The New York attorney general’s office reportedly sent a sternly-worded letter to Amazon telling the company that the measures it has taken regarding the COVID-19 pandemic “are so inadequate that they may violate several provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act,” and firing outspoken workers sends “a threatening message to other employees.” The letter, […]
Lyft’s former COO Jon McNeill has had a fairly storied career as an operator. A Northwestern University economics major who worked at Bain & Co. out of college, he went on to start and sell five companies before being introduced in 2015 to Elon Musk by Sheryl Sandberg and spending 2.5 years as Tesla’s president […]
An emergency room physician for the past 12 years, Dr. Robert Mittendorff joined Norwest Venture Partners eight years ago as a healthcare investor; the firm invests in a number of healthcare startups, including Talkspace, which raised a $50 million Series D last year, and TigerConnect. As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, Mittendorff is spending his weekdays […]
Netflix and Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company have announced their latest film: “Becoming,” a documentary that follows Michelle as she goes on tour to promote her bestselling memoir of the same name. Although the documentary was directed by Nadia Hallgren, it sounds like the film had extensive access to and input from Michelle Obama […]
Ben Horowitz, the co-founder and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, won’t seek re-election to Lyft’s board, according to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. Horowitz has served as a board director at the ride-hailing company since June 2016. His venture firm, which he co-founded with Marc […]
Oriente, a Hong Kong-based startup that develops tech infrastructure for digital credit and other online financial services, has raised $50 million for its ongoing Series B round. The funding was led by Peter Lee, co-chairman of Henderson Land, one of Hong Kong’s largest property developers, with participation from investors including website development platform Wix.com. Launched […]
OMERS Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), has put together a new, $750 million fund to invest in both Europe and North America. The capital vehicle is larger than the group’s preceding European and North American funds combined. In 2019 OMERS Ventures announced a €300 million fund Europe-focused […]
AI is frequently cited as a miracle worker in medicine, especially in screening processes, where machine learning models boast expert-level skills in detecting problems. But like so many technologies, it’s one thing to succeed in the lab, quite another to do so in real life — as Google researchers learned in a humbling test at […]
U.S. pharmaceutical giant ExecuPharm has become the latest victim of data-stealing ransomware. ExecuPharm said in a letter to the Vermont attorney general’s office that it was hit by a ransomware attack on March 13, and warned that Social Security numbers, financial information, driver licenses, passport numbers and other sensitive data may have been accessed. But […]
Bluetooth-powered lost item finder Tile is expanding on its two-year-old partnership with strategic investor Comcast to help customers find misplaced items around their homes. The two companies first announced their intention to partner in early 2018, and later that year introduced a way for Comcast users to locate lost items using their Xfinity X1 Voice […]
A stay-at-home order for several San Francisco Bay Area counties will be extended through the end of May due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a decision that affects 7 million residents and thousands of businesses. The Public Health Officers of the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara as well […]
Earlier this month, edtech unicorn Duolingo raised $10 million in new venture capital from General Atlantic, per an SEC filing. With the raise, the online language learning platform accepted its first outside investor in almost three years. General Atlantic will take a board observer seat at the company, per Duolingo. The company, which was last […]
How do you leave the place that made you? You figure out what it made you for. TechCrunch made me a part of the startup ecosystem I love. Now it’s time to put that love into action to help a new generation of entrepreneurs build their dreams and tell their stories. So it’s “TC to […]
Properly equipped Tesla vehicles can now recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs thanks to a software update the company started pushing out to owners over the weekend. The software update had been available to a sliver of Tesla owners, some of whom had posted videos of the new capability. Now, the automaker […]
We weren’t alone in being impressed by Motiv. The startup helped flip the script on wearables by essentially cramming a fitness tracker’s worth of technology into a ring. This week, San Francisco “digital identity” startup Proxy announced that it’s acquiring the company. The company’s site is littered in buzzwords, but Proxy specializes in digital key […]
MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has released a video of their ongoing work using input from muscle signals to control devices. Their latest involves full and fine control of drones, using just hand and arm gestures to navigate through a series of rings. This work is impressive not just because they’re using […]
Amazon is piloting a new system aimed at validating the identify of third-party sellers over video conferencing, the company announced on Sunday. The technology is a part of a series of seller-verification processes that Amazon uses to combat fraud on its platform, which the company claims stopped 2.5 million suspected bad actors from publishing their […]
Magic Leap may be on its last legs, the next iPhone could be delayed by a month and WhatsApp says its efforts to slow the spread of misinformation are working. Here’s your Daily Crunch for April 27, 2020. 1. Magic Leap’s $2.6 billion bait and switch “Why are people still giving Magic Leap money?” our […]
The original Pixel Buds weren’t very good. No way around it. Here’s a thing I wrote about them in a review titled “A disappointing debut for Google’s Pixel Buds“: As recently as a couple of years ago, they would have been a contender for the most compelling Bluetooth headphones on the market. But given the […]
