Ride hailing services aimed at women drivers and passengers are a small but growing niche. See Jane Go is officially up and running today; drivers and passengers can download the app on iOS or Android to get started. SafeHer will be launching in Boston this fall with plans to expand to four cities soon after. In reporting on See Jane Go and SafeHer (the ride hailing service known briefly… Read More
Facebook Messenger has built an unlaunched feature called Rooms that lets groups publicly chat about different subjects and events. Buried in Messenger’s iOS app’s source code are multiple references to the feature, with some explanation of how it works. The code shows: “Introducing rooms”, “Rooms are for public conversations about topics and interests. Each room… Read More
Foursquare has today unveiled Foursquare 10, a redesigned version of the app that puts search front and center. J Crowley, head of product at Foursquare, told TechCrunch that most people get on Foursquare with a clear intent, making the original featured content on the homepage mostly irrelevant. “Previous versions of the products were based on the theory that people wanted a laid back… Read More
Confirming earlier reports that YouTube was planning to introduce more social networking features to its service, the company announced this morning the launch of YouTube Community, which allows video creators to better engage viewers using text, GIFs, images and more. The goal with the new features is to help keep creators from departing to competing platforms by offering more tools… Read More
Salesforce has taken a leading role on LGBT issues and now it is taking that one step further. The company next week will be announcing its first chief equality officer, who will report directly to CEO Marc Benioff. Benioff speaking on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco with editor-in-chief Matthew Panzarino talked about his commitment to helping improve the world. While he has… Read More
The Apple TV is receiving an update today — tvOS 10. Apple announced the update at WWDC and it’s now available to download. Head over to the Settings app on your Apple TV to download the update. While it was the smallest of the updates announced at WWDC, it got even more minor over the summer as single sign-on isn’t available yet — Apple will ship this feature later… Read More
Confide, the confidential messaging app that launched back in 2013, has today announced an integration with iMessage in iOS 10. As part of iOS 10’s new iMessage features, which incorporates apps right within the iMessage application, Confide users will be able to send self-destructing messages direct from their texts. Confide for iMessage will support text and pictures, using… Read More
Y Combinator, which has been expanding rapidly in recent years, is making broad, organizational changes– for the second time this year.
Most dramatically, Y Combinator will be winding down its YC Fellowships and launching a MOOC, or massively online open course, in 2017.
Additionally, the venture fund that started as an accelerator in 2005, has appointed Michael Seibel as CEO of its Y… Read More
After months and months of beta, iOS 10 is finally here — and it’s a huge update. In particular, Apple has tucked away many little features that you won’t see right away. If you want to impress all your friends with your mad iOS skills, here is a list of some of these features. I also wrote a short and sweet review of iOS 10 if you want to learn more about all the changes… Read More
I’ve installed iOS 10 on my main iPhone back in June and I’ve been using iOS 10 all summer. It’s a free update, it’s available now, and it features a ton of new emojis. Every time I hear “new emojis,” I picture millions of people rushing to the Settings app to update iOS to the latest version. It’s probably Apple’s best trick to get people to… Read More
Apple has just released iOS 10, the final version. If you want to get the latest iOS features and put a fresh coat of paint on your device, it’s time to update your iPhone or iPad. The update is currently rolling out and is available both over-the-air in the Settings app, and by plugging your device into iTunes for a wired update. If you don’t see the update right away,… Read More
Following Microsoft’s acquisition and today’s shutdown of the beloved mobile calendaring application Sunrise, the company announced this morning an upgraded Outlook application which now features Bing map integrations, event icons, plus something it’s calling “Interesting Calendars,” and other new features – many of which were inspired by Sunrise, and… Read More
Orion Labs alternately refers to the Onyx as a “smart walkie-talkie” and a “real-life Star Trek communicator.” Really, the device is a wearable push-to-talk device with a microphone and speaker built in that saves users the trouble of moving their phone up to their head or jamming a pair of headphones in their ears. The walkie-talkie bit is a reference to the fact… Read More
Sebastian Thrun’s online education startup Udacity recently created a self-driving car engineering nanodegree, and on stage at Disrupt today Thrun revealed that the company intends to build its own self-driving car as part of the program, and that it also intends to open source the technology that results, so that “anyone” can try to build their own self-driving vehicle… Read More
One of the startups that caught my eye at TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Alley was MobileIrisID, a company that combines the convenience of the mobile phone with the power of the cloud. Aiming to be a drop-in service for high-value transaction authentication, the service puts hyper-secure identification at the fingertips of developers. The company uses the front-facing camera to capture… Read More
Sebastian Thrun is taking a drive down memory lane with the latest initiative from his online learning juggernaut, Udacity. The company is partnering with Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America, Didi, Otto, and Nvidia on a nanodegree program for self-driving cars, Thrun announced onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF. Working with Udacity, the partners will set up a curriculum… Read More
Evernote — the popular note taking and productivity startup with 200 million users — has built its reputation around an app that lets you record and track all your life’s details hold them there, for life. Today, the company is shifting gears on the question of how it will keep hold of and track that information: Evernote is migrating all of its data to Google’s… Read More
Microsoft’s CTO for Azure (and occasional novelist) Mark Russinovich is extremely bullish about microservices. In his view, the vast majority of apps — including enterprise apps — will soon be built using microservices. Microsoft, with its variety of cloud services and developer tools, obviously wants a piece of that market. With Service Fabric, the company offers a service… Read More
Yesterday went off without a hitch, but today’s lineup will blow your mind: Reid Hoffman. Marc Benioff. Ash Carter. Steph Curry. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Plus, we have more Battlefield companies coming at you. Just like yesterday, the live stream is going to be available pretty much anywhere you are. Here are the deets: TechCrunch.com – The entire show will… Read More
Watches like the Omega Ploprof and, now, the bulbous-looking Robusto, are designed for rough and ready wear. The watch, created by a Dutch company called Time22 features a titanium case and automatic movement and should be able to withstand pressure, smacks, and damage. The watch is made of Grade 5 titanium and is water-resistant to 200 meters. It runs an ETA or quartz movement and starts at… Read More
