So you’ve had a nice, calming two-day respite from all of the bargain hunting. But don’t worry, it’s almost over. It’s Cyber Monday, a holiday made up in 2005 because Black Friday wasn’t quite doing the trick. Sure it’s a crass cash-in and yet more grist for the end of year Capitalist mill — but the deals! Over the past few years, Cyber… Read More
A few years ago jailbreaking your iPhone was all the rage. The cat-and-mouse game of hackers versus Apple was great fun and some of the open source products available to jailbreakers – namely the Cydia alternative app store – added amazing features and customizability to the iPhone. Some devs even launched only on jailbroken phones, thumbing their noses at Apple’s walled… Read More
Blockchain investment firms are the ‘new new thing’ in the investment world, not least European companies like kryptonite1 and neufund which are both appearing at TechCrunch Disrupt in Berlin next week. If the internet came along in the 90s to move information assets around, blockchain technologies present potential for a variety of assets, with the potential to disrupt the… Read More
YouTube is firefighting another child safety content moderation scandal which has led several major brands to suspend advertising on its platform. Read More
After spinning out as a standalone security business from Intel earlier this year, McAfee has made its first acquisition. The company has acquired Skyhigh Networks, a specialist in cloud security, the companies announced today. The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but here are a few data points: Skyhigh had raised over $106 million in funding, according to Crunchbase,… Read More
Snapchat is rolling out new filters that can recognize what’s in your photos in order to suggest graphics, like borders or stickers, to accompany your posts. These filters today are capable of recognizing images of objects like pets, sports, and food, as well as specific locations, like beaches or concerts. The quiet release of the new filters was first spotted by Mashable, which… Read More
Anything you can do, AI can do better. Eventually. On October 12, NASA put on its own demonstration, pitting an AI-piloted racing drone against world-renowned drone pilot Ken Loo. Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who have spent the last two years working on drone autonomy (which was funded by Google), built three custom drones equipped with cameras for vision and… Read More
European VCs are getting tired, and who can blame them. Europe’s startup industry has boomed in the last ten years, and no-one can say it isn’t a world away from what it was in previous decades. However, European founders are consistently getting it wrong in how they allocate options and equity to staff. This is have a few major effects. It’s stopping startups from attracting… Read More
Image-hosting site turned meme social network, Imgur, is the latest tech service to ‘fess up to a security breach. In a blog post Friday it revealed that hackers had compromised its systems in 2014, with ~1.7M emails and passwords affected. Read More
Video is what consumers are paying attention to these days, and Amazon’s AWS is hoping to capitalise on that with one of its latest launches. Doubling down on its video services for media companies, app publishers — and actually any other organization that has considered launching a video service — Amazon today announced a new suite of five video processing tools as part of… Read More
The Nordic Web, a research and analysis company which specialises in covering data on tech companies emerging out of the Nordic region, has started a new Angel fund. The fund will invest across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Founder Neil Murray says ‘The Nordic Web Angel Fund’ plans to invest in 10-15 Nordic startups over the next 12 months. He claims this would make… Read More
We’d heard months ago that Amazon would be using its Re:Invent AWS event to roll out some a new service related to building in mixed reality — augmented reality and virtual reality. And on the eve of the conference kicking off, it’s done just that. Today the company announced Amazon Sumerian, a new platform for developers to build and host VR, AR and 3D apps quickly and… Read More
TechCrunch December Include Office Hours will be hosted in Berlin, Germany on December 1st. We’re partnering with Calvary Ventures. From 2-3pm, Founding and Managing Partner Rouven Dresselhaus and Managing Partner Stefan Walter will be giving key feedback and valuable guidance for underserved and underrepresented founders. Apply now! In 2014, TechCrunch launched Include program… Read More
At Disrupt Berlin, we have a special treat for attendees who want to engage with our main stage speakers and other experts on the big topics in the tech and startup world. We call these Off the Record sessions (OTRs). Although technically not ‘off the record,’ they are a great opportunity to ask our speakers questions, as well as listen to the experts and a moderator talk in more… Read More
Whether you celebrate a specific holiday or just love to celebrate giving gifts, you’re gonna love our Cyber Monday special. Today only, when you buy a general admission ticket to Disrupt Berlin, you can head on over to our curated TechCrunch Holiday Gift Guide and pick up something pretty for someone you love. Or for yourself — we don’t judge. Read More
Artificial intelligence-powered translation is becoming an increasingly crowded category, with Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook all working on their own services. But tech still isn’t a match for professional human translations and machine-generated results are often hit-and-miss. One online translation service, Flitto, is now focused on providing other companies with the language… Read More
As Amazon replaces brick-and-mortar store shelves and social influencers replace television stars, newer brands are not only taking advantage of these channels, but also are architecting their products and business models around them. Read More
It’s official—Meredith Corporation will buy Time Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at $2.8 billion. Meredith said today it agreed to pay $18.50 per share for all outstanding shares of Time Inc. As reported earlier this month by the New York Times, the deal, which is slated to close in the first quarter of next year, includes equity financing from the billionaire Koch brothers,… Read More
I’ve been thinking about token sale marketing lately mostly because it’s been so bad. I’ve gotten hundreds of emails asking me to be an ICO advisor or evangelist or influencer primarily because the ICO marketing techniques come to us straight out of the spammiest corners of affiliate marketing. I’ve gotten emails from founders who have been promised “posts on… Read More
