TechCrunch

 In the latest update to its messaging app, Line has added a livestreaming feature, called Chat Live, which can be used in group or multi-person chats of up to 200 people. Read More

 Amazon today announced a new program that gives developers a way to earn money for their Alexa skills – the voice apps that run on smart speakers like the Echo, and other Alexa-powered devices. According to the company, developers will be compensated for top-performing and “engaging” voice apps across over a half-dozen categories, including games, which were previously… Read More

 Microsoft announced a new product in its Azure line-up in preview today that will make it easier for developers to build event-based applications. The Azure Event Grid makes events (like uploading a picture or video, clicking a button, updating a database, etc.) first-class Azure objects. Event Grid complements Azure Functions and Azure Logic Apps, Microsoft’s existing serverless offerings. Read More

 Roughly 1 in 30 Facebook users tells someone Happy Birthday each day, showing Facebook’s first major emergent behavior is still going strong. Now Facebook is equipping the 45 million people sending birthday wishes each day with some new features. Now instead of just posting a soulless “HBD” or “Happy Birthday!” on someone’s wall with no personal message,… Read More

 Microsoft wants to build autonomous tech for aircraft that require little to no power to fly. It just completed tests in the Nevada desert of gliders equipped with self-guidance systems that help them track regions of rising hot air and predict their movement, with the aim of staying up in the air for as long as possible. These tests showed that Microsoft’s system for riding the wind holds… Read More

 Ever since he first started listening to KISS on his 2XL robot tape player, former AOL executive Mike Macadaan, knew that voice commands would be the future for computer interactions. That obsession stuck with Macadaan through his long years as a technology executive focused on user interfaces and then again as a co-founder of the Santa Monica-based venture studio, Science. With the emergence… Read More

 The team behind Pattern, a two-year-old, Redwood City, Calif.- based startup, has been quietly acquired by Workday, the financial management and HR software vendor that went public in 2012 as now boasts a market cap of $20.9 billion. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Pattern CEO Derek Draper, who announced the acquisition to his network on LinkedIn, declined to comment further. As part… Read More

 Google’s Lunar Xprize competition, which seeks to reward privately funded missions to the Moon, is adding some incentive for participants, and tweaking the deadline to give teams a bit more time. Eligibility for the top prize now includes only the caveat that they must complete their mission by March 31, 2018 – gone is the requirement that they launch their Moon landing craft… Read More

 The events that unfolded this weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia have sparked reactions from all corners of the internet. But one Twitter user, former President Barack Obama, had a response that resonated with millions. Last night, this tweet from Obama became the most-liked tweet on the platform ever, with more than 3 million likes at the time of writing. "No one is born hating… Read More

 The joint effort by Mobileye, Intel and BMW to develop an autonomous driving platform that can be used by other automakers has a new partner: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). FCA and the group signed a memorandum of understanding to work together, which opens the door for FCA to contribute to the progress the team has already made. Already, BMW, Intel and Mobileye (which Intel subsequently… Read More

 Apple’s ambitions around creating original content seem set to grow: The Wall Street Journal reports that it has a budget of around $1 billion to spend on creating its own programming next year. That’s a budget that begins to approach those of dedicated content creators like HBO, which spent just around twice that last year on its own shows. Apple’s first forays into… Read More

 Tencent, Asia’s highest valued technology company, posted a record quarterly profit of $2.7 billion (18.2 billion RMB) thanks to explosive growth from mobile games. The firm’s profit in Q2 2017 rocketed 70 percent year-on-year on the back of the success of Tencent’s mobile games, particularly smash hit Honour of Kings which claims over 200 million registered users. Honour… Read More

 SpaceX’s latest International Space Station Resupply mission has completed its latest step, with the Dragon capsule launched on Monday loaded with over 6,400 pounds of supplies successfully docked. Dragon met up with the ISS early Wednesday morning, roughly 36 hours after launching from Kennedy Space Center aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. The Dragon capsule, whose payload includes experiments… Read More

 Analyst Gartner is projecting that worldwide spending on IT security products and services will grow seven per cent, year over year, to reach a total of $86.4 billion in 2017. Read More

 Ant Financial, the Alibaba affiliated valued at $60 billion, is continuing to follow Chinese tourists and their wallets overseas after it inked a deal with Yelp in the U.S.. The partnership allows Alipay users — and there are over 500 million registered in China — to make payment through the service when they use Yelp for restaurant bookings. The launch initially covers… Read More

 Uber has suspended its services in Philippines after the national regulator banned it from operating for one month. The country’s Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) ordered a cease and desist against the U.S. ride-hailing firm on Monday over its apparent flouting of a ban on new drivers. The company initially lodged an appeal and continued with its service,… Read More

 The Berlin-based language learning service Babbel today announced that it has teamed up with Cambridge English, one of the world’s leading providers of English assessments, to launch the aptly named “Babbel English Test powered by Cambridge English.” The new test, which will cost €39, is meant to assess the reading and listening skills of beginning and intermediate students. Read More

 Four long years ago John O’Nolan released a content management system for bloggers that was as elegant as it was spooky. Called Ghost, the original app was a promising Kickstarter product with little pizzazz. Now the app is ready to take on your toughest blogs. O’Nolan just released version 1.0 of the software, a move that updates the tool with the best of modern blogging tools.… Read More

Amazon debuts instant pickup to order and pick up your stuff within two minutes, Uber agrees to 20 years of privacy audits, Casper’s new mattress and Microsoft buys Cycle Computing. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

 We knew that Andrew Ng had more than just a series of deep learning courses up his sleeve when he announced the first phase of his deeplearning.ai last week. It’s clear now that the turn of Ng’s three part act is a $150 million venture capital fund, first noted by PEHub, targeting AI investments. Ng, who formerly founded Google’s Brain Team and served as chief scientist at… Read More