Algorithmia started out as an online marketplace for — can you guess it? — algorithms. Many of these algorithms that developers offered on the service focused on machine learning (think face detection, sentiment analysis, etc.). Today, with the boom in ML/AI, that’s obviously a big draw and Algorithmia is now taking its next step in this direction with the launch of a new… Read More
TechCrunch is proud to announce HealthMatch is the winner of the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Australia and FluroSat is the runner up. A panel of expert judges picked the winner out of the batch of five finalists that also included CancerAid, Life Whisperer and Spalk. The startups from Australia and New Zealand were hand-picked to participate in our highly competitive startup competition.… Read More
Earlier this year, Duolingo launched its Japanese course, which marked the first time the popular language learning service offered support for an Asian language. Since then, it’s also launched support for Korean and starting today, you can use the services mobile and web apps to learn Chinese (or, to be more precise, Modern Standard Mandarin), too. The company notes that a Chinese… Read More
A few hours after announcing a review of its verification program, Twitter began revoking the verified status of some accounts. White supremacists Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler are among the users who no longer have a blue checkmark displayed on their profiles. Read More
Today’s Stories This Black Friday could be the biggest ever for mobile shopping Amazon blames the postal service for Amazon Fresh delivery issues Scientists found a new Earth-sized planet nearby Credits Written by: Sarah Buhr Hosted by: Sarah Buhr Filmed by: Joe Zolnoski Edited by: John Murillo Notes: Tito’s continues his journey out in the Outback this week so… Read More
This week, the clothing retailer Forever 21 disclosed to customers that it was hacked earlier in 2017. While the company has not yet offered many details about the intrusion, we know that it is looking into a portion of credit card transactions between March 2017 and October 2017 that were conducted over machines that appear to have been insecure. “Because of the encryption and… Read More
Tesla is set to take the lid off its electric truck tomorrow for the first time, after months of teasing the big rig. CEO Elon Musk is still doing some teasing of his own, posting a short video clip of the truck all draped in shadow — but we’re still going to learn a lot tomorrow. Here’s a quick breakdown of what we know, what we think we know and what gaps we hope Tesla… Read More
Google Maps is getting an upgrade. The company said in a blog post that it has updated driving, navigation, transit and explore maps to better highlight information that the company thinks will be most relevant. That means gas stations when you’re driving or more prominently featured train and bus stations if you’re riding the rails or hopping on mass transit. Read More
Forget Mars, scientists have discovered a new Earth-sized, possibly habitable, planet just 11 light years away. Known as Ross 128b, the newly discovered planet orbits a life-friendly red dwarf star that is an estimated seven billion years old. Read More
Twitter says that it’s making progress on its plan to review its authentication system, which it’s conducting in the wake of backlash against the social network verifying the account of a white supremacist rally organizer. As a result, it’s going to change how it treats verification of accounts, and will unverify some users “whose behavior does not fall within”… Read More
Here we are in Sydney, Australia, hosting our signature Startup Battlefield competition. We have an amazing lineup of speakers who all share a ton of knowledge and expertise about technology in Australia and New Zealand in general. But the real star of the show is going to be the Startup Battlefield. Read More
Native Deodorant, a San Francisco-based natural deodorant brand, just sold to Procter & Gamble for $100 million cash. Native, which positioned itself as an online distributor of deodorant, had received just $500,000 from Azure Capital Partners. With over a million customers since launching 2.5 years ago, Native was able to use profits from the business to reinvest in growth. Read More
Pixel Buds are a valiant effort to stand out while embracing a trend adopted by just about every name in the field, resulting in a product that’s sometimes inspiring, sometimes baffling and mostly just okay. They’re the kind of product you really want to like — but they’re just not there yet. Read More
Tesla has opened new Supercharger stations in California, the largest it has built to date. These are a new kind of Supercharger for the automaker, with not only the most stalls of any Supercharger station to date, at 40 per station, but also a dedicated “customer lounge” at one of the new locations. Read More
Marketing email company SendGrid had a decent first day on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. After pricing shares at $16, the company closed at $18.03, or up almost 13%. The Denver-based company had raised $131 million after pricing its IPO at $16, above the expected range of $13.50 to $15.50. SendGrid also upsized its IPO, selling 8.2 million shares, instead of 7.7 million.… Read More
At age 17, Michael Sayman was Facebook’s youngest employee ever. Having already launched 5 apps, he wowed Mark Zuckerberg, earned a demo spot on stage at Facebook F8 conference, and scored a full-time engineering gig as the social network’s go-to teen. Over the past three years, he helped Facebook try to crack the middle school market with apps like the now defunct Lifestage. But… Read More
A bit of sad news for the maker community today: TechShop is shutting down nationwide. TechShop was pretty much heaven for the adventurous do-it-yourself’er. Imagine a big building filled with everything from sewing machines to laser cutters to woodworking equipment to welding rigs. The general philosophy was “Don’t try it at home — try it here!” Read More
Meet Zyl, a smart photo app to view, manage and share all your photos. Formerly called Comet, the French startup is now using deep learning to go beyond the endless grid of photos and replace the default Photos app on your phone. While Zyl started as an app to create collaborative photo albums, the app has expanded beyond this simple social feature to take care of everything you’d do… Read More
A new report from App Annie predicts that time spent doing mobile shopping via apps will grow 45 percent in the U.S. during the week of Black Friday, compared to the same time two years ago. The firm also expects revenue generated through apps to break new records this season, and says consumers will spend over 6 million hours shopping in the top 5 digital-first apps on Black Friday alone.… Read More
In order for Google Assistant to be a real contender against the likes of Alexa, it needs third party app support. In order to get more developers on-board, the company needs to add a lot more features to incentivize development, even as Amazon’s home AI continues to dominate marketshare. This morning Google took a key step toward making Assistant a more compelling experience, announcing… Read More
