TechCrunch

 Brighteye Ventures, a relatively new European VC dedicated to investing in edtech startups, is announcing that it has closed a €50 million first fund. Read More

 The only thing worse than missing out on attending Disrupt Berlin (the horror!) is paying nearly 30 percent more for your ticket than you have to. And that’s just what will happen if you don’t snag your tickets before November 3. That’s right, the early-bird ticket pricing goes extinct in three short days. Die uhr tickt — the clock is ticking. Read More

 This year has seen unprecedented interest in Southeast Asia’s startups from Chinese tech firms, and today we can add another deal to the pile. JD.com, the close rival to Alibaba, has led a $19 million investment in Bangkok-headquartered online fashion brand Pomelo. The deal, which is the largest Series B for a Thai startup to date, is co-led by Indonesia’s Provident Capital… Read More

 New York terror suspect Sayfullo Saipov was a driver for Uber, the company confirms. He has been accused of driving a truck into a crowd near the World Trade Center in Manhattan on Tuesday, reportedly killing at least eight and injuring 11 more. “We are horrified by this senseless act of violence. Our hearts are with the victims and their families. We have reached out to law enforcement… Read More

 As companies search for ways to modernize their technology stacks, they struggle with managing the legacy software (and hardware) inside their own data centers. IBM introduced a new private cloud product today that is supposed to ease the transition to cloud computing and containerization and place those legacy applications in a more modern IT management context. IBM Cloud Private wants to… Read More

 Microsoft 365 lets businesses subscribe to a bundle with Office 365, Windows 10 and the company’s mobile device management tools. The early focus for this program was enterprises, but a few months ago, the company also launched a preview version of Microsoft 365 for small and medium businesses. Today, Microsoft 365 Business is coming out of beta and is now generally available to… Read More

Razer looks to raise $500 million in Hong Kong IPO, Google releases a new hardware kit for Hangouts Meet and Netflix halts production on House of Cards. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

 Slack has been down for just over an hour, according to its official status page — which itself was down when I first checked a few minutes after the widely-used productivity tool bit it for us. At this point the end of the workday is pretty much shot, so you can go home. I would but I work from home so I have to sit here. Read More

 On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee kicked off the first of three hearings this week examining the relationship between social media and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The hearings mark the first time that lawmakers will hear testimony from Google, Facebook and Twitter around how their platforms were and are manipulated as part of Russian political… Read More

 If there’s one thing this Earth of ours is short on, it’s celebrities. I mean, if there were enough, why would they keep making them? We need the help of our computer friends. Luckily they are obliging. An AI that in its existence has only known the faces of celebs (how I envy it!) was tasked with making up new ones by the dozen. The results are… well, you should see for… Read More

 One of the biggest early season NHL stories has been the success of the expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights. If they can maintain anything close to current attendance and demand levels, their sports-gambling-friendly approach may do more than just help the NHL solve the “warm-weather problem” — it could be the biggest boon to event attendance since the advent of the dome. Read More

 If you’re an active Signal user (and why aren’t you?) you likely already know about the desktop app — or what passes for one. It’s actually Chrome App, requiring Google’s browser to function. Well, that nightmare is over, as Signal has released a standalone app with no troubling dependencies on billion-dollar companies. Read More

 You would think that social networks are more or less “done” now. What would be the point of another in a world filled with so many options? But in fact, there remains a niche which has been growing steadily in the creative corners of the Internet. PicsArt has been building growing since it was started in 2011. It’s now announced new growth figures which have hit 100… Read More

 Just months after Grail raised a $900 million Series B round, the startup that aims to detect cancer early on is looking for additional funding, CNBC reports. Prior to the $900 million round, Grail raised $100 million last year to develop initial studies of its blood test technology. Read More

 How can internet giants know that innocent-seeming U.S. companies aren’t actually shell vehicles for malicious foreign actors to buy ads to interfere with elections? The short answer is they can’t, and that drew questioning from a Congressional probe today into Facebook, Twitter and Google being used to manipulate the 2016 presidential election. Read More

 In another sign of scales majorly falling off of eyes where VR is concerned, games developer CCP Games — which made an big early bet on virtual reality gaming — is pulling the plug on two of its studios that had been working on VR titles.  Read More

 Does the internet seem a little spookier today? (And no, I don’t mean because you read through of the latest news in your Twitter feed.) As it turns out, a lot of the big tech companies have gotten into the Halloween spirit this year, with fun little easter eggs and Halloween-themed additions to their apps and services. Have you spotted them all? Read More

 Stripe Atlas was launched by payments company Stripe last year to help small businesses set themselves up as a legal, incorporated business entity in the U.S. Now with “thousands” of entrepreneurs from 125+ countries using Atlas, Stripe is expanding it with a new feature as it hones its focus on being a platform for startup services. Companies that are signed up to Atlas (which… Read More

 Today, Amazon Prime Video is launching globally for Xbox One, and will also be available on the new Xbox One X when it lands in stores on November 7. The streaming app, which is the only place to watch Amazon Originals like Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle, is going live in Canada, Mexico, France, Italy, Spain and India. In January of 2016, Netflix globally expanded its service to cover… Read More

 The fallout from allegations around House of Cards star Kevin Spacey continues. Netflix and production company Media Rights Capital say that they’ve actually halted production on the show: “MRC and Netflix have decided to suspend production on HOUSE OF CARDS season six, until further notice, to give us time to review the current situation and to address any concerns of our cast… Read More