CES is a horrible, god-awful experience that will shave years off your life. The casinos, the food, the people, the germs. Horrible. All of it. But we love it! And we’re sending a huge contingent to the show again this year and want to see your gadgets, toys and products. TechCrunch cares much more for the hardware startups than the big CE players. We want to see the future FitBits and… Read More
Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity officially closed Monday morning, bringing together Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company with the solar energy company founded by his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive. The deal was approved by Tesla and SolarCity shareholders last week, after first being proposed earlier this year. Tesla provided the following brief statement on the news:… Read More
Pokémon Go’s second big in-game event is timed for U.S. Thanksgiving, running, between November 23 and November 30, during which time players can get double the standard XP and Stardust for in-game actions. The double up is a little more limited than the first event, which offered up candy bonuses and higher encounter rates for specific Pokémon, but it’s still a nice bump for… Read More
Apple has been releasing new WiFi routers every now and then since 1999. While the AirPort Express and AirPort Extreme could use an update, don’t hold your breath for it. According to a new report from Bloomberg, the company has disbanded the team that was working on wireless routers. Engineers are now working on other projects. The AirPort product line probably doesn’t drive a lot… Read More
Tis the season for spec upgrades. It’s the next best thing to issuing a full-on product refresh in the lead up to the holidays. Unlike the recently issued OnePlus 3T, however, the new Axon 7 6+128 won’t be replacing its namesake, instead it will just slot in alongside the handset (and the not-mini Axon 7 Mini) at, naturally, a higher price point. Even still, $500 isn’t too… Read More
Uber has a new product feature going live across its app today, called ‘Compliments.’ The new systems will prompt riders to give a specific, additional piece of positive feedback in addition to the star rating they assign their driver, including things like “Excellent Service” or “Awesome Music.” The new Compliments system will send a notification to the… Read More
When I last took Anki’s Cozmo for a spin, I introduced him to my rabbit, Lucy. Both parties seemed fairly uninterested by the whole interaction. And while I’m bummed that rabbits are nowhere to be found on the plucky little robot’s list of software upgrades, and some pet owners are getting a little love. Anki’s got a handful of new features coming to the ‘bot… Read More
Alibaba continues to put its chips into the cloud after it announced the opening of four new data centers across the world. A new facility in the Middle East (Dubai) went online today, while further locations in Australia, Japan and Germany are scheduled to open soon. Read More
A timely, if a little surprising, piece of M&A this morning from Oracle: the enterprise services company announced that it has acquired Dyn, the popular DNS provider that was the subject of a massive distributed denial of service attack in October that crippled some of the world’s biggest and most popular websites. Oracle plans to add Dyn’s DNS solution to its bigger… Read More
After Donald Trump’s unexpected presidential victory earlier this month, the tech community has been trying to assess how the new administration will impact them. There are concerns that there will be fewer H-1B visas for engineers, making it harder to hire the world’s best talent. People also interpret Trump’s stance on the Apple-FBI controversy as an indication that… Read More
Google has invested a total of $4.5 million CAD ($3.4M US) in AI research in Montreal’s Institute for Learning Algorithms, with an academic fund covering three years that will help pay for seven faculty members across various Montreal academic institutions, including the University of Montreal and McGill. The investment is also continued backing for deep learning expert Yoshua… Read More
Snapchat has been dropping its Spectacles-selling Snapbot vending machines at various spots across the country, but Monday marks the first time it’s put them on the east coast – and the new location is smack dab in the middle of NYC at the southeast corner of Central Park. And the good news is this one will be operating through New Years’ Eve, marking the first time one… Read More
TechCrunch Disrupt in London is on December 5-6! One month to go! It will be the place to come talk about new technology, your startup, other startups, everyone’s startups! Grab tickets here. So many speakers have already been announced. But, yes, there are even more to come. Today we’re delighted to say Omar Tayeb, CTO and Co-Founder of Blippar, the a leading augmented reality… Read More
Facebook has followed Google’s lead by trumpeting plans to expand its presence in the UK — despite ongoing uncertainty over the impact of this summer’s Brexit vote for the country to leave the European Union. Read More
The Climate Corporation (owned by Monsanto) has acquired Estonia-based farm management startup VitalFields. Terms of the deal remain undisclosed, although we’re told the VitalFields team will be joining The Climate Corporation. Read More
With all of the bingeing and football watching on Thanksgiving, it can prove tough to remember to, you know, actually get up and move at some point. But that’s sort of half the battle with a wearable – an ever-present reminder that you can always push yourself a bit harder. Having spent a bit of time testing out the Nike version of the watch, I can certainly attest to the fact… Read More
Self-driving taxi startup Nutonomy is expanding its autonomous vehicle trials to the U.S. after agreeing to a partnership with City of Boston and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. Read More
Samsung has denied that devices in its Galaxy S7 range are affected by the same battery safety issue that forced it to kill off the Galaxy Note 7. Read More
Looks like tis the season for Apple replacement programs. Days after the U.S. tech giant addressed ‘touch disease’ on certain iPhone 6 Plus devices, so Apple has announced a battery replacement program for iPhone 6s phones that are affected by unexpected shutdowns. Read More
There’s a general malaise growing around IoT. After years of hype, more hype and even more hype, people are now starting to wonder: Where is this shiny, artificially intelligent, fully connected future of things we were promised? Read More
