Nayeem Islam has spent the last eight years with chipmaker Qualcomm, where he founded its Silicon Valley-based R&D facility, recruited its entire team and oversaw research on all aspects of security, including applying analysis techniques like machine learning on mobile devices and in the network to detect threats early. Now Islam and a group of former execs have created their own company… Read More
Politifact is the latest and perhaps most high-profile website to host code that secretly hijacks visitors’ CPUs to mine cryptocurrency. Driven by a boom in cryptocoin value and a lack of protections against JavaScript routines like this one, this surprising form of audience monetization is now found on hundreds of sites. Read More
A consolidation in the advance movie ticketing space is happening today, with Fandango’s announcement that it’s acquiring rival MovieTickets.com for an undisclosed sum. The deal, which is expected to close before year-end, will help Fandango expand its international footprint, particularly in Latin America, as well as bring new cinemas to its ticketing platform. Read More
Qualcomm has filed a lawsuit against Apple in its continuing legal battle over patents, this time looking to block the manufacturing and sale of iPhones in China, according to a report by Bloomberg this morning. It’s another shot at Apple as the companies continue to duel with Apple regarding payments for its technology. Apple filed a $1 billion lawsuit with Qualcomm in January and the… Read More
The last time I spoke to Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, he had set a pretty audacious goal for his company to achieve $5 billion in revenue. At the time, that seemed a bit far-fetched. But the company has continued to thrive and is on track to pass $3 billion in revenue some time in the next couple of quarters. Read More
Supersolid, a London-based mobile games developer with more than 50 million downloads under its belt, is best known for the smash hit games like Super Penguins, Adventure Town and Pororo Penguin Run. The company has now raised a $4 million Series A investment round, led by Index Ventures. Read More
I can’t quite wrap my head around the need for a dedicated app for travelers wanting to meet locals to hang out with — doesn’t this just happen naturally? But that, at least in part, is the premise behind today’s official launch of PartyWith, a revamped version of the app previously known as Party with a Local. Read More
While Airbnb continues to grow its number of hosts and guests, landlords and building owners don’t share the same enthusiasm for the home-sharing platform as Airbnb users. But the company has a plan that gets each party on board with home-sharing: they are collaborating with Newgard Development Group to build a 324-unit building in Kissimmee, FL that will be branded as an Airbnb building. Read More
A number of Twitter users are joining in a 24 hour boycott of the platform today, organized around the hashtag #WomenBoycottTwitter, to draw attention to online harassment on social media, including how women’s voices are silenced by bullying and abuse. Read More
While most of the attention paid to India’s e-commerce boom focuses on big players like Flipkart, there’s another fast-growing sector: people, mostly women, who resell items on social media. Several startups now exist to serve the so-called “housewife reseller” market. One of them, Y Combinator alum Meesho, announced today that it has raised a $3.4 million Series A led… Read More
Steve Wozniak, the Apple co-founder who changed the world alongside Steve Jobs, has today announced the launch of Woz U. Woz U will start as an online learning platform focused on both students and companies that will eventually hire those students. Woz U is based out of Arizona, and hopes to launch physical locations for learning in more than 30 cities across the globe. Read More
iOS and Samsung’s U.S. market share is now tied, following growth for Apple’s smartphone OS over the three months ending in August, based on new data from Kantar Wordpanel, which tracks smartphone market share by way of sales data. According to its analysis, iOS is up 3.7 percentage points year-over-year, to achieve 35 percent market share, while Samsung only grew 0.8 points,… Read More
Not to be outdone by other streaming media sites, adult site CamSoda [Partially NSFW] is introducing language lessons. That’s right: you can learn all about conjugation, declension and perhaps reproduction from scantily dressed teachers. CamSoda models requested the service when they found it fun to teach the folks they spoke with online about differences in languages. Further, the… Read More
U.K. edtech startup pi-top has a new learn-to-code-and-tinker machine. It’s another modular Raspberry Pi-powered laptop but this time they’ve reduced the number of steps needed to put it together, as well as adding a slider keyboard design so the Qwerty panel can be pulled out to provide access to a rail for mounting and tinkering with electronics. Read More
It’s easy to roll your eyes at many of Adam Sandler’s recent films — including his Netflix Originals — but he’s also delivered impressive performances in good movies like Punch-Drunk Love and Funny People. Now we can add The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) to the list. The Meyerowitz Stories, which Netflix is releasing today, was written and directed by… Read More
Building a token sale is at once quite simple and quite complex. A number of issues crop up immediately, including, but not limited to, the need for an expensive team of lawyers, marketers, social media experts and an expensive crew to build your smart contract. CoinLaunch, a project by repeat entrepreneur Reuven Cohen, aims to reduce the complexity of at least one part of the process. Read More
Fresh off the satisfyingly frustrating Twin Peaks revival, director David Lynch is lending his name to an extremely limited edition Bang & Olufsen speaker. It’s a weird collaboration from a weird director and a company with some of the industry’s weirdest speaker designs. A branding opportunity made in weirdo heaven. The speaker is essentially a B&O Play A9 draped with… Read More
Facebook today formally announced its new feature that allows users to order food from local restaurants using its app. Instead of competing directly with other food ordering services, Facebook is partnering with several industry players on this effort, including EatStreet, Delivery.com, DoorDash, ChowNow, Olo, Zuppler and Slice. It’s also working with restaurant chains directly. Read More
Baidu, China’s internet technology giant, hopes to be in the business of mass producing autonomous cars by 2021, thanks to a partnership with BAIC Group, a Chinese automaker which will handle the manufacturing part of that equation. BAIC Group is one of Baidu’s many partners for its Apollo autonomous driving program, and it’ll use the open platform to produce vehicles with… Read More
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
This week we had the full crew on deck: Katie Roof, Matthew Lynley and myself — Alex Wilhelm. All that and we were joined by Jeff Grabow, the U.S. venture capital leader at EY.
Grabow was a treat to have on, as he has a wealth of knowledge of how… Read More
