The future of cars is electric, and today the alliance that includes Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi laid out plans of how it plans to be one of the leaders in that area as well as autonomous vehicles. Alliance 2022, as the group calls itself, said that it plans to roll out 12 electric cars, and 40 vehicles with autonomous drive technology by 2022. It also wants to become “a global leader… Read More
SpaceX releases a fail video showing all of its explosions, marijuana delivery startup Eaze raises $27 million, Nestlé buys a majority stake in Blue Bottle Coffee and BTC China is suspending trading. All this on Crunch Report! Read More
Facebook is turning its attention to Canada with a new AI research office in Montreal. Google and Microsoft already have outposts in the city and countless other tech companies, including Uber, have researchers based in Canada. McGill University’s Joelle Pineau will be leading Facebook’s AI efforts in Montreal. Pineau’s research focus tends to lean heavily on robotics and… Read More
Applications are officially closed for TechCrunch’s Battlefield Australia, and the response exceeded expectations. There are 272 early-stage companies from Australia and New Zealand that are now vying for a spot in Battlefield Australia and for a chance to walk away with the $25,000 prize and an all-expense paid trip to Disrupt SF in 2018. That’s an impressive number of applicants… Read More
In an era where art is shared and streamed for free, Patreon offers new hope for turning content creation into a career. Illustrators, comedians, game makers, and musicians use Patreon to let fans pay a monthly subscription fee for special access to their work. In exchange, Patreon takes only a tiny 5% cut. With 50,000 creators and 1 million subscribers on board paying an average of $12 per… Read More
It’s about as good a timing as any for Lyft to capitalize on the tidal wave of negative publicity that Uber is facing right now. Alphabet appears to be discussing a $1 billion investment in Lyft in an effort led by CEO Larry Page. Lyft last raised $600 million at a $7.5 billion valuation in April. Read More
NYX Cosmetics describes itself as a “digital-first” brand, eschewing traditional ad buys in favor of customer selfies it shares on social media. That strategy has paid off: though NYX is often described as a “cult beauty brand,” the LA-based company joined the big leagues in 2014 when it was acquired by L’Oreal for a reported $500M. Now NYX is releasing its own… Read More
Over $10 billion is wasted every year due to fraudulent e-commerce charges and that number is growing. This is not only costly and time-consuming for the businesses, but also the credit card companies and customers. But now there are several startups including Signifyd that believe they can use technology to cut down on some of this fraud before it occurs. Another is CashShield, which has… Read More
Lindy Fishburne has spent most of the last six years heading up Breakout Labs, a program that’s underwritten by Peter Thiel and that in 2011 began offering nascent science-focused startups funding with no strings attached. Little wonder that Fishburne decided it might make sense to enlist her Breakout Labs colleagues and create a more traditional venture fund that can support some of… Read More
The SEC appears to have taken very thoughtful action on two crypto projects to date. Nay-sayers are predicting the end, while proponents of crypto dismiss the actions. Here’s a quick analysis of what is actually happening. Read More
After what were likely several months of very one-sided board meetings, Hampton Creek has filled the empty seats that chief executive Josh Tetrick may have been talking to. No longer monologuing, Tetrick has added an assortment of impressive-seeming new directors to the company’s board and announced the company’s acquisition of patents related to lab grown meat. Without addressing… Read More
The promise of self-driving cars is to create a world where anyone, anywhere can summon a car and travel safely to their destination, at close to zero cost. Companies creating autonomous taxi fleets have a unique opportunity to define and lead this shift toward virtually free and ubiquitous transportation. Read More
Facebook automatically generates categories advertisers can target, such as “jogger” and “activist,” based on what it observes in users’ profiles. Usually that’s not a problem, but ProPublica found that Facebook had generated anti-Semitic categories such as “Jew Hater” and “Hitler did nothing wrong,” which could be targeted for… Read More
Geoffrey Hinton is one the most famous researchers in the field of artificial intelligence. His work helped kick off the world of deep learning we see today. So it was a bit hilarious to learn in a Reddit AMA hosted by the Google Brain Team that Hinton was briefly a Google intern in 2012. Read More
Yes, you should be able to charge your new iPhone X or iPhone 8 at Starbucks. Apple announced earlier this week that its new iPhones will include support for wireless charging through the Qi standard. But as far as charging in Starbucks is concerned, there seemed to be a catch: Starbucks’ charging pads from Powermat support a different standard, PMA. This is a solvable problem, according… Read More
The Cassini-Huygens mission launched from Cape Canaveral on October 15, 1997, and tomorrow, just a month shy of 20 years later, one of the most prolific purveyors of beautiful planetary science crashes into Saturn in a bittersweet “Grand Finale.” With its fuel nearly exhausted, this is its final and most dramatic experiment. Read More
Silicon Valley venture firm Social Capital just completed the first step in its mission to take startups public without an IPO. The team has listed something called a special purchase acquisition company, known as a SPAC. More common outside of the tech industry, these blank-check companies are specifically designed to buy private companies and bring them public without going through the… Read More
While plenty of smartphone features have been sunsetted on the way to thinner profiles and sexier bezels, none have garnered the ire of consumers quite as much as the removal of the aged and distinguished 3.5mm headphone jack.
Apple was early to axe the port, and while Andy Rubin’s Essential followed suit, a lot of consumers took issue with the move. Essential seems to be taking those… Read More
The medical school in Ponce, Puerto Rico seems like an unlikely place to start a revolution in education. While it may look unassuming, with its campus bordered by empty lots, low slung buildings, auto body shops and the freeway, Ponce Health Sciences University is ground zero for an experiment in education that could radically transform the way medicine is taught. It’s there, a few… Read More
Costanoa Ventures has raised a $175 million fund, the third fund for the Palo Alto-based venture firm. With a focus on enterprise technology, Costanoa Ventures typically invests at seed stage and Series A. The new fund brings the total capital for the five-year-old firm to $500 million under management. Read More
