I was made aware of Surrogate.tv’s work earlier this year when the site released a Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit tournament. Nintendo’s IRL take on its popular racing title was a great showcase for the technology — though, admittedly, there was enough lag in the remote operation to make control something of an issue. Of […]
After spending more than a decade disrupting the neighborhood stores in the U.S. and several other markets, Amazon and Walmart are employing an unusual strategy in India to face off this competitor: Friending them. Walmart and Amazon, both of which face restrictions from New Delhi on what all they could do in India, have partnered […]
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China’s top chipmaker, is under mounting pressure as reports of its CEO’s looming departure and a potential U.S. sanction concern investors. The U.S. Commerce Department is looking to add dozens of companies, mostly Chinese and including partially state-owned SMIC, to its trade blacklist, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal reported […]
Sony has pulled “Cyberpunk 2077,” one of the most anticipated games in recent years, from its PlayStation Store after a flood of complaints and ridicule over compatibility issues and bugs from customers. The gaming giant said it is offering full refunds to any customer who purchased CD Projekt’s title from the PlayStation Store — though […]
Tencent is further strengthening its ties with music giant Universal Music Group as it continues to dominate the Chinese music streaming market. A consortium led by Tencent and comprising Tencent Music Entertainment, the internet giant’s music spinoff, is set to buy an additional 10% equity stake in UMG from French media conglomerate Vivendi SA, TME […]
When an accident on a building site resulted in the death of their friend, the founders of Safesight were inspired to launch the platform to digitize safety programs for construction. The data from that gave birth to a new InsurTech startup this year, Foresight, which covers workers’ compensation. The startup has now released, for the […]
V7 Labs, the makers of a computer vision platform that helps AI teams “automate” and future-proof their training data workflows as advances in AI continue, has picked up $3 million in funding. Leading the seed round is Amadeus Capital Partners, with participation from Partech, Nathan Benaich’s Air Street Capital and Miele Venture. Founded in 2018 […]
Chinese tech giants have drawn international criticism after research showed they have technologies that enable the authorities to profile Muslim Uyghurs. The cloud computing unit of Alibaba, Alibaba Cloud, developed a facial recognition algorithm that can identify a person’s ethnicity or whether a person is “Uyghur”, according to research from surveillance industry publication IPVM. China […]
After a period of public feedback, Twitter adjusted some its plans for a new verification process, set to roll out next year. The company suspended public verification applications in 2017 and since appears to have rethought a few aspects of what information the platform should signal to its users, blue checks and beyond. One big […]
Autonomous vehicle company Aurora Innovation sent offers Thursday to more than 75% of employees at Uber Advanced Technologies Group, just a week after announcing plans to acquire the self-driving subsidiary, according to a source familiar with the post-merger integration plans. Uber ATG Toronto, which employs about 50 people where the subsidiary conducted its research and […]
Ned Desmond, a longtime publishing executive who spent more than half a dozen years at Time Inc. before becoming the chief operating officer of both TechCrunch and Engadget for more than eight years, has joined the investment firm SOSV as a senior operating partner. It’s seemingly a good fit for both sides. SOSV — which […]
Google has been all about the fun little augmented reality Easter Eggs lately, with a bevy of search terms triggering Halloween-themed AR experiences back in October. Ghosts! Jack-o-lanterns! Dancing skeletons! Now they’ve got another one. Rolled out just in time for tomorrow’s Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian, this one brings The Child (or, as […]
The coronavirus pandemic has underscored, and often exacerbated, the mental health crisis that exists across the world. Even the spread of remote work is part of the problem: As everyone stays at home, the lack of interaction and watercooler chat has left employees without in-person interaction. The need for a solution has helped tech-powered mental […]
NASA’s Artemis mission is just starting to get underway, and among the commercial partnerships vying for the privilege of building the lunar landing system is one between Lockheed Martin and Blue Origin, which is leading the effort. Lockheed VP and GM of Commercial Civil Space Lisa Callahan says that the collaboration has been surprisingly smooth […]
Discord announces a big funding round, Google gets European approval to acquire Fitbit and Twitter launches a new voice-based feature. This is your Daily Crunch for December 17, 2020. Discord raises $100M The popular gaming chat platform confirmed today that it has raised $100 million and also announced that it has 140 million monthly active […]
UiPath, the robotic process automation startup that has been growing like gangbusters, filed confidential paperwork with the SEC today ahead of a potential IPO. “UiPath, Inc. today announced that it has submitted a draft registration statement on a confidential basis to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) for a proposed public offering of […]
Social gaming platform Rec Room has scored some new funding as it aims to bring its once VR-centric world to every major gaming platform out there. The startup has closed a $20 million Series C led by Madrona Venture Group . Existing investors, including First Round Capital, Index, Sequoia and DAG, also participated in the […]
Umba, a digital bank for emerging markets and aiming first at Africa, has secured a $2 million seed funding round from new investors including Lachy Groom, ex-Head of Issuing at Stripe; Ludlow Ventures; Frontline Ventures and Act Venture Capital. Currently operating in Kenya and Nigeria, Umba offers a digital financial service alternative to legacy African […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. For the first time in donkey’s years, we didn’t have our full crew this week. Instead, we had just Natasha and Chris and myself — we had to survive without Danny while he took the week […]
Coinbase, perhaps the best-known American crypto company, announced today that it has filed confidentially to go public. The company’s debut was expected, having been reported earlier in the year. As the well-funded unicorn has filed confidentially, its debut looks to be an early-2021 affair. What sort of flotation the company will pursue is not clear […]
