Good morning, friends! Disrupt has landed and London and the fun begins right NOW. Today we’ll be joined by some of the biggest names in tech, including DeepMind’s Mustafa Suleyman, Volkswagen’s Ole Harms, and Boston Dynamics’ Marc Raibert. Plus, the Startup Battlefield begins today, with 14 European startups battling for a cash prize, the Disrupt Cup, and a lifetime… Read More
TechCrunch is pleased to announce the startups selected to participate in the Disrupt London 2016 Startup Battlefield. Over the next two days, these companies will compete on tech’s biggest stage for $50,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup. The Battlefield represents the crème de la crème; the startups onstage represent just over 2 percent of those that applied. Startup Battlefield serves… Read More
Covering a red carpet isn’t usually a skill in the repertoire of tech journalists, but it’s also not every day that you get to see Vin Diesel and Kevin Durant on the same stage as Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan and Sergey Brin. If the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is nerd prom, the Breakthrough Prize Ceremony is nerds taking over Ibiza. During the event, $24… Read More
This presidential election pitted two candidates who were the #1 and #2 most disliked candidates, EVER, for president.
Why is this happening in our golden age of technology, when information is widespread and organizing easier than ever? Read More
Cogito, ergo sum. We’ve all heard that famous assertion, foundation for a modern philosophy of self, consciousness, and individualism. But Descartes had it easy: for him, thought was self-evident — he didn’t have to define it. What is thought? What is intelligence? And can a machine be said to possess either? The field of artificial intelligence, it turns out, is as much… Read More
Today at the 5th annual Breakthrough Prize, some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names will award more than $25 million to scientific research in departments across the globe. The event splices together research scientists far more accustomed to red tape than red carpets with tech’s deepest-pocketed and most idealistic upper echelons. The result is a flashy, hopeful hybrid event… Read More
“We’ve come a long long way together, through the hard times and the good. I have to celebrate you baby, I have to praise you like I should using a 360-degree feedback tool sold as as SaaS by founders who went through Y-Combinator in S14 and have offices in New York and Amsterdam,” Fatboy Slim once wrote and nowhere are these words truer than when used to describe Impraise.… Read More
Not all debt is bad debt. It’s conventional wisdom in the world of finance that the strategic use of debt builds better companies. The same is true for software. Companies that are strategic in their use of debt — in this case, technical debt — can develop products quicker, push them out faster and win in the market. The key word here is strategic. Read More
Hard to believe that Disrupt London starts tomorrow! Check out this guide for helpful event info. Logistics We want you to have a successful experience at Disrupt. Check out these tips to have a great day. Official Disrupt Mobile App: Make sure to download the latest Disrupt app to connect and message with other attendees at Disrupt, check out exhibitors and peruse the agenda.… Read More
The GoPro Karma Grip is now available. The camera maker announced today that the handheld stabilizer is for sale in select stores and GoPro.com for $299. This is the same handheld grip that shipped with the Karma drone — at least before the drone was recalled for battery issues. The Karma Grip competes directly with the DJI Osmo though both offer distinct advantages as I and.… Read More
Money makes the world go round, or so they say. Payments, investments, insurance and billions of transactions are the beating heart of a fractal economy, which echoes the messy complexity of natural systems, such as the growth of living organisms and the bouncing of atoms. Read More
Capital founding partner Freada Kapor Klein isn’t happy. Klein, one of technology’s leading social activists and impact investors, has been “deeply troubled” by the election of Donald Trump. She is particularly disgusted by what she calls the “unleashing” of “horrific behavior” since the election, such as what she fears might even be the now… Read More
Giving kids a new way to get the things they want, with greater parental oversight, VeeCee is a hack created by a four-person team from London’s Barking Dagenham suburbs. The group’s pitch was handled by 12-year-old, Ebenezer Odubanjo — the youngest presenter at this year’s Disrupt London hackathon. A programmer since 9, Odubanjo may be a kid, but he’s no… Read More
Great news, Potter fans: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is no longer the only place in the world where you can find a working Marauder’s Map, the magical piece of parchment that let Harry Potter and others track the movements of people as they went around the Hogwarts campus and its many public and secret passageways. This weekend at the TechCrunch Disrupt… Read More
It’s easy to be critical of the tech industry, and even easier to be critical of capitalism itself. Let us all continue to do so; criticism is valuable. But let’s remember that we do so because they are so important. Capitalism is still what lifts the world’s least fortunate out of poverty, and technology increasingly feels like the last, best hope of a world otherwise dead… Read More
Wandered.space is a service for those moments when you want to explore the area around you, but don’t know where to go. It was created this weekend at TechCrunch’s Disrupt London hackathon by a team of three coworkers from Seattle-based Azuqua. One of them, Skyler Hartle, told me that they were inspired by their visit to London and decided to create something that would help… Read More
Some of them were participating in our event for the first time, while others were regular hackers. Their challenge was to come up with a neat, funny and smart hack in just 24 hours.
We could all feel the excitement in the air when the 63 teams took the stage to present a short one-minute demo to impress fellow hackers and our judges. But only one team could take home the grand prize and £4,000. Read More
Checking in at a co-working space or business to meet with somebody can often be a hassle that involves some phone tag and back and forth. Welcometo.site, one of the many projects that came out of our Disrupt hackathon in London today, wants to make this easier. It combines Cisco Spark’s messaging and video service with maps from ArcGIS and PubNub’s real-time APIs into a… Read More
Andrew Greenstein, an app developer from San Francisco, started journaling a few months ago. He tries to write for five minutes every day, but it’s challenging to set aside the time. Still, he’s read that journaling reduces stress and can help with goal-setting, so he’s trying to make it a habit. At the Disrupt London Hackathon, Greenstein and his team built The Emotion… Read More
Lego! Lego! Lego! Who doesn’t like Lego? One of the most fascinating entries to the hackthon at TechCrunch Disrupt London used the beloved little bricks to help take young eyes away from screens and electronics devices. Read More
