Amazon wants to make its virtual assistant Alexa available on more devices, instead of just its own hardware. To that end, the company today is broadly opening up access to developer tools that will allow commercial device makers to build products powered by Alexa. With the launch of the Alexa Voice Service Device SDK toolset, companies can add a fully functional version of Alexa to their… Read More
The Essential Phone has arrived, a bit later than originally announced. The first smartphone from the new company founded by Android creator Andy Rubin is now available to order, via Essential’s own site, Best Buy, and Sprint. The phone is still listed as a pre-order in all three spots, with shipping information to be conveyed later, but this is the closest people have been able to get… Read More
On the heels of formally announcing betaworks ventures, the startup shop is today introducing its third ‘camp’. betaworks Visioncamp is the latest accelerator-style program out of betaworks, and will focus on ‘camera-first’ applications and services, including augmented reality and computer vision. The program will include mentorship from the leadership at betaworks… Read More
CoreOS today announced the general availability of Microsoft Azure support for its Kubernetes-based Tectonic container management platform. It previously only fully supported container deployments on bare metal servers and AWS. Beta support for Azure launched in March and with this new release, Tectonic now offers hybrid support for multi-cloud deployments across its three supported… Read More
Alibaba has continued its push into Southeast Asia after it led a $1.1 billion investment in Tokopedia, an e-commerce firm based in Indonesia.
A valuation for the deal was not announced, but the companies did say that Alibaba has become a minority shareholder.
Tokopedia, which was founded in 2009, operates a marketplace that allows small retailers and large brands to sell to consumers in… Read More
Codacy, a startup based in Lisbon, Portugal that offers what it calls an “automated code review platform,” has raised $5.1 million in Series A funding. EQT Ventures led the round, with participation from existing investors Faber, Caixa Capital, Join Capital, and Seedcamp. Read More
Alibaba had another blockbuster quarter of business as its profits almost doubled. The Chinese e-commerce giant reported net profit of 14 billion RMB ($2.1 billion) for its recent quarter that finished June 30 — that’s up 96 percent year-on-year. Total revenue grew 56 percent to reach 50.2 billion CNY ($7.4 billion), easily exceeding estimates, with the firm reporting 466… Read More
Rebooting the venerable Nokia smartphone brand has not been a rush job for HMD Global, the Foxconn-backed company set up for the purpose of licensing the Nokia name to try to revive the brand’s fortunes on smartphones. But after starting with basic and mid-tier phones, it’s finally outted a flagship Android handset. Read More
Google might soon release a data-friendly version of its search app for mobile. That’s because the company is currently piloting such an app in Indonesia, as the eagle-eyed team at Android Police first spotted. “Search Lite” — which TechCrunch understands is not the name of the app, but it is certainly an accurate description of it — is essentially a modified… Read More
Digi.me and Personal, two companies that broadly play in the personal data space by offering apps to securely store and share various data about yourself, are announcing a merger. Terms of deal remain undisclosed. Read More
China is about to take net neutrality to the next level after a group of influential tech companies that includes Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Didi Chuxing and JD.com agreed to invest nearly $12 billion into state-run mobile operator China Unicom.
China Unicom is the country’s second largest operator with 269 million mobile customers, which makes it one of the largest in the world. The… Read More
Another sign that e-sports are turning into a big business: Nielsen is launching a new division focused providing research and consulting to the industry. The measurement firm already has a unit focused on gaming — in fact, Nicole Pike, Nielsen’s vice president of gaming, said Nielsen Esports was created in response to growing interest from the firm’s gaming clients. One of… Read More
Regular run-ins with government regulators and battles with well-funded local rivals have made Asia challenging terrain for Uber. The challenge is such that it’s fitting that the U.S. ride-sharing giant has hired a man who once scaled the summit of Mount Everest to lead its business in the region. Brooks Entwistle, a former Chairman of Goldman Sachs Southeast Asia, was announced today… Read More
Apple CEO Tim Cook has criticized U.S. President Trump’s reaction to the violent events that took place over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, which left one woman dead. “I disagree with the president and others who believe that there is a moral equivalence between white supremacists and Nazis, and those who oppose them by standing up for human rights. Equating the two… Read More
Earlier this week, the US Postal Service reported another dismal quarter of financial results. It’s the latest in a string of bad news for a national service that has been in slow decline since private carriers began emerging to challenge its dominance in the marketplace, and email rendered the written letter all but obsolete. According to a report from ABC News the Postal Service last… Read More
Apple is spending $1 billion to acquire original content, Workday acquires Pattern, Google Home now lets you make free phone calls and Andrew Ng is starting an AI fund. All this on Crunch Report! Read More
Content warning: This post contains racial slurs, homophobic language and very graphic depictions of racism and violence. If you were just paying attention to press releases, this week it’d be easy to believe that tech companies are winning the war on hate. Responding to the violence in Charlottesville, Mark Zuckerberg solemnly reflected that there is “no place for hate in… Read More
The past week has been a tough one for lovers of freedom. Slippery slopes have been slid down and a side of the human mind that once remained in shadow has reared its head. Charlottesville is just the first step down a dark road.
In real life, on the public square, our support of freedom of speech and public assembly – a freedom that has long helped hater and lover alike – is in… Read More
Welcome back to the TechCrunch Podcast, where we take a deeper dive into the hottest topics coming down tech’s pike. In this episode, Founders Fund partner Cyan Banister and Super Ventures managing partner Matt Miesnieks joined TechCrunch editor-in-chief Matthew Panzarino to talk the past, present and future of augmented reality. Read More
This is probably the last bit of news Samsung wanted to pop up in headlines in the weeks leading up to the Note 8 launch. Though, to be fair, this latest battery recall isn’t on Samsung. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a recall for refurbished Galaxy Note 4 batteries. However, the fault appears to fall at the feet of potentially counterfeited batteries supplied by FedEx. Read More
