Lyft is the latest company to be added to the ever-growing list of those permitted to test their self-driving technology on California state public roads. The California Department of Motor Vehicles added Lyft to the list recently (via Axios), following Lyft’s foundation of a self-driving technology development center earlier this year, and its announcement that it would work on both its… Read More
PacketZoom, a startup that helps app developers speed up and optimize app delivery on mobile devices, announced a $5M Series A today. The round was led by Baseline Ventures with participation from First Round Capital, Tandem Capital and Arafura Ventures. Today’s investment brings the total raised to over $9M, according to Crunchbase. The company combines a content delivery network (CDN)… Read More
The fallout from Uber’s disclosure yesterday of a massive data breach affecting 57 million users and drivers that it concealed for a year continues: The UK’s data protection watchdog has put out a strongly worded statement saying the company’s announcement “raises huge concerns around its data protection policies and ethics”. Read More
The third time could be the charm if you haven’t yet scored your free tickets to the Disrupt Berlin Hackathon. Today, we’ve released a third batch of tickets to the most exciting, grueling, 24-hour test of a developer’s chops. Tickets are available on a first-come-first-served basis, so get your tickets now before they’re gone for good. Read More
The London-based VC firm recently sold its first two funds to Draper Esprit, and today is announcing the first close of a new £41 million fund, double the size of its last. This year the VC is also celebrating its 10 year anniversary. Read More
If the FCC’s refusal to acknowledge the vast public outcry against its plan to gut net neutrality isn’t enough of an outrage, its total disinterest in investigating how that same comment system may have been gamed by fake users posing as real Americans adds a bit more insult to injury. Suspicions arose earlier this year that a person or an organization of some kind was… Read More
The story of AppLovin‘s acquisition has taken another turn. We first reported that the mobile ad startup was in acquisition talks in August of last year, and the announcement came a month later: AppLovin would sell a majority stake Chinese private equity firm Orient Hontai Capital. Today, however, CEO Adam Foroughi revealed that the deal is (sort of) off. Instead of an outright… Read More
Today’s stories: FCC highlights plan to kill net neutrality, Android secretly sending location data, Bitcoin just passed $8,000 and Toyota’s new robot can be controlled in VR. Read More
The revelation that Uber concealed a 2016 data breach affecting 57 million users and paid hackers to destroy the evidence is yet another PR nightmare for Uber, but it’s also a problem when it comes to state laws around data breach disclosure practices. In light of Bloomberg’s report, the office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has opened an investigation. Read More
On a lonely stretch of road just off the highway in Torrance, Calif. employees at Divergent 3D are hard at work plotting a revolution in vehicle manufacturing. Inside the nondescript office building, chief executive Kevin Czinger and his staff are laying the groundwork for the creation of a more environmentally sustainable, flexible and customizable means of making vehicles. Read More
In Blade Runner 2049, one of the more interesting stylistic choices was how the film imagined futuristic augmented reality. While the Microsofts and Googles of our real dystopian world are currently approaching AR tech with headsets and smart glasses, Blade Runner 2049 relied entirely on external projection. This vision of the future may still seem a tad concerning, but it’s good news… Read More
As Apple reportedly ramps up work to ship an augmented reality headset in 2020, it has acquired a startup from Montreal, Canada that could help it get there. TechCrunch has learned that Apple has acquired Vrvana, maker of the Totem headset — which had rave reviews but never shipped. The deal was for around $30 million, two sources tell TechCrunch. We contacted Apple, and the… Read More
Instagram just rolled out a neat feature for its live product. Users can now request to join a live stream that they’re watching and, if accepted, can start broadcasting live as the host’s guest. To request to join a live video a viewer can tap a request button in the comments section. Hosts see the request pop up in real time and can accept or deny, and also have access to a list… Read More
Are you a celebrity who’s sexually harassed a bunch of people and are now in need of an apology to subdue an angry mob? Look no further than the Celebrity Perv Apology Generator. The desktop app packages all the usual elements of several recent non-apologies that have come up when other fellow perverts’ dark pasts have come to light. Read More
We knew this was only a matter of time, but Google today confirmed that Google Lens as part of the Google Assistant is now rolling out to all Pixel phone owners. That’s something Google already announced at its hardware event, but until now, the timing was unclear. If you don’t see it when you call up the Google Assistant, though, don’t worry. The company says that this… Read More
Uber faced a data breach in 2016 that affected some 57 million customers, including both riders and drivers, revealing their names, email address and phone numbers. That affected group included 50 million riders and 7 million drivers; around 600,000 driver license numbers for U.S. drivers were also included in the breach, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Read More
Salesforce has named Bret Taylor, the former chief technology officer at Facebook and founder of Quip, as president and chief product officer. Taylor first joined Salesforce in 2016, when Salesforce acquired word processing app Quip for $750 million. As chief product officer, Taylor will be tasked with leading Salesforce’s product vision, design, development and launches. Read More
After putting our favorite battery packs in various gift guides over the years, we decided to go all out this year and do a gift guide JUST for battery packs. I consider myself something of a battery pack aficionado, so I decided to step up to the plate and lay out some of my favorites. Read More
John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios, is the latest media executive to face allegations of inappropriate behavior. In a memo to employees, Lasseter acknowledged “missteps” and said he will be taking a six-month sabbatical. Read More
