Facebook has acquired a German company called Fayteq that builds software add-ons for video editing that can remove and add whole objects from captured video using computer vision. The acquisition was first reported by a German startup publication (via Variety) and confirmed to TechCrunch, and could be useful as Facebook pursues additional video filter creation technology, both for its live… Read More
Y Combinator backed Plasticity is tackling the problem of getting software systems to better understand text, using deep learning models trained to understand what they’re reading on Wikipedia articles — and offering an API for developers to enhance their own interfaces. Read More
From Uber’s former CEO Travis Kalanick getting sued by his company’s lynchpin investors at Benchmark to Google’s struggles with a recently fired employee over a gender diversity screed that went viral, it’s been a wild week in tech. Meanwhile, Snap and Blue Apron both reported disappointing earnings — something we discuss in this week’s episode of the… Read More
Esports is becoming a true spectator sport, but will the average Joe one day care about competitive League of Legends or Overwatch or Counter-Sstrike the way they care about watching football on Sundays? A number of factors are at play for esports to garner the same level of popularity as mainstream sports like football, baseball, basketball and fútbol everywhere but the U.S., some of which… Read More
Hey startups! Disrupt San Francisco (September 18-20) is just a few weeks away and registration is open for startups looking to showcase their product or company to thousands of people on the Disrupt floor. Read More
The company launched a Kickstarter last year with the promise of “streaming music without your phone,” delivering the still-tangible benefits of devoted music hardware for the Spotify generation. The startup built up enough excitement to hit $300k on the crowdfunding site, and the recent end of the iPod shuffle and nano have only furthered that interest among consumers. CEO… Read More
Netflix is still in active talks with Marvel over potentially retaining streaming rights to Marvel and Star Wars movies after 2019, which is the date Disney has set for when it’ll remove Disney and Pixar movies from the subscription service in favor of its own in-house Disney streaming offering. We already knew the fate of Disney’s Marvel co-production TV shows, including… Read More
SoundCloud has just closed the necessary funding round to keep the struggling music service afloat. CEO Alex Ljung will step aside though remain chairman as former Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor replaces him. Mike Weissman will become COO as SoundCloud co-founder and CTO Eric Wahlforss stays as chief product officer. Read More
Yesterday, Benchmark, the powerful venture firm and a major Uber shareholder, filed a lawsuit against the company’s recently ousted CEO Travis Kalanick in a remarkable move. The suit seeks to remove Kalanick from the board, while eliminating three additional board positions that it says Kalanick sought (and won) approval for last year, partly by withholding crucial information from… Read More
Sleeperbot, which has raised about $2M in seed funding from Birchmere VC and Expa, and boasts hundreds of thousands of users, calls itself Slack for sports.
It’s essentially an app (and website) that lets sports fans have conversations around different subjects they’re passionate about. These discussions happen in channels – some of which are created by the company and are… Read More
Technology was going to free us from cable. It’s right there in the phrase “cord cutting” — a liberation from the bonds of traditional television. This is supposed to be the era of on-demand entertainment, when we don’t have to subscribe to some bloated cable package in order to get the content we want. But the golden age of television has yet to meet its… Read More
You may have heard the term ‘MRE’ – otherwise known as “Meal, Ready-to-Eat” – bandied about in discussions related to the military or survivalists. Now, it looks like Amazon is exploring ways to produce its own MREs, but with the aim of creating something tasty and satisfying for ordinary consumers, rather than for service people or extreme hikers. Amazon… Read More
India-based messaging app Hike is back on the acquisition trail after it picked up Creo, a hardware company that previously released smartphones, streaming devices and an operating system. The price of the deal is undisclosed. Hike released a short statement late on Friday announcing the acquisition, although it does not appear that the 50-person Creo will continue to work on hardware.… Read More
Amazon has a new overall deal with The Walking Dead comic book series creator Robert Kirkman. Kirkman’s comic provided the inspiration for the hit AMC show of the same name, and now he’ll work with Amazon and his own Skybound Entertainment company to create TV projects designed to air exclusively on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service. The deal is the latest for… Read More
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s weekly venture-themed podcast where we dive into the numbers behind the noise.
Forget the summer lull, friends. This week was chock full of news that broke right up until the very last minute. Matthew Lynley was off this week, but Katie Roof and myself were incredibly lucky to have Kate Mitchell, co-founder and partner at Scale Venture… Read More
Ring is steadily releasing new products, but the Ring Video Doorbell 2 is the first re-think of its original, core product. The new version of the smart Wi-Fi doorbell that started it all still offers both wired and battery power options, but the batteries are now removable, and it’s got a few other upgrades including true 1080p HD video.
I’m a longtime user of the original, and… Read More
Ulysses is one of the most popular apps for writers. It lets you write, edit, organize, sync and export all your writing in a single, unified interface. That’s why it’s interesting to see that it is switching to a subscription-only business model. I’ve already written about Ulysses a few times. It’s a rock-solid, well-designed writing app for iOS and macOS. It relies… Read More
In an example of more revolving doors in London’s heated fintech space, TechCrunch has learned that Curve co-founder Tom Foster-Carter is joining Monzo. As of Monday, he takes up the role of COO at the digital-only challenger bank, with some aspects subject to regulatory approval. Read More
Officially named the “Spaceborne Computer,” the Linux-based supercomputer is designed to serve in a one year experiment conducted by NASA and HPE to find out if high performance computing hardware, with no hardware customization or modification, can survive and operate in outer space conditions for a full year – the length of time, not coincidentally, it’ll likely take… Read More
Now is a good time to be in the co-working industry in Southeast Asia, it seems. Barely days after WeWork announced plans to enter the region, which is home to over 600 million people, through the acquisition of Singapore startup Spacemob, now a company that operates like an Airbnb for office space rentals has raised money.
FlySpaces, a startup headquartered in the Philippines, raised $2.1… Read More
