Earlier this week smart TV maker Vizio settled an FTC charge for nefariously collecting data from its customers, but that isn’t deterring China’s LeEco from completing a $2 billion acquisition of the company. Back in July 2016, LeEco announced a surprise $2 billion deal to buy Vizio and thus further expand its business empire, which already covers video streaming, mobile phones and… Read More
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a non-profit medical research organization started by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg (and not to be confused with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a limited liability corporation to advance human potential) today announced it would be doling out a total of $50 million to its first cohort of disease investigators. The Biohub brings together Bay Area… Read More
Twitter rolls out updates to combat abuse on its platform, YouTube launches mobile live stream and Super Chat exits beta, Waze Carpool grows in the Bay Area, Apple Beats are expected to drop February 10th and a recap from the 10th Annual Crunchies. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
On her personal Facebook account Tuesday, COO Sheryl Sandberg announced an update to the company’s employee benefits, which are newly enhanced to ease the lives of new parents and grieving employees alike. Sandberg noted that the decision intends to lead the charge for policies that help new parents as well as families that are grieving the loss of a loved one. In the post, Sandberg… Read More
While onstage at the 10th annual Crunchies Awards last night, Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson talked a bit about a new initiative to connect people with their government representatives. The program, called Twilio Voices for Democracy is part of the company’s Twilio.org program dedicated to helping nonprofits make a difference through utilizing their tech. The program donates or discounts… Read More
Amid allegations at the highest levels that all is not right with America’s voting system, it seems strange that legislation would be proposed that eliminates an organization created specifically to maintain that voting system’s security. But these are strange times. Read More
Nine months ago, Kansas City, Missouri, announced that it would be investing $15 million in a public-private partnership with Cisco to make a two-mile streetcar corridor smart — like, Internet of Things smart. The city has just shared the first compilation of data with other cities, as well as with federal agencies.
Just over four years ago, Kansas City hooked up residents with Google Fiber. Read More
Researchers at the University of California Irvine have created a chip for use in medical imaging and other applications that’s as powerful as it is tiny. The pint-size millimeter-wave radiator could lead to better scanning of tissues and organs, but may also work as part of our everyday wireless data ecosystem. Read More
Twilio has announced in its quarterly earnings report that it has acquired Beepsend, a Sweden-based SMS messaging provider. The startup has been acquired to “enhance the capabilities of the Twilio Super Network.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Beepsend, which thrives on the idea that “not all text messages are the same,” segments SMS message traffic into… Read More
With all the noise in the electric skateboard market, new boards need to have a unique or better approach to the category of “last-mile vehicles” to attract new riders. Yet, despite recent recalls, Boosted remains the champion of the niche, with Inboard quickly catching up. But what if you want something faster, made of carbon fiber and Kevlar, but with an extended range? Read More
Though some upsides to Trump’s IT policy may emerge, a lack of internal structure in the White House is adding to the uncertainty that began on the campaign trail. The president’s tech agenda is largely a blank slate. During the election, candidate Trump issued no major tech policy briefs, gave no major IT speeches and generally only talked about tech to hammer Apple or Amazon on jobs. Read More
Sometimes it’s best to just be blunt — to ask a company, “why is this a thing I want?” It’s an important question — perhaps the most important question in consumer electronics — and for some companies, it’s seemingly becoming increasingly more difficult to answer. It’s something Basslet gets a lot. You would, too, if you had devoted the… Read More
TechCrunch is holding a Mini-Meetup during Mobile World Congress, on Tuesday Feb. 28. We will hold a “Pitch-Off” of startups at the event.
Grab tickets here.
You can apply to pitch your Barcelona-based startup here.
We’ll select approximately 10 great Barcelona-based startups to explain to our panel of VCs and TechCrunch editors in 60 seconds or less why their startup is awesome. Read More
Dick Kramlich, the co-founder of NEA, is launching a new $130 million early-stage fund called Green Bay Ventures with partner Anthony Schiller. The fund is geared toward companies Series B and down, focusing on applied artificial intelligence in areas like manufacturing, energy, transportation and logistics, a source tells us. The fund was disclosed in a regulatory filing, and the firm declined… Read More
Google today launched for its business customers a new tool called Google Cloud Search, which will allow users to search across G Suite products, including Drive, Gmail, Sites, Calendar, Docs, Contacts and more. The service was previously available in a limited preview, where it was known as Springboard, and described as something like a Google Now for enterprise workers. Springboard, now… Read More
Between Venmo, Square Cash and even Snapcash, no one can argue that it’s hard to send money to a friend. But it wasn’t always this way. Paper checks used to be the de facto method of repayment — and it was messy, time-consuming and nowhere near instantaneous — someone could wait a month to cash a check you wrote them, leaving you with an annoying surprise when the… Read More
Robots are invaluable tools in the workplace, but they often still require a specialist to train in anything more than elementary tasks. Rethink Robotics is helping improve that situation with a powerful and intuitive new platform for its Sawyer robots called Intera 5. Read More
The social norms of in-person communication clearly don’t exist online, and Facebook is limited by constraints of design, structure and algorithms — constraints that don’t exist in person. So how can Facebook make politics less painful? Let’s take a look at four behavioral design strategies Facebook could use to facilitate discourse and help you avoid offending a… Read More
After expanding to the Bay Area in a pilot last September, Waze Carpool is now officially open to all in the nine counties that make up the region, and also in Northern California from Sacramento to Monterey, the company announced. This marks the proper launch for the Google-owned collaborative ride-sharing tool, which is not so much a competitor for Google as it is a community-focused effort… Read More
Photo-printing services abound online, from dotcom-era brands like Shutterfly to services launched through the years by Apple, Amazon, Costco and Walgreens. Startups keep cropping up, too — no surprise given the number of photos people take and share these days, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and social media. Now, one photo-printing startup called Chatbooks has raised… Read More
