before money you deposited appeared in your account. Luckily, today the startup is solving this by embracing a slightly higher risk of fraud with the launch of Robi … | Continue reading
TechCrunch is holding a Meetup and Pitch Off during Mobile World Congress, on the evening of Wednesday, Feb 24. The event is now SOLD OUT.Attendees will see around 8 startups pitch to win tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt in New York. These will be 2 minute pitches, with no slides. W … | Continue reading
WhatsApp has now launched an official Android beta testing program. The move could expand the Facebook-owned company’s ability to reach a broader range of testers by making it easier to sign up to trial new versions of the WhatsApp software. Meanwhile, on WhatsApp’s side, it shou … | Continue reading
Facebook wants to get everybody online, whether that’s through regular networks or high-flying drones. But to do that, it has to know where people actually are. The best population maps available today aren’t precise enough for Facebook’s needs. So instead of waiting for somebody … | Continue reading
Wakie, the ‘social alarm clock’ that lets you be woken up by a complete stranger, is pivoting the concept to enable you to connect via phone call on any topic. Read More | Continue reading
Life is just one big game of laser tag with Father.io. I got a chance to play with an early prototype of the company’s Inceptor smartphone dongle and its augmented reality massive multiplayer first-person shooter app. It was a blast. The company is launching on Indiegogo today, a … | Continue reading
Editor’s note: A previous version of this post had the headline “Bill Gates Says Apple Should Unlock The iPhone” but Gates appeared on Bloomberg after this report was published, and attempted to clarify his intentions. You can watch the whole interview here where he backpedals a … | Continue reading
Today Snapchat announced a new feature called Birthday Party, which is essentially a duet of lenses – one of which can only be used on your birthday, and one that can only be used if snapping friends on their birthday. Snapchat will also put a cake emoji next to the name of frien … | Continue reading
As innovation goes, the idea of a trained bird of prey taking out a menacing quadcopter is hard to beat, as a Dutch law enforcement video recently showed. Peruse YouTube; there are hours of footage of birds of prey doing what may be the most elegant solution yet to what is becomi … | Continue reading
Amazon Dash, the e-commerce giant’s smart supplies replenishment service, already has a number of deals with major appliance and office equipment makers like GE and Brother, for example, allowing for things like washers that automatically re-order detergent or printers that re-or … | Continue reading
A fractious MWC16 panel on mobile ads brought several executives from the ad industry side plus ad behemoth Google face-to-face with what might be their worst nightmare: network-level mobile ad blocking… Read More | Continue reading
Battery Ventures, a 33-year-old investment firm with offices in San Francisco, Menlo Park, Boston, and Herzliya, Israel, has raised $950 million across two new funds: a main fund, Battery Ventures XI, which is a $650 million pool, and a side fund that will support the company’s l … | Continue reading
A small 3D printing company called Just3DPrint has scraped a large portion of Thingiverse, Makerbot’s Creative Commons-based database of 3D models. The company then posted these models for sale on eBay in direct violation of many of the terms the creators offered online.The resul … | Continue reading
This time, it’s Washington DC vs. Silicon Valley as both fight for the citizens of the United States of America Read More | Continue reading
SoundCloud Pulse, the music streaming service’s dedicated app for artists and creators, is now available on iOS. In an odd move in a market where apps tend to release on iOS first, Pulse first debuted on Android back in November. Like the Android version, the iOS app also aims to … | Continue reading
Docker announced a new container control center today it’s calling the Docker Data Center (DDC), an integrated administrative console that has been designed to give large and small businesses control over creating, managing and shipping containers.The DDC is a new tool made up of … | Continue reading
New leadership is coming to the augmented reality startup Skully whose strikingly cool $1,499 AR-1 motorcycle helmet is continuing to ship to early backers. Today, the company officially announced that they have brought Martin Fichter on as COO and Andrew Williams on as VP of Fin … | Continue reading
eero was supposed to go out late last year to those who bought the system during pre-launch but a manufacturing hiccup pushed the ship date to the here and now. But the startup has toiled away for well over a year to hopefully solve the agonizing pain of waiting for the next epis … | Continue reading
Disrupt NY 2016 is just a few short months away, as soon hundreds of entrepreneurs, investors and innovators will flock to the lovely Brooklyn Cruise Terminal for the best startup show in the Big Apple. Will you and your budding international startup be with them? One of our favo … | Continue reading
Activision Blizzard today announced that it has closed its acquisition of King Digital for $5.9 billion, a deal that it says makes it the largest game network in the world with more than 500 million users. King is the publisher of the popular Candy Crush series of social and mobi … | Continue reading
TaskBob is the latest home services startup in India to land a Series A round. The Mumbai-based company has closed a $4.5 million raise that was led by IvyCap Ventures with participation from existing investors Orios and Mayfield. Read More | Continue reading
An analysis of what new Chinese regulations on foreign media mean for international media companies operating in the country. Read More | Continue reading
It takes a special person to be able to fly a drone and not crash occasionally. DJI knows this and today is announcing a pricey repair service to fix all those broken dreams and drones. The plan is not cheap. Called DJI Care, it’s available to purchase with new or for existing dr … | Continue reading
BuzzMyVideos, the London-based startup that specialises in international online video content promotion, has acqui-hired Italy’s MakeTag to bolster its tech.The latter offered up technology to create interactive videos, specifically the ability to add tags and other meta-data and … | Continue reading
Yet more consolidation underway in the ad tech business, and a resting place for what was once a leading authority for ranking important blogs and other sites online: Synacor, a company that provides monetization services for ISPs, carriers and others that offer content services, … | Continue reading
BuzzFeed is launching a new mobile app today called BuzzFeed Video, giving you a chance to see all of its videos in one place. Since pretty much every online media company is ramping up its video production, it makes sense to create an app like this. But it’s also a bit of a left … | Continue reading
Team8, the unique Israeli cyber security company that is part venture capitalist, part think tank and part startup incubator announced a $23 Million Series B round today from a variety of investors. Last year’s $18 million Series A round included Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Investments … | Continue reading
MasterClass, an online education platform that’s luring some of the most talented professionals in their respective fields to teach the masses, has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Javelin Venture Partners also joined the round, which follo … | Continue reading
Pew Research Center has released a study on the dispute between the FBI and Apple. 51 percent of Americans think Apple should assist the FBI and unlock the iPhone 5c while 38 percent of Americans side with Apple. Read More | Continue reading
That didn’t take long. Telegram launched just two and a half years ago and is today announcing at Mobile World Congress 2016 it has 100,000,000 monthly active users. Shortly after launching, the messaging app claimed it had 100,000 users communicating on its encrypted platform an … | Continue reading
Google is closing down its advertising product which served suggestions for a range of financial products, including credit cards, mortgages and insurance policies. Read More | Continue reading
Raw Pressery currently delivers cold-pressed juices to homes in six Indian cities, but it aspires to grow into one of the country’s leading health food makers. The company just raised a $4.5 million Series B from returning investor Sequoia Capital, Saama Capital, and DSG Consumer … | Continue reading
Dribble, the London startup founded by Nicholas Wright, Daniel Qu (whom I’m told met at TechCrunch Disrupt) and Rupert Brenninkmeijer, kicks off today with the launch of a daily fantasy app for soccer. Read More | Continue reading
Latvia’s Mintos, a fintech startup that operates a p2p loans marketplace to let investors invest in varous loans from a growing number of loan originators, has raised €2 million in seed funding. Backing comes from Riga-based VC Skillion Ventures. Read More | Continue reading
Razer, the gaming technology company based out of Southern California, has raised another round of funding, a Series C that values it at $1.5 billion, TechCrunch has learned. The backing comes in part from China, specifically the Digital Grid subsidiary of IT company Hangzhou Lia … | Continue reading
Toshiba has canceled its smart glasses less than one week before the devices were to start shipping. In an announcement today, the Japanese electronics company said it made the decision to stop developing and selling Wearvue TG-1 as part of an effort to streamline its business po … | Continue reading
Bill Gates is siding with the FBI and says Apple should unlock the phone of the San Bernardino shooter. In an interview with FT, the Microsoft founder simply reiterates the Justice Department’s claim that this is a one-off case and the FBI is not asking for a general unlocking to … | Continue reading
This Wednesday at 6:46 pm EST, SpaceX is scheduled to launch the SES-9 communications satellite from Cape Canaveral, Florida with their Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The mission will mark the company’s second launch of the year. Wednesday’s mission will be coupled with a first stage l … | Continue reading
For the last 15 years, the Cleantech Forum has been organized by the Cleantech Group. Most recently it took place in San Francisco on January 25-27, 2016. Energy storage, China and the Internet of Things (IoT) were key topics at the forum, with investors and entrepreneurs confide … | Continue reading
A panel session probing the perennial heads or tails of mobile device commoditization vs mobile device innovation here at MWC 2016 earlier today heard an interesting range of views. Speakers ran the gamut of mobile makers big and small (Samsung, Motorola/Lenovo and Wileyfox), thr … | Continue reading
Cernan: Boy, that sure is weird music. Young: We’re going to have to find out about that. Nobody will believe us. -Apollo 10 transcript This weekend, the Science Channel released the preview for their newest episode of NASA’s Unexplained Files that told the story of Apollo astro … | Continue reading
With the first orders of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset slated to arrive in just over a month, a number of those with pre-orders awoke this morning to the disturbing discovery that their orders had been abruptly canceled.Many of the reported instances seem to point to th … | Continue reading
Most institutional investors are notoriously circumspect. Chris Douvos is not like most institutional investors. In fact, Douvos, a managing director with Venture Investment Associates — a fund of funds group that commits capital to venture capital, growth capital, and private eq … | Continue reading
It seems like there’s no shortage of online apps and services to make life and business easier. You can stream movies in your own home, pay parking tickets with the tap of a finger and plan a world adventure from the comfort of your couch. But when it comes to healthcare, you’re … | Continue reading