And the post-Alphabet Google rebranding continues. Google Capital — the company’s venture arm that focuses on growth-stage companies (read: those that have proven their idea and are now growing) as opposed to earlier-stage startups — is now “CapitalG.” All this, it’s worth noting, is a separate thing from GV, Alphabet’s investment arm that focuses on… Read More
TrendKite announced today that it has raised $16.3 million in Series D funding. The company says it helps businesses understand the impact of their news coverage and public relations strategy — like which articles are driving the most awareness of their brand, the total audience that’s being reached by the coverage and the sentiment of that coverage. TrendKite also shows you… Read More
Periscope Data, the company that lets data scientists quickly build customized, highly detailed visualizations of their data, has signed the term sheet on a ~$25 million funding round, according to sources close to the matter.
Sources told TechCrunch that the pre-funding valuation was at $100 million, and the round was led by existing Periscope Data investor DFJ. DFJ also led Periscope… Read More
Sure, for many of us next Wednesday can’t get here soon enough to finally put an end to this multi-year election cycle, but before that day arrives, it’s time for some civic duty. Uber and Lyft, for their part, are taking steps to remove a little bit of pain from locating and getting to the proper polling place. Uber’s teamed up with Google to offer up an in-app “Find… Read More
We are faced with a huge gender imbalance in technology that is only getting worse. Today, just 24 percent of the U.S. computing workforce is female. New research from Accenture and Girls Who Code estimates that if we stay on our current course, the number of women in computing will fall to 22 percent of the workforce by 2025. The connection is undeniable and decisive action is needed. Read More
Apple is addressing the sudden and wide inexplicable fear of dongles driven by the MacBook Pro’s USB-C only approach with a store-wide discount on adapters. The price cut applies to a bunch of dongles, accessories and peripheral devices that allow users to attach legacy devices to the new laptops, which ship with between 2 and 4 Thunderbolt 3 capable USB-C ports, and nothing else.
The… Read More
Facebook’s ad ambitions are expanding to encompass Internet-connected TVs — it will be conducting a test of its ad network on Apple TV and Roku next week. Other online ad companies (including TechCrunch-owner AOL) have explored TV advertising already. In Facebook’s case, the company will use Facebook data to target ads for A+E and Tubi TV — basically, what the… Read More
The Powerbeats3 don’t look all that different from their predecessors. There are a few tweaks here and there, mostly aimed at getting them to fit better. The primary distinction is tucked away inside, a happy addition to the Bluetooth earbuds that arrives as a result of the headphone company’s acquisition by Apple. While the brand wasn’t exactly front and center at the… Read More
I spend most of my days chatting with virtual/augmented reality companies, so the world of Black Mirror always seems a bit more imminent than it perhaps is. That being said, the future felt frighteningly close after my brief demo with Doppler Labs’ Here One smart earbuds. At face value, the Here Ones are just another pair of expensive wireless earbuds that have been created because… Read More
Visitors to the Westfield World Trade Center (the recently opened mall below the World Trade Center) will be able to get a hands-on virtual reality experience this month — an experience curated by Tribeca Enterprises, the organization behind the Tribeca Film Festival. Tribeca has held a number of VR events before, but programmer Loren Hammonds noted that those events are part of the… Read More
Turkey has once again blocked access to social media in an apparent effort to keep a lid on protests; many in the capital and elsewhere are demonstrating following the arrest of a number of opposition leaders. Here are some ways to get around the block. Read More
In just five days, nine states will vote on marijuana legalization measures, so it’s perhaps not a surprise that the five-year-old, Seattle-based marijuana private equity investor Privateer Holdings just raised $40 million in convertible debt from undisclosed investors. Cowen and Co. is predicting that within 10 years, legal pot sales will hit $50 billion in the U.S., up from $6… Read More
There’s a revolution brewing in eyewear technology. Snapchat recently announced their brand new wearable called Spectacles. It’s about what you would expect from Snapchat glasses, working video and social media into a slick, stylish product that’s well-positioned for young people — but these Spectacles are just the beginning of an oncoming wave of smart eyewear technology. Read More
Don’t say we don’t ever give you anything, European startup fans! While early-bird ticket sales were originally scheduled to end today, we’ve decided to give you an extra month to save £250 on tickets to Disrupt London 2016. You now have until Sunday, December 4 to get your Disrupt London tickets for just £950, a full £250 off the final retail price of £1,200. Your… Read More
Facebook is making it easier for users to find voting guides, registration info, news video, and other Election Day planning tools with the addition of a new “Election 2016” shortcut in the Favorites section, which directs you to Facebook’s elections hub. The shortcut, which is rolling out on both web and mobile, cannot be removed from your Favorites – it’s… Read More
Periscope is following Snapchat and Facebook’s lead by creating its own animated augmented reality selfie masks. The first ones can make you look like Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, and will be available for the next week for the election. If you broadcast in selfie mode with the iOS app’s latest version, you’ll see them docked at the bottom of the screen. Tapping them… Read More
Broadband at home, motion sensors and high definition video cameras led to a renaissance in home security systems over the past decade. But big problems remain in residential security, says Alex Pachikov, CEO and cofounder of Sunflower Labs with CTO Chris Eheim. Stationary cameras don’t detect would-be intruders until they are close or actively trying to enter the home, he said.… Read More
Next Thursday is PS4 Pro day. Announced two months ago at an event in New York, the souped up version of Sony’s console has been designed with 4K and high dynamic range gaming in mind, featuring amped up specs, including an eight-core x86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU, a GPU offering double the power of the earlier PS7 and a 1TB hard drive. Until now, however, Sony hasn’t offered up a list… Read More
Wish, a San Francisco-based company whose e-commerce mobile app that’s taken off in the U.S. and Europe by making it easy to buy everything from slippers to jackets to cosmetic brushes for rock-bottom prices, is raising $500 million in new funding at a valuation higher than its previous valuation of $3.5 billion but lower than $5 billion, reports Recode.
CB Insights had turned up a… Read More
The NFL and Google announced this week they’re teaming up on an exclusive virtual reality series that will give viewers a behind-the-scenes looking into NFL life – from “players, to coaches, to executives, to cheerleaders, to the fans themselves,” the companies said. The nine-part series will focus on how everyone prepares for game day, and will begin airing on YouTube… Read More
