Apple is holding a press conference today at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, and the company is expected to unveil the new iPhone as well as the Apple Watch 2. At 10 AM PT (1 PM in New York, 6 PM in London, 7 PM in Paris), you’ll be able to watch the event on all Apple devices. Apple is likely to talk about iOS 10 and macOS Sierra, and maybe we’ll hear more about the huge… Read More
A Santa Monica-based startup called AirMap today launched a feature that gives drone operators real time traffic alerts whenever manned aircraft such as helicopters, crop dusters or low-flying passenger planes, are about to enter into their air space. The company’s systems, generally, let drone makers and developers of drone apps give users maps and guidance as to where they’re… Read More
HashiCorp, which offers a number of tools that help developers write and deploy their applications (including the popular open-source Vagrant tool for setting up development environments), today announced that it has raised a $24 million Series B round. This new round, which brings the company’s total funding to $34 million, was led by GGV Capital. Mayfield, True Ventures and new… Read More
The typical investment in a U.S. seed-stage company rose in the first half of 2016, with many startups and their backers looking to shore up a longer runway before seeking Series A funding, according to CrunchBase data. Overall, the average seed round size in the first half of this year was $1.14 million, up from $947,000 in the same period last year. Median dollars for a seed raise in the… Read More
While the Apple press conference is supposed to start in 30 minutes, it looks like it’s amateur hour or epic fail time at Amazon as the company just released a special page listing all iPhone 7 accessories, as Gizmodo first noticed. As you can see, it looks exactly like what we saw in previous leaks, with a single-camera model and a double-lens camera system for the iPhone 7 Plus.… Read More
Parrot, the French company that is probably best known for its AR.Drone and Bebop drones, today announced the Parrot S.L.A.M.dunk, a new development kit for helping drones and robots navigate indoors, avoid obstacles and map its surroundings. The S.L.A.M.dunk (I know I’ll never tire of typing that out), which the company announced at the annual Interdrone conference in Las Vegas today,… Read More
A new application, Callblock, coming to the iTunes App Store, claims to block phone calls from over 2 million telemarketers by type, including things like robocallers, debt collectors, political campaigners, scammers, and more. To identify which calls should be blocked, the app uses a combination of public and private records, ongoing research, and user reports, the company explains. As new… Read More
Choosing this year’s Disrupt SF Startup Battlefield winners will be a tough job. There is an exceptionally strong and unique group of young companies competing in Startup Battlefield next week with 23 companies showcasing their innovative solutions to solving important and critical issues.
Thankfully, we have an experienced team of entrepreneurs and investors to help judge the Startup… Read More
If you’ve walked around San Francisco, you’ve probably seen them. An eco-friendly and comfortable wool shoe, Allbirds has already developed a cult following in the tech world. Venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and several people on TechCrunch staff wear them. I’ve never worn a pair but TC’s Megan Rose Dickey, Josh Constine and Andrew Sweeney had good things to say… Read More
Today, Starbucks is becoming a media company. The company this morning debuted its first-ever original content series called “Upstanders” which aims to inspire Americans with stories of compassion, citizenship and civility at a time when our nation could use a reminder of our core values. The series features podcasts, written word, and video, and will be distributed via the… Read More
China is looking at electric vehicles as a key way to lower emissions and improve the country’s general environmental sustainability, and Volkswagen is teaming up with China state-owned car maker Anhui Jianghuai (JAC) to help fill that need.
The two car companies signed a memorandum of understanding today, effectively paving the way for them to create a new joint venture to develop… Read More
Tesla may have a range of vehicle showrooms across North America, but those can’t cover everyone, and it’s even more difficult for the average potential Tesla buyer to get to the company’s primary design studio in Hawthorne, so the automaker’s new ‘Tesla Explores‘ initiative is aiming to bring a taste of the design studio to you. The program is a… Read More
Consumers in the U.S. (and UK) today are getting another opportunity to lighten their wallets a little more. In the U.S., Chase Visa credit and debit cardholders can now load up and use their accounts via Android Pay. And in the UK, Android Pay now integrates payment cards from Santander and TSB. The news comes ahead of Android Pay finally making its way to the mobile web, which will come… Read More
The online financing giant Klarna is continuing its rollout in the U.S. with a host of new partnerships and a new product so online shoppers in the U.S. and Europe can actually take out loans from the company. It’s the next step for the Stockholm-based business as it continues on the road toward becoming a global financial player. Klarna already provides “try before you… Read More
A study (conveniently co-written by Facebook) has found that “personal interactions on Facebook can have a major impact on a person’s feelings of well-being and satisfaction with life just as much as getting married or having a baby.” That’s right: it seems that clicking “Like” on a picture of someone’s soup is akin to the eternal bond of love that… Read More
If you work in any kind of storage facility or warehouse, there’s a better chance every day that you’re going to be working alongside robots. Magazino’s TORU is a good example of the latest generation: navigating by sight, safe around humans, and simple to put to work. Read More
Land Rover’s new Discovery, which it teased yesterday via our first ever look at the SUV’s front end, also has a “world-first” smart seat feature, which lets owners reconfigure their vehicle seating from anywhere with a data connection with an app on their smartphone. Naturally, Land Rover decided to show us how this works by throwing Bear Grylls out of a plane with… Read More
Tesla continues to try to up-end the dealership system in the U.S., which generally requires that franchise-owned dealers sell cars, vs. automakers selling directly via their own wholly owned dealerships. The latest beat in he ongoing battle comes in Missouri, where Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green decided in favor of the Missouri Automobile Dealers Association (via Autoblog)… Read More
Remember Path? Even though targeting early tech adopters was potentially the wrong ‘path’ for that company, the idea of a close-friends-only social network isn’t a bad one at all. Enter Camarilla. Camarilla is a social network that lets you share photos with only 15 people at a time. Moreover, those posts are not public, but are rather sent as a direct message to each… Read More
Doorkeys is a new startup in India that wants to bring the process of buying a home online. Founded by real estate veteran Subhash Bedi, chairman and MD of Rising Straits Capital, an entrepreneur Arjun Basu, who co-founded services market place Mydala.com, the company is backed by an initial $2 million in capital and it went live on September 1. Read More
