Singer Björk has commissioned a set of wild 3D-printed masks for her upcoming shows. These masks, made in conjunction with MIT’s Mediated Matter lab and Stratasys, are called Rottlace and have a strange, hairy quality thanks to advances in 3D printing filament and new printing techniques. Professor Neri Oxman lead the team that made the masks. “I am so incredibly blown away by… Read More
Startup Battlefield hopefuls, it’s time to stop procrastinating and apply for the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt SF. We’re looking for promising startups from the U.S. and abroad to compete on the biggest stage in tech. Look, we get it, you’re super busy. Maybe you’ve been working extra hard to make some key advances in your company or find the perfect hire, or maybe… Read More
Back in May we reported that Simply Hired, a job portal with about 30 million users, was shutting down its existing operations as part of an acquisition, and today we finally have the details about what is happening next: its assets have been acquired by Recruit Holdings, the massive group based out of Japan that owns Indeed.com and many other recruitment and job listings portals. Recruit… Read More
Something big happened in France over the last five years. Perhaps it was the economic crisis that added some much-needed shock-therapy. Perhaps it was an increasing friendliness toward tech entrepreneurship by the government. Indeed, yesterday the government passed a seismic new bill — the so-called “Digital Republic” bill — allowing far greater access to public data,… Read More
It’s July which means TechCrunch’s Berlin Meet Up + Pitch Off is just two weeks away. But don’t worry, there’s still time to bag a ticket to the event — just follow this link. Tickets cost €10. And yes there will be beer. We have now assembled our panel of judges who will be casting their expert eyes over the ten(ish) startups that will be taking to the stage… Read More
Around $6 million in Facebook’s Brazilian bank account has been frozen on court order in another dispute about encrypted data involving local police authorities and Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp, according to the local Globo G1 news service. Read More
“What do I type?” is the big question making chatbots hard to use. So today Facebook Messenger is giving chatbot developers new “Quick Reply” buttons and persistent menu options to make their bots easier to navigate. Messenger bots can also now send videos, audio, GIFs, and files so they can encompass wider range of use cases. People can now rate bots with one to five… Read More
TechCrunch has confirmed reports that auto startup Zoox is raising about $200 million at a $1 billion valuation. We’ve also learned that investors Lux Capital and DFJ are involved in the round. The Palo Alto-based startup founded by Tim Kentley-Klay and Jesse Levinson, has been deliberately quiet about what they are working on presumably for competitive reasons, but the Zoox team has… Read More
Two of the most important technological advances, which helped fueled much of the country’s record economic growth in the post-WWII era, were ubiquitous computing devices and modern communications technologies. Most of the companies covered on TechCrunch certainly would not exist if not for the development and commercialization of microprocessors and the Internet. Read More
Most tennis fans would salivate over the chance to witness Serena Williams attempt to win Wimbledon and tie Steffi Graf’s 22 Grand Slams, pulling within two of Margaret Court’s 24 for the most major singles titles in women’s tennis history.
But for those unable to make the trip to London to witness the prestigious tournament, which is currently in full swing, IBM is doing… Read More
Zenefits is executing a change in its current ownership structure that will increase the overall ownership of the company for late-stage investors; it’s a move that revalues the company’s Series C round at $2 billion and looks to placate investor concerns over the company’s regulatory investigations. As part of accepting the new ownership changes, the investors… Read More
If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em. Apple is in discussions with Tidal about acquiring its music streaming app, which offers exclusives and early releases from big artists like Beyonce and Kanye West. The Wall Street Journal reports that the talks are still early and might not end in a deal, but Apple wants those exclusives to bolster its Apple Music streaming app that’s… Read More
It’s not everyday that a 6 ft. 7 in. NFL star says he is going to spend his offseason designing and launching a new interactive children’s app. So to learn more, we sat down with Martellus Bennett, tight end for the New England Patriots and founder of The Imagination Agency, a multimedia production company designed to bring Martellus’ ideas to life. The… Read More
Trulia, the online real estate search engine now owned by Zillow, launched an interesting new feature today that allows you to quickly find rental homes and apartments that have good public transport access. Rent Near Transit, as the new feature is called, is essentially an additional search filter that removes all houses that are more than a 15-minute walk away from a major transit station.… Read More
Facebook Paper could have given publishers the reach they lost yesterday in the News Feed, but no one wanted the standalone news reading app. Facebook has pulled the Paper app from the app store and will discontinue support for existing downloads of it on July 29th, according to a message show to all user. Despite it’s eye-catching, progressive design, the experience proved unnecessary… Read More
Twenty years ago only one out of 10 people in Mexico had a telephone of any kind. Today, more than 100 million people have cell phones and, more amazingly, more than 70 percent of those are smartphones. To keep up the torrid growth, scrappy competitors are offering smartphones for every budget and plans that let users choose right from their handsets which services they want and how much they… Read More
Tesla announced today that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into a recent fatal crash of a Model S with the company’s Autopilot feature activated. The accident took place on May 7th in a small West Florida town called Williston. The Florida Highway Patrol is also conducting its own investigation of the accident, according to a public… Read More
After nearly 30 years of dutiful serve to New York City’s Apple community, Manhattan-based retailer Tekserve will be closing its doors for the last time later this summer. It’s yet another sign of the times for a computer market that has shifted dramatically since Apple took computer selling into its own slick and well-lit hands back in 2001. “This is a cultural… Read More
On Tuesday, June 28, Volkswagen finally announced an agreement with US federal regulators (including the FTC), private plaintiffs in the United States, and 44 states to settle its TDI diesel case to the tune of about $15 billion. In case you need a refresher, in fall of 2015, researchers discovered that VW had engineered the software governing its TDI diesel engines to behave differently… Read More
Figuratively, of course. The companies are at it again, and this time it’s not only bothersome to the businesses themselves, but to the end consumer. Going to the next level in an ongoing spat over Apple’s subscription rules, it would appear that Apple has rejected Spotify’s latest update to its app in late May, citing business model issues. Shortly before that, Spotify… Read More
