Axios Media — a new media venture founded by former Politico executives — is beefing up its tech team with the new hiring of longtime reporter Ina Fried as its chief tech correspondent in San Francisco. Fried said her job will be to take some of the largest technology stories of the day — whether it’s about a new smartphone, some major shift in the political landscape… Read More
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday our daily guided tour of the biggest tech stories from the past 24 hours will appear here on TechCrunch.com. To get The Daily Crunch in your inbox every day of the week, sign up here. Alphabet’s ‘other bets’ start looking like better bets, Microsoft ascends to the clouds and Trump enlists more titans of tech. All that and more in The… Read More
The day you’ve all been waiting for is finally here. Registration for Disrupt NY 2017 is now open, which means now is your chance to be part of all the Disrupt action for a fraction of the price with extra early bird tickets. Extra early bird tickets are just $1,795 apiece, saving you $1,200 off the full retail price. You can purchase tickets here. But act fast, because… Read More
Just about a week or so ago, Samsung confirmed that it wouldn’t be using the world’s biggest phone show as a launching pad for its new flagship – a slight surprise given the fact that the company really need a big statement soon in the wake of the Galaxy Note 7 debacle and, well, all of the other stuff currently plaguing the company. Of course, after all of that,… Read More
We’re headed to D.C. and Miami for the TC Meetup + Pitch-off, and this time we’re doing things a bit differently. As part of the rapid-fire pitch-off, we’re choosing a WILDCARD startup from our audience of attendees. That means that entrepreneurs attending the event can still wind up pitching their product on stage, even if they aren’t selected (or never applied) for… Read More
President Trump tweeted about a mobile app called VoteStand this morning, which led many people to ask, uh, what’s VoteStand? Apparently, the president believes the voter fraud app originally funded by conservative super PAC Winning Our Future, will help him prove his claims that 3 million people voted illegally in the November elections. That would be quite a feat, given that the… Read More
The next version of Apple’s mobile platform will include an opt-in for iOS users to share their iCloud data in order to help the company improve software products, such as its voice-powered virtual assistant, Siri. Read More
Automakers are continuing to ramp up their holdings in the world of on-demand transportation services, and in the latest development, Germany’s Daimler is closing in on a deal to acquire Taxibeat, a profitable ride-hailing app based out of Athens, for a price of around €40 million ($43 million). The deal — which would roll Taxibeat into the same Daimler division that includes… Read More
Donald Trump’s White House administration has revealed the full membership of its manufacturing council (via Steve Kopack), which he assigned Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris to lead in December. The council includes Elon Musk, making this the second Trump administration advisory group that the Tesla CEO belongs to, including his Strategic and Policy Forum, which advises on economic… Read More
Satechi couldn’t have picked a better time to announce its USB-C Power Meter. Early last year, Benson Leung of Google’s Chromebook Pixel team discovered some troubling results when he systematically tested a number of cheap cords purchased off of Amazon, ultimately wreaking havoc on his own equipment. In November, Google issued a strongly worded advisement against third party… Read More
Here’s a fun story that I wish was true — Google Maps today decided to turn Bangkok, and a large swathe of the rest of Thailand, into the world’s largest park. Users of the Google Maps mobile apps and visitors to its website who look up the Thai capital will notice that the entire city and much of the surrounding area is covered in green. Green means grass, and grass… Read More
Following Bloomberg’s report, the Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society (what a name) officially announced that Apple is joining other tech companies as a founding member of the AI initiative. Companies will work on research projects, AI best practices and more. The Partnership on AI was officially unveiled back in September 2016. At the time, Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM… Read More
Alibaba is taking a big step into the U.S. — but it isn’t necessarily what you might think. Its affiliate Ant Financial has revealed it is buying U.S. payments firm MoneyGram for $880 million. Ant Financial is paying $13.25 per share for NASDAQ-listed MoneyGram, a jump on the $11.88 price it held at the beginning of trading on Wednesday. The deal is subject to regulatory… Read More
The 2017 Super Bowl season officially kicked off this week. For the next two weeks, it will be a mad scramble of marketing, publicity, parties, and, of course, tickets. It will drive billions in national GDP, and it will all culminate in sixty minutes of football. Over 100 million people will watch the game on TV, and for those who want to see it in person, the current average listing… Read More
Rocket Internet is increasing its focus on Asia after it opened its first engineering hub in the region. Bangkok, Thailand, is the location of the center, which will house a tech team that carries out work for Rocket Internet’s portfolio of startups. The firm currently has 20 people at the base in Thailand, and it said it plans to more than double that headcount before the end of… Read More
China is a big country with big cities and big roads. Imagine what it must feel like to know that the closest subway station or bus stop is 20-30 minutes away. Imagine getting in your car at 2 pm on a Thursday thinking that the traffic should be okay only to find that traffic definitely isn’t okay. Imagine taking a cab to the nearest supermarket because it would take 30 minutes to… Read More
Connectivity features are increasingly included as standard on new vehicles, with cellular modems in particular becoming a popular feature included even in base level trim. Now, connectivity is so important to Ford, that the automaker is actually offering an easy retrofit option to add connected features to Ford and Lincoln vehicles from model years between 2010 and 2016, with SmartLink, a… Read More
AppDynamics CEO David Wadhwani and Cisco VP of IoT Rowan Trollope talk to us about the $3.7 billion acquisition, Alpahbet biotech moonshot lands $800 million in funding and a Snapchat Spectacles case melts while charging. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark has donated half a million dollars towards Wikipedia’s “Community health initiative,” aimed at reducing harassment and vandalism on the site and improve the tools moderators use every day to keep the peace. Read More
The commercial spaceflight industry is doing a great job creating new rockets, launch vehicles and all that good stuff, but spacesuits have seen few alterations. Until now. Boeing has publicly debuted what astronauts on its Starliner craft will be wearing, and it looks like a big improvement. Read More
