Adblock Plus launched a workaround to Facebook’s ad block bypass today that ham-handedly removes posts from friends and Pages, not just ads, according to a statement provided by Facebook to TechCrunch. “We’re disappointed that ad blocking companies are punishing people on Facebook as these new attempts don’t just block ads but also posts from friends and Pages.… Read More
The last decade-plus hasn’t been great for SGI. The company formerly known as Silicon Graphics declared Chapter 11 in 2009. That same year, it was sold to Rackable for a song, with that company somewhat confusingly changing its own name to SGI (short for Silicon Graphics International) during the process. Now former competitor Hewlett Packard Enterprise (which spun out from HP last year)… Read More
The spa industry is in need of a technology makeover and Zenoti thinks it can help. The Seattle-based startup is raising $15 million in a round led by Norwest Venture Partners to help salons run their businesses. A cloud-based management platform, Zenoti helps spa chains with everything from billing to inventory management. They aim to create a tailored enterprise software experience for what… Read More
If you’re not using Simplenote, you’re missing out. This… well, simple note app has been a standby and lifesaver for me for years, though occasionally I have worried about its future: Will it survive if Automattic, which bought it back in 2013, goes under or gets bought itself? What if the servers go down? Is there a god, and if so, does he or she use Simplenote, too? Read More
Just days after Deliveroo, a popular on-demand restaurant food delivery startup in Europe, announced that it had raised another $275 million in funding, a number of the startup’s self-employed couriers in London have been holding a protest over possible changes to the way they are paid. Read More
Songster and perpetual master of subtlety Morrissey has teamed up with pals at PETA to produce This Beautiful Creature Must Die, a mobile and desktop browser-based app that turns saving cuddly 8-bit farm animals from a gruesome death into a fun, Tetris-like puzzle game. Morrissey believes his bloody new anti-meat mobile game is more important than “Pokémon Go.” The game features… Read More
The Kickstarter campaign for the Doohan EV3 iTank three-wheeled scooter began this week. It’s brought to you by Kartik Ram, the same guy behind the Zeitgeist electric bike that debuted this spring. Before we get into the question of whether a three-wheeled scooter really is the future, as Ram said in a phone interview, here are the details of the iTank: Bosch motor goes from 0-28 mph in… Read More
It’s not easy for the average user to determine whether or not the apps on his or her iPhone are trustworthy. Some apps scoop up contact lists, others unnecessarily harvest your location data, and some even send your login credentials over insecure HTTP connections.
But, if you’re not a developer, it can be difficult to tell which apps are collecting or leaking your personal… Read More
Snapchat has decided it’s time to make money. The company recently launched a massive expansion of its advertising, as well as an API that will make it easier for advertisers to buy ads. Given Snapchat’s aspirations to go public, turning on the money spigot is a necessity. But for a company that prides itself on constantly innovating, Snapchat’s monetization plans are… Read More
Tesla’s Autopilot is set to get a major update soon, according to multiple reports, and a new one from Electrek details some of the new hardware improvements that will pave the way for its arrival. The autonomous driving assistant for Tesla vehicles will benefit from a new front-facing triple camera array, Elecktrek reports, and will also add additional radar around the car, to… Read More
Please, please let me visit the room where new Pokémon are created. I want to know exactly what was going on when the team came up with Wishiwashi, a small, sad fish that becomes a group of slightly less sad fish when it reaches a certain level. Wishiwashi is one of three entirely new Pokémon revealed today for the upcoming Pokémon Sun and Moon games for Nintendo 3DS. The other all-new… Read More
140 Proof, a company that helps advertisers target their campaigns based on social data, has been acquired by AcuityAds for up to $20 million in cash.
140 Proof co-founder and CEO Jon Elvekrog said the deal will combine his company’s strength in social media with AcuityAds’ programmatic ad-buying tech.
The 140 Proof brand and team will continue to exist within AcuityAds, Elvekrog said. Read More
Facebook recently incorporated a sneaky change to the way its ads are displayed that disguised them as ordinary content and circumvented ad blocking software in browsers. Ads crowded the streams of even the most vigilant users. But this hell on earth was not to last: two days and change later, the Adblock Plus community has found a way to block them again. Read More
Silicon Valley is already knee-deep in flattery. Between 30-under-30 lists, award shows and yearly roundups, the startup scene is pretty good at giving praise where it is (or isn’t) due. Except for one issue — most of the recognition typically goes to founders and executives. There’s nothing wrong with this — everyone knows founders are the heart and soul of… Read More
The cloud services that Google uses to power its own services are second to none. But for the longest time, the company couldn’t get a foothold in the quickly growing cloud computing business while competitors like Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft Azure were growing rapidly. To right this ship, Google brought in Diane Greene by acquiring her startup BeBop Technologies for $348 million… Read More
TechCrunch Include Office Hours are happening on August 31st! Adam Valkin, Spencer Lazar and Peter Boyce from General Catalyst in NYC, along with Pat Gallagher and Susan Hobbs from CrunchFund in SF, will join TechCrunch to provide valuable advice and feedback to startups. Launched in 2014, Include is TechCrunch’s diversity program, aimed at facilitating opportunities for… Read More
It’s no Pokemon Go, but it’s charming nonetheless, employing Google’s Cloud Vision to add a little bit of CGI dragon magic to your immediate vicinity. The “Dragon Spotting” game is free and accessible through a mobile browser designed to promote Disney’s upcoming Pete’s Dragon remake. The page offers up the player simple instructions through a series… Read More
Rumor has it that Rackspace is about to get acquired, but that isn’t stopping the company from hosting a major customer event in San Francisco today. At the event, the company announced both a few milestones around its OpenStack deployments and that it is expanding its multi-cloud security services to Microsoft’s Azure cloud. While Rackspace also offers its own hosting and… Read More
News outlets may get back some of their mojo stolen by a June Facebook feed algorithm change that preferred friends over publishers. Today Facebook will start predicting stories that are informative and highlighting them to people if they’re “related to their interests, if they engage people in broader discussions, and if they contain news”. Facebook surveyed tons of people… Read More
Want to have a wardrobe like Tay-tay’s? You can now, thanks to Craves. The company is today debuting a mobile fashion application that takes advantage of visual search technology to identify clothing and accessories as seen in photos. In particular, it’s focused on showing you what celebrities are wearing and where you can buy those items – or something similar, but… Read More
