Peter Levine has an interesting working theory. He believes cloud computing is going to take a back seat to edge computing — and we will soon see the majority of processing taking place at the device level. Levine says it’s based on sound analysis of where he sees computing going — and his job as an investor is to recognize where the industry is heading before it happens. Read More
When Zumper raised $18M in Series B funding last fall, the rental search engine explained that the funding would be used to grow the company beyond search – and assist renters with the entire leasing process. So today Zumper is announcing what they call Zumper Select, which is an end-to-end platform that works with renters and landlords to manage the entire rental process, from search… Read More
Dolores Tersigni was hoping she would be taking a long-overdue vacation after leaving Netflix earlier this year — instead, she was spending a lot of time talking to the team over at meditation app Headspace. Now she’s landed a job there as the chief people officer, starting full-time this week. Read More
Remix 3D is Microsoft’s community site for sharing 3D models from Paint 3D and other 3D modeling tools. Given the company’s focus on mixed and virtual reality, it’s no surprise that the company wants to get people to think about building the kind of 3D models that bring these new experiences to life. The premise of Remix 3D, as the name implies, has always been that it’s… Read More
Google today announced it’s rolling out a change to its Play Store so that better-performing apps – meaning those that experience fewer crashes and those that don’t drain your smartphone battery – will be ranked higher than apps with bugs and other performance issues. The goal with this new ranking algorithm is to ensure that the best apps are being promoted, which in… Read More
Plants, like humans, need food, water, beer, and television. What better way to tell if your plant is hungry or thirsty (or bored) than a little nubbin that sits inside its pot and send you notifications when things are amiss. That’s why you need a HelloPlant. The system lets you name your plants and then watch them as they grow. When the soil is too dry you get a notification and you… Read More
Every great Disrupt debuts fantastic startups and this September 18-20 Disrupt SF will be no exception. TechCrunch has selected 30 outstanding early-stage companies that will be featured in specific category Pavilions in Startup Alley and will present their products on our Showcase Stage during Disrupt SF. Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Mycroft AI Mycroft is developing an… Read More
Larry Scott and Nick Potts worked at CoverMyMeds, a software solution for pharmacies. After connecting a bunch of pills with a bunch of pharmacists they started ScriptDrop, a service that helps pharmacists deliver those same prescriptions to your door. It’s active in New York now but expanding into other areas soon.
The team, who hail from Nashville, settled in Columbus to work for… Read More
Last week, an early build of Apple’s HomePod firmware was shared on Apple’s developer website. Guilherme Rambo has been digging around the strings in a library file to find hints about the next iPhone. He found out that the next iPhone could automatically detect the type of scene you’re looking at and adjust the camera setting. I looked around the strings in the speaker… Read More
Amazon today is rolling out a new experience for Prime Photos, its photo backup and sharing app, on Fire TV and Fire TV Stick. With the update, you can now ask Alexa to display your photos, including those saved to your various albums, photos taken on a certain day, week or month, those snapped at a particular location, or even those of specific people or things – like photos of your… Read More
Facebook announced this morning that it had completed its move to neural machine translation — a complicated way of saying that Facebook is now using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to automatically translate content across Facebook. Read More
Tesla’s Model 3 is unique in a lot of ways, but one that stood out among the early reviews and photos was the dashboard, which is essentially unbroken by instrumentation save for that single, large 15-inch touchscreen that sits in the middle next to the steering wheel. We have photos of the dash and its various screens, but a Tesla fan put together an interactive simulation of the… Read More
Uber has lately been in the news for all the wrong reasons. But the June hiring of Bozoma Saint John as the company’s first-ever chief brand officer was a breath of fresh air. At TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2017, I’m going to sit down with Saint John to discuss what it’s going to take for her, and some of Uber’s other new hires, to turn around the company. Read More
Heptio, the Seattle-based company recently launched by Kubernetes co-founders Craig McLuckie and Joe Beda, wants to make it easier for businesses to use Kubernetes in production. Since its launch in late 2016, the well-funded company has remained pretty quiet about its products, but today, the team released two open source projects into the wild: Ark and Sonobuoy.
While Kubernetes’… Read More
Great news, folks. Facebook Stories, the shameless Snapchat clone that sits above the News Feed on Facebook’s mobile app, is now rolling out to Facebook’s desktop site. Here, the Stories feature is no longer at the top of the page, but is instead off to the right side, where it’s at least a bit less intrusive. A small question mark icon appears in the Stories module, as… Read More
Retro controller maker extraordinaire 8bitdo is at it again with the NES30 Arcade Stick, which packs Bluetooth connectivity for wireless compatibility with Nintendo Switch, Windows, Android, Mac and Steam. The design borrows from the classic NES design from Nintendo for its color scheme and graphics, but unlike the original NES Arcade Stick, 8bitdo’s version has a full complement of… Read More
Don’t describe YC-backed Muzmatch’s dating app as a ‘Tinder for Muslims’. Co-founders Shahzad Younas and Ryan Brodie are very clear about what sets their target audience apart from the casual dating/hook-up crowd: a genuine intent to find a partner in order to get married. Read More
Location-based VR startup The Void announced today it will be partnering with Lucasfilm and ILMxLAB to bring a Star Wars-branded experience to Disney resorts. The new experience,”Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire,” will be coming to Downtown Disney at Disneyland Resort and Disney Springs at Walt Disney World Resort later this holiday season. Read More
Uber Freight, the on-demand trucking service created by Uber and introduced earlier this year, is expanding from its initial market of Texas to areas in California, Arizona, Chicago, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Uber has also updated the app with new features that personalize the driver app with custom settings and recommendations based on their use. The Uber Freight app will… Read More
The name “Piggy” might seem weirdly uninviting for an investment app — which is serious business — but co-founder Nikhil Mantha says it holds a kind of comfort that should attract users in India to start building and tackling their own portfolio. You could probably draw some similarities to Robinhood in the United States, but Mantha says Piggy — an app coming… Read More
