You could be excused for thinking that German robotics company Festo does nothing but put together fabulous prototype robots built to resemble kangaroos, jellyfish, and other living things. They do in fact actually make real industrial robots, but it’s hard not to marvel at their biomimetic experiments; Case in point, the feathered BionicSwift and absurd […]
A day after formally completing the sale of Boost, Virgin and other Sprint prepaid networks to Dish, T-Mobile is pulling the plug on Sprint 5G. The move is one in a long list of issues that need sorting out in the wake of April’s $26.5 billion merger. And like a number of other moves, it’s […]
Uber has a new, independent board member, shows a new SEC filing: CEO Revathi Advaithi of 51-year-old Flex, which is among the world’s largest electronic manufacturers and competes against Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology. Advaithi, a mechanical engineer who grew up in India with four sisters, was appointed to the top job in February of last year […]
“Fallout,” the post-apocalyptic video game franchise published by Bethesda Softworks, is being turned into a TV series by Kilter Films, the production company of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. The series, which began in 1997, takes place in an alternate future with a retro tone, after a nuclear war has turned most of the world […]
Hundreds of alleged drug dealers and other criminals are in custody today after police in Europe infiltrated an encrypted chat system reportedly used by thousands to discuss illegal operations. The total failure of this ostensibly secure method of communication will likely have a chilling effect on the shadowy industry of crime-focused tech. “Operation Venetic” was […]
Velodyne Lidar, the leading supplier of a sensor widely considered critical to the commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles, said Thursday it has struck a deal to merge with special-purpose acquisition company Graf Industrial Corp., with a market value of $1.8 billion. The company said it was able to raise $150 million in private investment in […]
Matt Saincome knows that compared to many of the startup acquisitions that we write about on TechCrunch, selling a website for a little over $1 million (mostly cash, with a little stock) isn’t a huge deal. “But in the world of punk comedy media? Whoo boy!” he said. Saincome is happy to poke fun at […]
2020 may feel so far like the year of living dangerously, but for many of us it has also been the year of working remotely. Led by the stick of COVID-19 rather than the carrot of the benefits of more flexible work life, a lot of organizations, and the people who power them, have only […]
India’s Reliance Jio Platforms, which recently concluded a $15.2 billion fundraise run, is ready to enter a new business: Video conferencing. On Thursday evening, the firm — backed by Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man — formally launched JioMeet, its video-conference service that looks uncannily like Zoom. Like Zoom and Google Meet, JioMeet offers unlimited number […]
Ford is teaming up with Disney Media Networks to mark the return of its iconic Bronco SUV through a series of short films that will be broadcast across a number of cable and digital properties including ABC, ESPN, National Geographic and Hulu. The strategy — prompted by COVID-19 shutdowns — is a departure for Ford, […]
Apple today has launched an online portal for its Apple Card credit card, allowing account holders to manage their balances, view statements, schedule payments and more. The portal, card.apple.com, will be particularly useful in case you lose or misplace your iPhone and need to manage your card or pay your bill. In the past, you […]
Despite today’s bucket of plus-and-minus economic data, stocks are heading higher in regular trading. And among the shares rising the most are today’s two venture-backed IPOs: Lemonade and Accolade. TechCrunch wrote this morning that the firms’ aggressive IPO pricing arcs boded well for the IPO market itself, that investors were willing to price growth-y shares […]
While contemporary software failures won't cause cholera outbreaks or emit the rancid smells of the past, they reek of devastation, rendering billions of dollars lost and millions of developer hours wasted each year.
Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, have begun trials of a new spit test for COVID-19 infections developed by the university’s Innovative Genomics Institute. Since the disease was first identified on U.S. shores, the Berkeley research institute led by the trailblazing CRISPR researcher Jennifer Doudna has worked tirelessly to bring innovative methods to diagnose […]
Jennifer Doudna, a woman whose work has triggered the explosion in innovation in the field of synthetic biology and has given researchers around the world a way to program and reprogram the living world, will be speaking at Disrupt in September. From her positions as the Chancellor’s Chair Professor in the University of California, Berkeley’s […]
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the music industry to experiment seriously with virtual concerts. Historically, musicians and their managers have been careful about challenging the traditional concert model that became their main source of income as revenue from album sales disappeared. Is the current surge of virtual concerts here to stay or will it be abandoned […]
Banned Chinese apps are beginning to disappear from India’s app stores, Palantir is raising more funding and Venmo starts testing Business Profiles. Here’s your Daily Crunch for July 2, 2020. 1. Apple and Google block dozens of Chinese apps in India Two days after India blocked 59 apps developed by Chinese firms, Google and Apple […]
The art of the pitchdeck. Few things are more critical to the success of startups seeding capital. And make no mistake, it is an art. At TechCrunch Early Stage, our two-day virtual event focused on giving entrepreneurs all the resources they need to build incredible, high-growth early stage companies, we have plenty of content dedicated […]
