It’s looking pretty grim out there in social media land. A lot of what once was conversation has devolved into warfare. The issues of our time — Trump, Brexit, identity politics, housing and homelessness, how to pronounce “GIF” — seem to divide us ever more starkly, and so we huddle within our filter bubbles, and/or lash out at those outside. It’s hard to… Read More
A majority of Mozilla users were served encrypted pageloads for the first time yesterday, meaning their web browsing data was secured from snoopers and hackers while in transit. Read More
The IPO market is poised to make an almost complete 180° turnaround after a bleak Q1 and a very quiet summer. In contrast, venture capital investments, which had recalibrated alongside the IPO market in the second half of last year, have remained sedate, with a clear flight to quality; fewer rounds, for higher quality companies, with larger check sizes. Read More
Salesforce walks away from a Twitter acquisition, SoftBank and Saudi Arabia public investment fund have formed a $100 billion fund, Zuckerberg is in search of someone to voice his AI, changes at Spotify are hinting of an upcoming IPO and Glaxy Note 7s are now banned from all flights by the Department of Transportation. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
It’s a funny thing: Smartwatches are supposed to be the more accessible alternative to your smartphone, but you can operate a phone with one hand, while the watch takes two. Luckily, Dartmouth researchers are on the case, and have engineered a way to use your wrist as a sort of joystick, allowing you to use your smartwatch one-handed. Read More
Indonesia presents unique challenges in the form of renewable energies, but currently lacks significant infrastructure capable of supporting such expansion, with its mobile-first economy only being able to provide so much support for structured growth. However, if capitalized correctly, Indonesia has the potential to harness clean technology into a vehicle for prosperity. Read More
Palantir Technologies has come out and said that it did not discriminate against Asian people, Fortune reports. This comes after the U.S. Department of Labor sued the company for alleged racial discrimination against Asian people in its hiring and selection process. According to the DOL’s suit, Palantir allegedly used a hiring process that discriminated against Asian applicants for… Read More
We’re back. Hardware Battlefield is TechCrunch’s premier hardware startup event and is returning to the world’s largest consumer electronic show. Applications are now open until November 3 at 9pm PT. Submit your application here to compete for free demo space at the Consumer Electronics Show, a $50,000 prize and the Metal Man trophy.
Hardware Battlefield is part of… Read More
It’s important for tech companies to have at least one voice at the senior leadership table that advocates for issues around equality, diversity and inclusion. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case for many companies in the tech industry. Salesforce, a company that said a year ago that a major focus for it was “the women’s issue,” recently became an… Read More
Our next president will take office during a period of seismic change across the education landscape. Policymakers, students and employers increasingly question the cost — and return — on a college degree, as a profusion of new pathways from education-to-employment emerge. Read More
There’s going to come a time when not every mention of Samsung will elicit some snarky comment about exploding smartphones. Now is not that time. And the Galaxy TabPro S Gold Edition is certainly not the product to serve as catalyst. In fact, it will probably be a little while before the company has an offering compelling enough to shift the public consciousness back to the next… Read More
In the latest instalment of Samsung’s ongoing Note 7 saga, the U.S. Department of Transportation has issued an official, blanket ban against bringing the Galaxy Note 7 on airplanes. The ban applies to all Note 7 devices, and covers both carry-on and checked baggage, as well as prohibiting anyone from carrying the phone onto a plane on their person. The ban will go into effect… Read More
Reflective displays like those found on e-readers are great for black-and-white text, but color has yet to make a compelling play on them. That may change with the serendipitous discovery of a full-color e-paper material that’s also flexible and power-efficient. Read More
Under pressure from shoppers complaining about losing the ability to receive tips last month as the company looked to smooth out the earnings curve, Instacart said it is re-introducing customer tipping. “After announcing this change, we heard a lot of feedback from our shopper community,” the company said in a blog post. “While our shoppers liked most of the changes, they did… Read More
Things were pretty bleak for tech companies this week as the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was officially recalled and Yahoo’s securities woes reportedly drove Verizon to request a $1 billion discount on its pending acquisition. Here are the top stories from around the tech universe to get you up to speed. Read More
Salesforce wants to make things super clear for everyone — no, the company won’t buy Twitter. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff gave an interview to the FT and said that the company ruled out the acquisition. “In this case we’ve walked away. It wasn’t the right fit for us,” Benioff told the FT. If you were looking for an official confirmation, it can’t get… Read More
The final episode of this six-part series explores the future implications of Bitcoin and blockchain technology. The episode describes the divide between Wall Street’s preferred closed use of the blockchain and Silicon Valley’s vision of an open system. Will the technology ever be integrated into our world’s mainstream economy? Whose vision will prevail, Wall Street or… Read More
Earlier this year, it was reported that Naspers, the media and internet holding company, was planning to sell off Allegro, its online auction business based in Poland, and today the deal finally came to pass. A consortium of private equity firms that includes Cinven, Permira and Mid Europa have bought the firm for $3.253 billion. The deal was made after earlier reports pegged eBay, Alibaba… Read More
PayPal, the giant digital payments company that was spun off from eBay last year, has had an up-and-down relationship with the business of crowdfunding over the years, but there are some indications that this could change. We’ve been hearing that PayPal was interested in buying GoFundMe — the crowdfunding site that lets people raise money for both serious causes and lighter… Read More
Google yesterday announced it will introduce a fact check tag on Google News in order to display articles that contain factual information next to trending news items. Now it’s time for Facebook to take fact-checking more seriously, too. Facebook has stepped into the role of being today’s newspaper: that is, it’s a single destination where a large selection of news… Read More
