Qualcomm is leveraging this essential patent to distort the market for new smartphones by forcing companies that need to license the technology into paying unfair licensing fees and blocking competitors from any size from getting into the business. Read More
Google today announced that its Safe Browsing service, which keeps Chrome, Safari and Firefox users on the desktop and on mobile from visiting potentially dangerous sites, now protects more than 3 billion devices. That’s up from 1 billion in 2013 and 2 billion the company starting citing in May 2016. The service, one of Google’s first attempts at an anti-malware tool, first launched… Read More
Google has filed a legal appeal against a record-breaking fine handed down by the European Commission this summer for anti-competitive behavior relating to the operation of its product search comparison service, currently called Google Shopping. Read More
Rackspace today announced its intention to acquire Datapipe, one of its largest competitors in the managed public and private cloud services business. Rackspace expects the acquisition, which is its largest one yet, to close in the next quarter. Read More
Well, this is quite a coup. Entrepreneur First (EF), the London-headquartered company builder that invests in individuals “pre-team, pre-idea” to help create new technology startups, has raised $12.4 million in new funding led by Silicon Valley’s Greylock Partners. Read More
Mercedes-Benz is the latest automaker to embrace electrification, announcing that it will be electrifying its entire vehicle lineup by 2022. Get used to it: Car makers are going to be making these announcements at an increasing clip, especially now that China, the most important car market in the world, has announced plans to eventually move to ban the sale of fossil fuel vehicles. Read More
The challenges of startup life don’t get the same attention as the funding rounds and blockbuster exits. We often only see tech executives onstage once they’ve already made it big. But it’s the leaders of fledgling startups, currently in the trenches fighting to survive, that can teach some of the most important lessons for fellow entrepreneurs. Read More
Tesla is ramping up its deployment of Supercharger stations across the U.S. and internationally as part of its commitment to addressing growing demand, especially in light of the Model 3 beginning production. Now, it’s moving to get Superchargers in more populated city centers, in addition to highway and travel destination spots outside of metropolitan areas. Read More
Uber’s Advanced Technology Group has hired Jon Thomason, who most recently acted as Head of Mobile and Product at Facebook’s Oculus virtual reality company. Thomason will lead ATG software teams across Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto, working on ATG’s advanced software projects, including autonomous driving and trucking. Read More
Data Artisans, the business arm of open source tool, Apache Flink, announced an early-access release of the commercial version of their platform today that includes a new tool for managing streaming applications.
Kostas Tzoumas, CEO at Data Artisans, says managing applications on a real-time streaming product presents some serious challenges for customers, and the new Application Manager is… Read More
A new Far Infrared (FIR) sensor from Israeli company AdaSky could help bring vehicles with Level 3, 4 and 5 autonomy features to market faster. The solution is the first to offer an FIR camera with built-in machine learning software for processing the results, in a solid-state form factor with no moving parts, at a cost that AdaSky says is “suited for mass market” use.… Read More
Microsoft today announced that 125,000 organizations in 181 markets now use Teams, its Slack competitor for Office 365 subscribers. That’s up from the 30,000 organizations in 145 markets that had adopted the service by the end of January. In addition to this momentum update, the company also announced a number of feature updates to the service. Starting today, you can add anyone with… Read More
The current Apple TV is nearly two years old. That’s why it’s not surprising to learn that Apple has been working on a new device for a while. This weekend, an upcoming build of iOS 11 for the next iPhone was leaked and contains a ton of information about unreleased products, including the next Apple TV. A previous leak of the HomePod firmware already indicated that Apple was… Read More
Several of the European Union’s major economies are calling for tax reform across the bloc that responds to where tech platforms generate revenue, not just where they book profit — arguing that the current system allows digital giants to minimize tax liabilities by using subsidiaries sited in low-tax countries such as Ireland. Read More
Another privacy-related fine for Facebook in Europe: The Spanish data protection regulator has issued a €1.2M (~$1.4M) fine against the social media behemoth for a series of violations regarding its data-harvesting activities. Read More
Filling out forms online and on mobile can be a tedious and bug-ridden — yet annoyingly necessary — experience. Today, a startup called Typeform has raised a significant round of capital to help fund its mission to change all that, with a platform that the startup claims gets its customers much better results because the interactive experiences created on it are more intuitive and… Read More
French fintech startup Bankin is partnering with another fintech startup, Yomoni. Bankin brings all you your bank accounts together in a single, unified interface. It’s a sort of Mint, but for the French market. Bankin also competes with another app that I covered just a couple of days ago, Linxo. Both of them want to become the definite financial hub to get an overview on all your… Read More
Xiaomi is shooting a number of arrows at Apple today. Smartphones aside, it just launched an affordable take on the Macbook Air that ships with Windows. The first Xiaomi laptop was a shot at the Macbook Air when it was unveiled in the summer of 2016, and the company is back with its take on Apple’s more expensive computer. The Mi Notebook Pro — because all comparisons start with… Read More
It’s the day before iPhone launch and Xiaomi is back at it again with the unveiling of the follow-up to last year’s highly-acclaimed and near-bezel-less Mi Mix smartphone. The Mi Mix 2 keeps the previous design aesthetic — developed by a team led by designer Philippe Starck — but with a slightly smaller six-inch display and improved 18:9 screen resolution. The bezel… Read More
Planning to attend Disrupt Berlin 2017? Don’t miss your chance to exhibit in Startup Alley. It’s one of the coolest and most energizing aspects of every TechCrunch Disrupt. In fact, the only thing better than exhibiting in Startup Alley is doing it for free. Yup, that’s null Euro, baby. It’s good for the bottom line. Read More
