Google’s celebrating another milestone in its self-driving car project – a 2 million milestone, in fact. The search giant’s autonomous test cars have now racked up that many miles in public road testing, which it notes adds up to about 300 years of human driving based on the average person’s yearly total.
What’s interesting about the volume of miles Google has… Read More
Today’s Blue Origin flight was a unique one. Upon testing their rocket’s in-flight escape system (a means of bringing passengers to safety if something were to happen during launch), Jeff Bezos’ rocket company ended up with a safely recovered crew capsule and an unexpectedly-intact New Shepard rocket. The company had considerably downplayed the odds of successfully… Read More
Fenox Venture Capital has put plans for its India focused fund on hold after a recently-appointed general partner who was hired to lead that fund, Venktesh Shukla, hastily departed the firm. TechCrunch reached out to Shukla and Fenox partners for information about the abrupt change to its senior investing team. Shukla did not offer much detail, but in an email to TechCrunch said, “I… Read More
It’s a classic Twitter conversation: Someone complains about a bad experience with a company, then the business responds, promising to make things better. But is that actually an effective use of the company’s time? It is, according to a new study conducted by Twitter in collaboration with Applied Marketing Science. Specifically, Twitter says that when a customer tweets at a… Read More
I’m in Sao Paolo for a few days and I’d love to meet with some startups this Friday afternoon/evening, October 7. I have nothing in mind just yet – I need your help to find a spot and decide on a time – but I’d be happy to hear pitches and talk about what you all are working on down here.
I’m staying at the Hotel Tryp Nações Unidas but I’m open to… Read More
During pregnancy, soon to be first-time parents will often devour manuals like “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” to get clued into all the changes taking place in mom’s body along with details on the baby’s development. But after the baby arrives, it’s often fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants time with 3 AM Google searches and teary phone calls to mom,… Read More
Known as an “Airbnb for dogs,” Santa Monica-based DogVacay has spent almost five years building up a robust dog-sitting business. Betting that owners were looking for better solutions for boarding their pets, DogVacay created a platform that made it easier to find and book affordable care. From overnight stays to dog walking, DogVacay offers a range of services in regions… Read More
It’s been just over a year since Adobe launched its Adobe Stock photography service, with deep integration into the company’s Creative Cloud suite. Today, it expands the number of photos available with the EyeEm Collection, a hand-picked selection of the best images EyeEm’s customers have shared and offered for sale on the platform. Read More
Yahoo issued a statement this morning on Tuesday’s report that the company built a custom software tool to allow U.S. intelligence agencies to scan incoming email for all Yahoo users for certain selectors, calling the report “misleading” but not outright false.
“The article is misleading. We narrowly interpret every government request for user data to minimize disclosure. Read More
There are, of course, lots of smartlocks in the world. August, Ring, Kwikset. The list, as you’re likely well aware goes on and on. Designed by a pair of former Google Glass engineers, the forthcoming Gate aims to set itself apart from the ever-growing ranks of connected security devices by cramming as much functionality into the face as humanly possible. The little circular security… Read More
Skylanders, Amiibo, Disney Infinity – the toys-to-life category got big, fast, but most of the action in the space following Skylanders tended to be mostly derivative, without really pushing the category forward when it comes to the breadth of available technologies. Lightseekers, a new cross-platform action RPG game debuting on Kickstarter today that incorporates physical toys created… Read More
I’ve recently seen a few examples of services that ask customers to type in their online banking usernames and passwords so the service can access their bank accounts on their behalf. The applications are fairly broad and definitely useful — making payments, ID verification and analyzing data, for example. This is a security anti-pattern. This is bad news. Read More
At its hardware launch event in San Francisco yesterday, Alphabet showed the sweeping breadth of its ambition to own consumers’ personal data, as computing continues to accelerate away from static desktops and screens, coalescing into a cloud of connected devices with the potential to generate far more data — and data of a far more intimate nature — than ever before. Read More
It’s 6.4 inches, it’s got a crazy new depth-sensing camera system and it may actually arrive next month. Lenovo’s big Phab2 Pro was originally scheduled for retail release this summer, a date that eventually got pushed back to a fairly vague fall timeframe, casting some doubt on whether the first handset to leverage Google’s Tango system would ever see the light of… Read More
Payoneer, a global provider of payment processing technologies, has added another $180 million to its already sizable warchest as it looks to continue to grow its payment services. Already profitable and with a solid amount of cash on the balance sheet the new money will double the company’s product development and technical staff, according to the company’s chief executive… Read More
Hooks, the app that enables you to get a push notification for things that are important to you — such as news, new film releases, or just about anything — has updated its iOS app to make it social by adding live chat to each notification. Read More
Roku today is rolling out new tools that will make it simpler for anyone to bring their video content to its media player lineup, without having to write any code. With an update to the Roku Direct Publisher Platform, video creators can instead walk through a few steps, including providing a video feed, then have their new channel go live on Roku. Alongside this launch, the company is also… Read More
Shopify was early to bring its merchants the ability to converse directly with customers via Facebook Messenger, and now it’s launching the ability to actually sell directly within messages between stores and customers. The integration works by giving customers a “Shop Now” option when they start a conversation with any Facebook Business Page store using Shopify’s… Read More
Twitter once tried to buy Shots for $150 million to score its 3 million rabid teen users, a source tells TechCrunch. But the Justin Bieber-funded selfie app developer dreamed of a different destiny, where it would become the “Saturday Night Live” of the mobile generation. The Shots app grew to a peak of almost 8 million users, but ultimately it was too difficult to compete… Read More
The startup behind a fun, augmented reality tattoo app called InkHunter, covered by TC back in April, is launching its Android app out of beta today — after racking up some 2.5 million downloads on iOS. Read More
