NBCUniversal and Roku announced late last week that they’d resolved the dispute that was keeping NBCU’s streaming Peacock app off Roku’s smart TV platform. And as of this morning, Peacock has launched on Roku . When Peacock launched in July, it was not available on either Roku or Amazon Fire TV — in Roku’s case, […]
One of the more salient trends in the tech world — arguably the engine that propels it — has been the recurring theme of people who hone talents at bigger companies and then strike out on their own to found their own startups. (Some, like Max Levchin, even hire entrepreneurial types intentionally to help perpetuate […]
Palantir is not a democracy, and it really, really, really wants you to know that. Palantir’s governance has been under an exacting lens from regulators the past few weeks as it prepares for a public direct listing on September 29th. In revision after revision of its S-1 filing to the SEC — now totaling eight […]
Facebook today is introducing a new tool that will allow rights holders to protect and manage their photos across both Facebook and Instagram. With the newly launched “Rights Manager for Images,” Facebook is offering creators and publishers access to content-matching technology similar to what it introduced in 2016 to combat stolen videos. The new feature, […]
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can […]
Microsoft this morning announced plans to acquire ZeniMax Media Inc. for $7.5 billion in cash. The gaming holding company is the parent to a number of high-profile publishers, including Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, ZeniMax Online Studios, Arkane, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog and Roundhouse Studios. Once approved, the deal would bring some of the […]
You know a deal is signed and going to close when the parties keep fact-checking each other and no one can agree on what the deal actually says. We’ve been following the TikTok / Oracle deal for some time here on TechCrunch, and over the weekend, it seemed like we finally got to the finish […]
Last year, Amazon announced its Sidewalk network, a new low-bandwidth, long-distance wireless protocol it developed to help connect smart devices inside and — maybe even more importantly — outside of your home. Sidewalk, which is somewhat akin to a mesh network that, with the right amount of access points, could easily cover a whole neighborhood, […]
Many of us are still more or less confined to our own homes and limited social spaces for the foreseeable future, and for a lot of you, that has led to a rediscovery of the joys of biking. Bike riding is a great way to spend time outdoors exploring your own town or city, and […]
It seems that distance learning is even coming for the healthcare industry. As remote work becomes the order of the day in the COVID-19 era, any tool that can bring training and education services to folks across industries is gaining a huge amount of investor interest — and that includes healthcare. Virtual reality tools like […]
Nikola Corp. founder and Executive Chairman Trevor Milton is stepping down from the electric truck company effective immediately. This comes in the wake of a report from a noted short-seller accusing the company of fraud. Milton is succeeded by Stephen Girsky, a former General Motors executive who was already on the company’s board. Nikola company […]
In a new report, Amnesty International says it has found evidence of EU companies selling digital surveillance technologies to China — despite the stark human rights risks of technologies like facial recognition ending up in the hands of an authoritarian regime that’s been rounding up ethnic Uyghurs and holding them in “re-education” camps. The human […]
Playco is a new mobile gaming startup created by Game Closure co-founder Michael Carter and Zynga co-founder Justin Waldron, as well as game producers Takeshi Otsuka and Teddy Cross. Although the Tokyo-headquartered company is only announcing its existence today, it’s already a unicorn — it says it has raised $100 million in Series A funding, […]
A dossier of evidence detailing how the online ad targeting industry profiles Internet users’ intimate characteristics without their knowledge or consent has been published today by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), piling more pressure on the country’s data watchdog to take enforcement action over what complainants contend is the “biggest data breach of […]
Babbel, the popular Berlin-based online language learning service, today announced that it has now sold a total of 10 million subscriptions to its service. For a language learning service, that’s quite a substantial number, especially given that Babbel doesn’t really offer a free tier. In part, the company’s march to 10 million subscriptions was accelerated […]
Kindred Capital, the London-based VC that backs early-stage founders in Europe, has closed its second seed fund at £81 million. That’s only a tad larger than the the firm’s first fund, which invested in 29 companies and was raised in 2018. Portfolio companies from fund one include Five, which is building software for autonomous vehicles; […]
There is no shortage of speculation and reports around TikTok’s future in the U.S. Amid a swirl of rumors, TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance issued a statement (in Chinese) on Monday morning, bringing clarity to its ongoing deal that has captured global attention over the past few weeks. ByteDance is still the owner China’s ByteDance confirms […]
Mobile Premier League (MPL) has raised $90 million in a new financing round as the two-year-old Bangalore-based esports and mobile gaming platform demonstrates fast-growth and looks to expand outside of India. SIG, early-stage tech investor RTP Global, and MDI Ventures led MPL’s $90 million Series C financing round, with participation from existing investors Sequoia India, […]
Last week, as Epic Games, Facebook, and Microsoft continued to express concerns about Apple’s “monopolistic” hold over what a billion people can download on their iPhones, a similar story unfolded in India, the world’s second largest internet market, between a giant developer and the operator of the only other large mobile app store. Google pulled […]
