AI-powered voice transcription service Otter.ai is expanding its Otter Assistant feature for Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Cisco Webex. Otter.ai first released this feature for Zoom users earlier this year (in May). With this new integration, Otter Assistant can now join and transcribe meetings on more platforms, even if the Otter user is not attending […]
Founders Fund and Paradigm are leading an investment in a platform that’s aiming to wed music rights with NFTs, allowing user to buy shares of songs through the company’s marketplace, earning royalties as the music they’ve invested in gains popularity. The venture, called Royal, is led by Justin Blau, an EDM artist who performs under […]
When Jessica Ko was head of design at Google and then Opendoor, she realized that her teams spent about 90% of their time digging around Dropbox looking for assets. In many cases, they’d find older versions. Or they couldn’t find what they were looking for. Or even worse, they’d accidentally pick the wrong asset. “It […]
Good news, TechCrunch family, Techstars’ Saba Karim is coming to Disrupt (September 21-23) this year. With a great vantage point from his perspective as Global Startup Pipeline Manager at Techstars, Karim will be hosting a session on the Extra Crunch stage discussing how to craft a pitch deck that cannot be ignored. It’s a popular […]
St. Louis-based grocery chain Schnucks (one of those “With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good” situations, one imagines) announced this week that it will be deploying technology from Simbe Robotics across its 111 U.S. locations. The deal comes a year and a half into a global pandemic that has substantially increased interest […]
Picsart COO Tammy Nam said it was now past a $100 million run rate, and that it was worth more than $1 billion after the SoftBank round. That was the extent of our ability to mine her for details.
Airbnb announced on Thursday it will allow anyone with available space to sign up to provide housing for Afghan refugees. The new initiative aims to build upon Airbnb’s initial commitment to provide free temporary housing for 20,000 Afghan refugees. The company says existing Airbnb hosts and anyone else can sign up to provide free or […]
Google is infamous for spinning up products and killing them off, often in very short order. It’s an annoying enough habit when it’s stuff like messaging apps and games. But the tech giant’s ambitions stretch into many domains that touch human lives these days. Including, most directly, healthcare. And — it turns out — so […]
One of the most fascinating aspects of Boston Dynamics’ transition into a commercial organization is watching the company — and its partners — figure out real-world jobs for Spot. There’s no question that the tech is impressive, but there’s always been the broader subject of usefulness beyond the company’s initial purpose of serving as off-road […]
Apple today is launching a new program that will allow subscription news organizations that participate in the Apple News app and meet certain requirements to lower their commission rate to 15% on qualifying in-app purchases taking place inside their apps on the App Store. Typically, Apple’s model for subscription-based apps involves a standard 30% commission […]
Bright, a live video platform that lets fans engage in live conversations with their favorite creators and celebs, has raised $15 million in new funding, the company announced today. The round was co-led by co-founder and talent manager Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures, the fund he founded with Ashton Kutcher. RIT Capital and Regah Ventures also […]
“Voice skins” have become a very popular feature for AI-based voice assistants, to help personalize some of the more anodyne aspects of helpful, yet also kind of bland and robotic, speaking voices you get on services like Alexa. Now a startup that is building voice skins for different companies to use across their services, and […]
Tech giants Apple, Google and Microsoft have pledged billions to bolster U.S. cybersecurity following a meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday. The meeting, which also included attendees from the financial and education sectors, was held following months of high-profile cyberattacks against critical infrastructure and several U.S. government agencies, along with a […]
Lordstown Motors has hired Daniel A. Ninivaggi, a longtime automotive executive and former head of Carl C. Icahn’s holding company, as CEO and a board member. The appointment follows months of tumult at Lordstown, which became publicly traded via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. In June, founder and CEO Steve Burns and […]
A new report claims Peter Thiel's AI company Palantir had a glitch in its software used by the FBI that allowed unauthorized personnel to access private data for more than a year.
Porsche Cars North America has added its entire U.S. inventory of new cars to its online marketplace as the company seeks to keep up with customer demands and the industry's shift to digital commerce.
BreezoMeter has been on a mission to make environmental health hazards accessible to as many people as possible. Through its air quality index (AQI) calculations, the Israel-based company can now identify the quality of air down to a few meters in dozens of countries. A partnership with Apple to include its data into the iOS […]
