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Netflix’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ is among the most nominated Oscar films | Lauren Forristal | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | Netflix received 15 Oscar nominations this year, putting the streaming service ahead of most other media companies. Warner Bros. was close behind with 13 nominations, and Disney+ earned 12. Combined with Disney-owned Searchlight, which had 10 nominations, Disney received . Netflix’s German war movie “All Quiet on the ... |
The latecomer advantage in startups | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,023 | 1 | 28 | Sometimes, due to the nature of the startup game, we over index on “the new.” Companies want to build for the pain point you never dreamed to disrupt; VCs want to invest in an emerging trend before it becomes a household name; and those breaking into tech are told to lean into their earnestness, because you never know ... |
Atomos tows a $16M load of funding to create tugboats in space | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | You may not have known that space needs tugboats, but now you do — and Atomos Space just closed a $16.2 million Series A investment, which will enable the company to complete its demonstration mission where it will show off its docking and towing capabilities. The company is building a series of Orbital Transfer Vehicl... |
Nvidia’s robot simulator adds human co-workers | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 3 | Simulators have been a godsend when it comes to testing robots. Real-world testing is lengthy, expensive and potentially dangerous, so anything you can do to work out as many kinks as possible ahead of time is a big win. has thus far proven a success for Nvidia, as the chipmaker has looked to aggressively enter the w... |
The Aeo robot is designed to patrol and disinfect hospitals | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 4 | Who doesn’t like a good success story? For Aeolus Robotics, it was the 2018 show where things really clicked in. Exhibiting at the event garnered interest from folks looking for a solution to help out around hospitals, nursing homes and school. The company was more than happy to help. Japan in particular was taken wi... |
Ottonomy’s new delivery robot gets an automatic package dispenser | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 4 | The robots are slowly but surely conquering . During today’s press preview, debuted a new model being added to the New York firm’s army of delivery robots. Yeti stands out from other Ottobot models primarily thanks to the addition of a clever auto dispense mechanism designed to eliminate the need for a person to be ... |
Watch Rocket Lab launch Electron from US soil for the first time | Aria Alamalhodaei | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | After multiple delays due to inclement weather and high winds, Rocket Lab is poised to launch its first mission from Virginia today, with a two-hour launch window opening at 6 p.m. EST. The mission is called “Virginia is for Launch Lovers,” and the name is appropriate in more ways than one. Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket... |
Labrador taps the Echo Show to expand functionality for its eldercare robot | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 5 | I first met with the team at Labrador Systems in a hotel suite several CESes ago. What immediately stood out about the firm is its focus on the long-standing promise of eldercare robotics. Various systems have existed in Japan for decades now, aimed at that nation’s aging population. But for the most part, it’s a categ... |
Netflix refreshes its iPhone app with a more fluid design | Lauren Forristal | 2,023 | 1 | 17 | It’s not just quality content that makes a streaming service stand out amongst its competitors. Improving the user experience is still an integral part of the fight to reduce churn. On Monday, Netflix rolled out updates to its iPhone app that introduced a revamped interface featuring a new billboard layout, new card tr... |
With Starship testing, SpaceX moves one step closer to making science fiction a reality | Aria Alamalhodaei | 2,023 | 1 | 23 | SpaceX is poised to conduct a wet dress rehearsal of the Starship launch system from its Starbase site in southeastern Texas, a major milestone in CEO Elon Musk’s quest to turn long-haul interplanetary transportation from science fiction to reality. It’s the strongest signal yet that Starship’s first orbital flight tes... |
Pee is the magic number, as Withings puts a urine analysis lab in your toilet | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,023 | 1 | 4 | Withings, best known for its smart scales, watches and other health-focused consumer tech, released a new gadget at CES in Las Vegas today. Making a splash in an underserved market, U-Scan aims to help customers track what’s going on in their urine, without having to worry about catching their wastewater in a cup or me... |
Asteroid mining startup AstroForge will test its metal refinery tech in space this year | Aria Alamalhodaei | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | Asteroid mining startup AstroForge will head to space twice this year, as it attempts to do what no other company has been able to before: unlock the potentially limitless value of precious minerals in deep space. When TechCrunch covered , we noted that the company was planning a demonstration mission sometime this ye... |
How US police use digital data to prosecute abortions | Runa Sandvik | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | In late April, police in Nebraska saying 17-year-old Celeste Burgess had given birth to a stillborn baby and buried the body. Officers soon learned that her mother, Jessica Burgess, and a friend had helped her with transportation and burial. The police issued citations for concealing the death of another person and f... |
The best Twitter alternatives worth checking out | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | with you. There’s no 1:1 Twitter replacement — not yet, and possibly not ever. Still, there are plenty of social apps that might be worth substituting into your obsessive timeline-checking routines if you’re done with Twitter for whatever reason (we can ). Twitter’s current situation — , , little things breakin... |
Breathe along with the robot pillow | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 3 | From the team that brought you the weird and wonderful robot cat pillow comes an equally weird and wonderful breathing pillow. Japanese boutique robotics firm Yukai Engineering returns to CES with Fufuly, which follows in footsteps by quite literally breathing some life into a cushion. The hardware startup says the p... |
The 403-page Dungeons & Dragons game system is now licensed under Creative Commons | Amanda Silberling | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | It’s now official: Dungeons & Dragons is licensed under the . This makes the popular tabletop roleplaying game “freely available for any use,” Dungeons & Dragons executive producer Kyle Brink wrote in a today. Just weeks ago, this outcome would have seemed impossible. About a month ago, Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) —... |
Here’s a roundup of the top AI-powered products we saw at CES 2023 | Kyle Wiggers | 2,023 | 1 | 5 | This year, the — the celebration of all things tech and then some — brought what it usually brings to the Vegas Strip: . Of course, AI comes in many forms, and not all that’s advertised as AI is in fact AI. But there’s always diamonds in the rough, like an AI-equipped oven from Samsung that automatically adjusts... |
Fifth Wall, focused on real estate tech and managing $3.2B, looks to eat up even more of its market | Connie Loizos | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | Brendan Wallace’s ambition is beginning to seem almost limitless. The LA-based venture firm that Wallace and co-founder Brad Greiwe launched less than seven years ago already has $3.2 billion in assets under management. But that firm, , which argues there are massive financial returns at the intersection of real estat... |
I put Dyson’s Bane mask on my face | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 11 | of putting things on my face. I spent time with the Magic Leap 2, Meta Quest Pro, Vive XR Elite and PSVR2 over the course of a few days. All of those products fit in the same bucket, more or less. And then there’s the , a product that, quite frankly, doesn’t fit in any bucket, per se. There are a few potential reason... |
In-car tech and EVs dominated CES 2023 | Kirsten Korosec | 2,023 | 1 | 9 | I kicked off 2023 in the same fashion as I have for the better part of a decade: I went to Las Vegas for CES. Every year I get asked the same questions: What really excited you this year? What stood out? And what does that mean for the future? A few takeaways. Keeping on with the of this week’s newsletter, here’s a... |
How companies at CES are taking on climate change (or pretending to) | Harri Weber | 2,023 | 1 | 9 | I can’t get it out of my head: A honkingly big Caterpillar sign that read, “JOIN US AS WE BUILD A BETTER WORLD.” The digital recruitment billboard at CES 2023 followed promos for an autonomous compactor and excavator, and proceeded another callout: “CHECK OUT OUR BIG AUTONOMOUS TRUCK ⬇.” I did, and boy . A “better wor... |
A big CES 2023 trend: All battery power, everywhere, all the time | Haje Jan Kamps | 2,023 | 1 | 7 | As we were roaming the halls of , one product category stood out across the board: There’s a lot of focus on portable (and less portable) power storage. These are more than your average charge-your-phone-once-or-twice battery packs, ranging from simple small power packs to sophisticated power stations that can connect... |
All is fair in love and moderation | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,023 | 1 | 25 | Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. This week, interviewed Sarah Oh, the co-founder of T2, a Twitter riva... |
Mojo Vision puts contact lens production ‘on hold’ as it lays off 75% of staff | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 6 | We’ve met with Mojo Vision for several CESes, watching the startup’s AR contact lenses develop, year by year. These sorts of things take a lot of time and money, of course — and these days it seems increasingly difficult to find either. Today, the California-based firm that it is “decelerating” work on the Mojo Lens,... |
Startups should expect more scrutiny from VCs on their hiring plans | Rebecca Szkutak | 2,023 | 1 | 25 | spree in 2021 as and the job market was hot. But many overindulged in the talent pool and then had to make large cuts and in 2022. The worst for startups is likely still to come. This isn’t a pattern that companies are going to want to fall into again when the market recovers and subsequently ramps up. And maybe t... |
Laid off from your crypto job? Here’s what founders are looking for in new talent | Jacquelyn Melinek | 2,023 | 1 | 26 | across the crypto job market amid macroeconomic volatility and bearish market sentiments, but there are still plenty of startups looking to hire fresh talent. Crypto firms like and have cut employees in recent weeks, which has increased the talent pool and been “instrumental” for startups looking to build talent w... |
Crypto recruiters see opportunity to snatch up talent amid Big Tech layoffs | Jacquelyn Melinek | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | crypto companies in recent months have laid off employees in an effort to keep their businesses afloat. But as big players drop talent back into the pool, startups are getting the opportunity to snatch them up. Recruiters and talent heads alike shared their thoughts with TechCrunch on what this means and how talent sh... |
Jumia’s investors rethink their stakes — for better and worse | Tage Kene-Okafor | 2,023 | 1 | 26 | , the Edinburgh-based asset management firm long known to have a penchant for pre-IPO tech companies, has reduced its shares in African e-commerce giant Jumia, per the latest released by the asset manager. According to the filing, Baillie Gifford disclosed ownership of 18.75 million shares in Jumia, representing 9.39... |
Another All Raise CEO steps down | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | , All Raise CEO has stepped down from her position at the nonprofit. The entrepreneur, who previously ran Founder Gym, an online training center for underrepresented founders, said that the decision was made after she realized “being in the field working directly with entrepreneurs everyday” is her passion. Dixon s... |
Payments remain the darling of the fintech space | Mary Ann Azevedo | 2,023 | 1 | 22 | Last week, I dug into . We’ve already discussed ad nauseam that fintech funding is not just down, but also way down. And I’m not foolish enough to try and make any real predictions about the state of fintech in 2023. Instead, I’m going to highlight some specific findings of that report that stood out to me and that I ... |
Tech forgot its umbrella | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,023 | 1 | 21 | It kind of feels like tech forgot its umbrella. Like, it remembered to pack its water bottle, wear the right shoes and layer up, but when it came time to officially go outside — and say, face the year ahead — it realized that a waterproof hoodie wasn’t enough. It needs an industrial umbrella. You know what I mean? Here... |
The thing we thought was happening with robotic investments is definitely happening | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 25 | There was a brief, beautiful moment for a few months in 2021 when it felt like robotic investments might be immune from broader market forces. We all fundamentally and implicitly understood this to not be the case, but it was a nice moment nevertheless. Truth is, there was a bit of insulation in there. There was still ... |
Then call them ‘robots’ | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 26 | robots, they were “androids” or “automatons.” The word “robot” is commonly accepted as having arrived in English through — of all places — a Czech play. “R.U.R.” made its public debut in Prague , yesterday. It would arrive in the States a year and a half later, with Spencer Tracy making his nonspeaking Broadway debut... |
Strava acquires Fatmap, a 3D mapping platform for the great outdoors | Paul Sawers | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | , the activity tracking and social community platform used by more than 100 million people globally, has acquired , a European company that’s building a high-resolution 3D global map platform for the great outdoors. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2009, Strava has emerged as one of the preeminent acti... |
You could be Wasted and not even know it | Natasha Mascarenhas | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | Hello and welcome back to , a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This week, and took the mic to talk through breaking news, retrospective features and all the blogosphere content that fits in between. Shout-out to Theresa and Andrew for putting to... |
The current legal cases against generative AI are just the beginning | Kyle Wiggers | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | the mainstream, each new day brings a new lawsuit. Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI are currently being in a that accuses them of violating copyright law by allowing , a code-generating AI system trained on billions of lines of public code, to regurgitate licensed code snippets without providing credit. Two companies... |
Dell has acquired cloud orchestration startup Cloudify, sources tell us for up to $100M | Ingrid Lunden | 2,023 | 1 | 25 | is making an acquisition to beef up its cloud services business, specifically its offerings in DevOps: The company is buying , an Israeli startup that has built a platform for cloud orchestration and infrastructure automation. Cloudify’s tools are used by cloud architects and DevOps engineers to manage containers, wo... |
After inking its OpenAI deal, Shutterstock rolls out a generative AI toolkit to create images based on text prompts | Ingrid Lunden | 2,023 | 1 | 25 | When Shutterstock and OpenAI a partnership to help develop OpenAI’s Dall-E 2 artificial intelligence image-generating platform with Shutterstock libraries to train and feed the algorithm, the Stability AI has been backed with , but as of yesterday, not as much as OpenAI, which and extended partnership with Micros... |
Microsoft invests billions more dollars in OpenAI, extends partnership | Kyle Wiggers | 2,023 | 1 | 23 | Microsoft today said that it’s extending its partnership with OpenAI, the startup behind art- and text-generating AI systems like , and , with a “multi-year, multi-billion-dollar” investment. OpenAI that the infusion of new capital — the exact amount of which wasn’t disclosed — will be used to continue its indepe... |
Google created an AI that can generate music from text descriptions, but won’t release it | Kyle Wiggers | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | An impressive new AI system from Google can generate music in any genre given a text description. But the company, fearing the risks, has no immediate plans to release it. Called , Google’s certainly isn’t the first generative artificial intelligence system for song. There have been other attempts, including , an AI ... |
Hands on with Walmart’s new (but buggy) ‘Text to Shop’ feature | Sarah Perez | 2,023 | 1 | 26 | Walmart recently introduced a new way to shop: via text. Last month, the its “Text to Shop” experience which allows mobile consumers across both iOS and Android devices to text Walmart the items they want to purchase from either their local stores or Walmart.com, or easily reorder items for pickup, delivery, or shippi... |
LastPass owner GoTo says hackers stole customers’ backups | Carly Page | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | LastPass’ parent company — formerly LogMeIn — has confirmed that cybercriminals stole customers’ encrypted backups during a recent breach of its systems. The breach was on November 30. At the time, LastPass chief executive Karim Toubba said an “unauthorized party” had gained access to some customers’ information st... |
App downloads were stagnant in the fourth quarter, new analysis finds | Sarah Perez | 2,023 | 1 | 25 | The global app economy as consumer spending on apps dropped 2% to $167 billion, according to a recent annual report put out by data.ai. At the same time, downloads were up 11% year-over-year — a seemingly positive indication that app adoption was still taking place, driven in particular by emerging markets. But a dee... |
As activist investors target Salesforce, what’s next for the CRM giant? | Ron Miller | 2,023 | 1 | 26 | , Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been a successful executive. He helped build Salesforce from the ground up, in San Francisco in 1999 and eventually erecting the tallest building in the city. He took the idea of running software in the cloud and grew it into the de facto way to deliver software at a time when most... |
No rest for Salesforce as activist investor Elliott Management takes multibillion-dollar stake in company | Ron Miller | 2,023 | 1 | 23 | It’s been at Salesforce recently, and it’s not getting any quieter soon. The Wall Street Journal that the company now needs to deal with activist investor . Elliott confirmed that it has taken a multibillion-dollar stake in Salesforce, and shared this comment from Jesse Cohn, managing partner at the firm: “Salesfo... |
Energy transition investments hit $1.1 trillion — with a T — last year | Tim De Chant | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | hockey stick. After years of bumbling along, investment in the energy transition appears to be taking off. Businesses, financial institutions, governments and end users around the world sunk $1.11 trillion into low-carbon technologies, according to a from BloombergNEF. It was just over 30% more than 2021 and the sec... |
Investors say web3 and hype are in for 2023, high valuations are out — maybe? | Rebecca Szkutak | 2,023 | 1 | 4 | was tumultuous for venture investors, to say the least. The ecosystem watched as startup , held its breath as a $32 billion venture-backed company almost overnight and witnessed one of the of all time. Did you hear anyone yell “bingo?” Probably not. It’s unlikely that many investors came close to predicting what ... |
Funding for Black founders remains dismal — where do we go from here? | Dominic-Madori Davis | 2,023 | 1 | 11 | reported that of the $215.9 billion in venture capital allocated last year. That is not to be confused with the 1.3% raised in 2021, the 0.8% they pulled in 2020, the 1% they got in 2019 or the 1.1% raised in both 2018 and 2017, according to Crunchbase data. In case it’s not obvious why these figures are so dreadful... |
Spatial Labs, a web3 infrastructure and hardware company, closes $10M seed round | Dominic-Madori Davis | 2,023 | 1 | 26 | , a web3 infrastructure and hardware company, announced today the closing of a $10 million seed round led by Blockchain Capital with participation from the firm co-founded by Jay-Z. founded Spatial Labs in 2021, seeking to create products and shopping experiences using augmented reality. “The metaverse to us is not... |
Niantic tries its hand at sports with NBA All-World | Kyle Wiggers | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | Niantic, the company behind the mega-hit Pokémon GO, has reached an inflection point. Whether because of pandemic fatigue or frustration over the limitations of today’s AR tech, the Google-spawned startup has struggled mightily to replicate the success of GO, which became one of the fastest-growing games in history sho... |
A VC’s perspective on deep tech fundraising in Q1 2023 | Karthee Madasamy | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | other sector, deep tech faced significant headwinds in 2022. As interest rates skyrocketed, deep tech deals, which inherently take more capital than other kinds of software businesses, became less attractive to many VCs and their LPs than lower-risk investments. For instance, even though quantum computing suddenly bec... |
Fortnite on iOS and Google Play will be 18+ starting on January 30 | Aisha Malik | 2,023 | 1 | 25 | Starting January 30, v13.40 of Fortnite on iOS and Google Play will become unavailable to players under 18, Epic Games has . Although Fortnite was removed from the iOS, macOS and Google Play stores in August 2020, the game is still playable by users who already had it installed, but it’s been stuck on the v13.40 updat... |
Mark Cuban’s bidet brand buys shower startup that wooed Tim Cook | Harri Weber | 2,023 | 1 | 26 | The folks behind — the techy shower-head startup backed by Apple CEO Tim Cook and a host of other big names — have sold to Mark Cuban’s , which makes bidets, air purifiers and the like. The Nebia name and water-saving nozzles will following the deal, co-founders Philip Winter and Gabriel Parisi-Amon said in a call... |
Netflix teams up with Bumble so users can bond over popular TV shows | Lauren Forristal | 2,023 | 1 | 23 | Bumble is putting the phrase “Netflix and Chill?” to the test with the launch of a weekly in-app Netflix-themed question game called “Netflix Nights In” that asks users questions about a popular Netflix show. Users can play against their match to see who can answer all the questions correctly. According to a recent Bum... |
Messenger ramps up testing of default end-to-end encryption | Aisha Malik | 2,023 | 1 | 23 | Meta today that it has started gradually expanding testing default end-to-end encryption for Messenger. The messaging service is also bringing some of its standard features to end-to-end encrypted chats, including chat themes, custom chat emojis and reactions, group profile photos, link previews and active status. Ov... |
Google’s Flutter showcases new graphics capabilities, WebAssembly and RISC-V support | Frederic Lardinois | 2,023 | 1 | 25 | , Google’s open-source framework for building multi-platform apps for mobile, web and desktop, is hosting its event in Nairobi, Kenya today. As the name implies, the team is using the event to showcase up-and-coming features of the framework — most of which are still very early in their development cycle. The main hi... |
WhatsApp releases its native macOS client in public beta | Ivan Mehta | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | WhatsApp has released its native macOS app compatible with Apple Silicon in a public beta. Users running Mac with Apple’s own chip with macOS 11 Big Sur or newer version will be able to download the test version. Plus, people with Intel Macs that can run apps built with Mac Catalyst — the company’s program to port iPad... |
Instagram’s new dynamic profile photo flips between your picture and avatar | Aisha Malik | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | Instagram announced today that it’s introducing a new dynamic profile photo feature that lets users showcase both their profile photo and their avatar. Prior to this update, you had to choose between displaying a profile picture or your avatar on your profile. Now, you can flip between the two. “Now you can add your av... |
Uber Eats now shows you how much of your information is shared with delivery people | Aisha Malik | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | Uber Eats is that shows users how much of their personal information is shared with their delivery person when they place an order on the app. The feature, which is called “View as Delivery Person,” is designed to add a level of transparency when ordering food via the app. The feature will show how much of your infor... |
Twitterrific, Tweetbot and other clients begin offloading their apps after Twitter shuts them out | Ivan Mehta | 2,023 | 1 | 19 | Say Goodbye to Tweetbot. We've been proud to serve you over the last 12+ years, but due to circumstances beyond our control, we have to shut down Tweetbot. Thank you so much for your patience and outpouring of support over these tough times at Tapbots. — Tapbots (@tapbots) , one of the most iconic third-party Twi... |
SoundHound, the voice AI company, raises $25M after laying off 40% of staff earlier this month | Ingrid Lunden | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | AI may be getting hyped as the next billion dollar (or much bigger) opportunity these days after that from Microsoft, but that rising tide is not lifting all boats. — the voice AI company that provides conversational AI services for automotive, connected home and hospitality applications — earlier this month and ... |
This Week in Apps: Twitter kills third-party apps, Instagram adds Quiet Mode, Google’s antitrust trial gets a date | Sarah Perez | 2,023 | 1 | 21 | Welcome back to This Week in Apps, that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app economy in 2023 hit a few snags, as consumer spending last year by 2% to $167 billion, according to the latest “State of Mobile” report by data.ai (previously App Annie). However, do... |
Tapbots launches a new Mastodon client, Ivory, after Twitter kills its Tweetbot app | Sarah Perez | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | , the makers of popular third-party Twitter app Tweetbot that was by , is releasing its next new product. Hoping to fill the void that leaves behind, the company is now making its anticipated Mastodon client app available as an Early Access release. The “Early Access” label is a subtitle that Tapbots put on its... |
Nanoleaf debuts smart lighting for ceilings, TVs and more | Kyle Wiggers | 2,023 | 1 | 3 | CES isn’t as consumer-focused as it once was, despite the overt branding. (CES stands for “Consumer Electronics Show.”) Indeed, automotive and enterprise vendors have encroached on the Las Vegas show floor in recent years as some major consumer brands pull back. But there’s still consumer tech news to be had, fortunate... |
Bird Buddy’s new smart hummingbird feeder can photograph and identify 350 different bird species | Sarah Perez | 2,023 | 1 | 4 | , the maker of a smart bird feeder that snaps photos of your bird visitors, which are collected in a companion mobile app, is out today with another product for its nature enthusiast and bird-watching community. At the in Las Vegas, the company is showing off a prototype of its new AI-powered Smart Hummingbird Feeder... |
The app economy slowed for the first time in 2022, with consumer spend down 2% to $167 billion | Sarah Perez | 2,023 | 1 | 11 | The app ecosystem’s nonstop growth finally slipped this past year. An of the app economy by mobile analytics firm data.ai (previously App Annie) found that consumer spending on mobile apps declined for the first time in 2022 after seeing 19% year-over-year growth Consumer spending dropped by 2% in 2022, the report ... |
Instagram’s new ‘Quiet Mode’ helps you take a break from the app | Sarah Perez | 2,023 | 1 | 19 | Instagram today it’s expanding its selection of time management tools with the launch of a new feature called “Quiet Mode.” The feature aims to reduce users’ anxiety about taking time off from the app by silencing incoming notifications, auto-replying to DMs, and setting your status to to inform friends that you’re... |
Instagram and Facebook introduce more limits on targeting teens with ads | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,023 | 1 | 10 | Meta is making some changes to how its apps handle advertising and young users. Under the new rules, advertisers on and won’t be able to leverage as much personalized data to target ads to teens. Users under age 18 will also be newly empowered with more choices about which ads they see and why. Starting next month,... |
Google’s Clock app now lets you record your own alarm sound | Ivan Mehta | 2,023 | 1 | 17 | Google’s clock app for Android has plenty of sound options to set as an alarm. If you don’t like the default tone, you can use a song or a podcast from Spotify or YouTube Music (only if you have a premium subscription), too — and Google now also allows you to record a voice clip and set that as an alarm tone. This feat... |
Twitter Blue is now available on Android at the same price as iOS | Ivan Mehta | 2,023 | 1 | 18 | A day after launching , the social media company has extended the paid plan to users on Android. Individuals will have to pay $11 per month if they buy the Twitter Blue plan through Android. The pricing, same as that on iOS, is higher than the $8 offering for those who subscribe through a web browser. It’s likely that... |
Dating app Hinge tests a pricier $60 per month subscription, similar to Tinder Platinum | Sarah Perez | 2,023 | 1 | 17 | Match-owned dating app Hinge confirmed it’s testing a higher-priced premium subscription of $50 to $60 per month — a significant increase over the current $35 per month pricing. The company had earlier teased the new offering during Match’s Q3 2022 earnings in November, calling it Hinge’s equivalent of Tinder’s top-tie... |
Fandom lays off employees across Giant Bomb, GameSpot and Metacritic | Ivan Mehta | 2,023 | 1 | 20 | Entertainment company Fandom has laid off an unspecified number of employees across multiple properties, including , and . These properties are mainly focused on publishing content around gaming and TV shows. According to a report by , the company employs around 500 people, and the layoffs have affected roughly 10... |
Indian food delivery giant Swiggy to cut 380 jobs | Manish Singh | 2,023 | 1 | 19 | Swiggy plans to lay off 380 jobs and shut down its meat marketplace as the Prosus Venture and SoftBank-backed Indian food delivery giant looks to navigate the market downturn that has forced firms to become leaner and more disciplined. In an email to employees on Friday, Swiggy co-founder and chief executive Sriharsha ... |
Mozilla revamps its read-it-later app Pocket with new tabs and curated recommendations | Sarah Perez | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | , a popular read-it-later app , is rolling out two major changes to its mobile reading experience, as it faces new competition from and open source alternatives like . The company today is revamping key features, including its Home tab and its “My List” tab, which is now being rebranded as “Saves.” The changes are ... |
So long, Stadia | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 18 | There are no guarantees in this world. Nothing lasts forever — especially those things made by Google. In September, the company on its ambitious, but oft-forgotten, cloud gaming service. Stadia’s servers are officially shutting down today, two months shy of its third birthday. The dream of cloud gaming is long-lived... |
More universities are banning TikTok from their campus networks and devices | Taylor Hatmaker | 2,023 | 1 | 19 | Public universities across a widening swath of U.S. states have banned TikTok in recent months, and two of the country’s largest colleges just followed suit. The University of Texas and Texas A&M University are two of the latest colleges to take action against the social app, which is owned by Beijing-based parent comp... |
YouTube TV upgrades its live TV guide and library to give users more control | Lauren Forristal | 2,023 | 1 | 18 | YouTube TV announced today that it’s rolling out updates to its Live Guide and Library. The updated Live Guide, which offers a more traditional grid showing what’s on now and what’s upcoming, has already reached some users, offering both a new design and recommendations of what to watch. Meanwhile, updates to the Libra... |
TikTok rolls out its ‘state-controlled media’ label to 40 more countries | Sarah Perez | 2,023 | 1 | 18 | TikTok today it’s expanding its “state-controlled media” label to more than 40 additional global markets, to alert users when videos they’re seeing on the app are being published by entities whose “editorial output or decision-making process” is subject to influence by a government, the company said on Wednesday. The... |
German teens went crazy for this ‘compliments’ app, and now VCs are backing its next phase | Mike Butcher | 2,023 | 1 | 19 | The teenage market for apps is a tough nut to crack and stay relevant in. Just ask Snapchat. Equally, teens are going through a stage in life where almost every social interaction seems to carry portent of some kind of other. This would explain in part why apps like SendIt, NGL and Nocapp (some are Snapchat-connected t... |
India’s PhonePe tops $12 billion valuation in new funding | Manish Singh | 2,023 | 1 | 18 | PhonePe’s valuation has more than doubled to over $12 billion in a new funding round as the Indian fintech giant . The Bengaluru-headquartered startup said it has raised $350 million and anticipates raising up to another $650 million as part of the round in a remarkable feat at a time when fundraising activity has slo... |
India’s top court rejects Google plea to block Android antitrust ruling in major blow | Manish Singh | 2,023 | 1 | 19 | Google has been dealt a significant blow in one of its key overseas markets. India’s Supreme Court on Thursday declined to block that requires the Android-maker to make a series of changes that could topple its financial viability. India’s apex court rejected to block the ruling against Google by the nation’s antitru... |
Zitti soaks up some funding sauce so restaurants can manage their food supply chain | Christine Hall | 2,023 | 1 | 19 | Getting a handle on food costs at an independent restaurant is a constant challenge for owners, and there is a long list of startups, like , , , , , , , that have stepped with their solutions. Zitti’s app shows food pricing insights. Zitti ’s co-founder Dante DiCicco is coming at this problem, but from a uniqu... |
Google to cooperate with Indian authorities after losing bid to block Android antitrust ruling | Manish Singh | 2,023 | 1 | 19 | Google will continue to challenge the Indian antitrust watchdog’s ruling but will cooperate with the authorities “on the way forward,” it said Friday, responding to that is cornering the Android-maker into making a series of changes that could topple how it conducts business in the key overseas market. India’s Suprem... |
Shadow acquires Android emulation startup Genymobile | Romain Dillet | 2,023 | 1 | 20 | is making its first acquisition as it announced that it would snatch up Genymobile, the company behind . Shadow is better known for its cloud computing service that . It also offers a based on Nextcloud. As for Genymobile, the French startup has been around for more than a decade. It has specialized in low-level A... |
Smores is a music discovery app with a TikTok-like feed | Ivan Mehta | 2,023 | 1 | 19 | Music streaming platforms all claim to use both artificial intelligence and manual curation to find new songs from emerging artists. But users often have to listen to many songs just to find some likable tracks — that’s because they don’t have any control over the recommendation algorithm. Romanian developer duo Alex R... |
NASA’s ‘Mega Moon Rocket’ aced first flight and is ready for crewed Artemis II launch | Devin Coldewey | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | The enormous Space Launch System passed its first test with flying colors, NASA’s preliminary analysis concludes, and the rocket and Orion capsule are good to go for their next mission: Artemis II, which will carry a crew to lunar orbit. After numerous delays and enormous cost overruns, some worried that the SLS (nickn... |
What does selling to platform engineering teams mean for developer relations? | Anna Heim | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | tools over the last few years have seen the pendulum swing. On one hand, developers rarely need anyone’s permission to start using their tools, which resulted in teams within the same organization using wildly different tech stacks. On the other, a growing number of companies are attempting to limit this chaos at the ... |
Discord acquires Gas, a compliments-based social media app for teens | Amanda Silberling | 2,023 | 1 | 17 | The messaging platform , an app that’s popular among teens for its positive spin on social media. On Gas, users sign up with their school, add friends and answer polls about their classmates. But the questions in the polls are intended to boost users’ confidence rather than damage it. Teens might be asked to choose wh... |
TechCrunch+ roundup: No-code MVP strategy, hiring under scrutiny, A/B growth testing | Walter Thompson | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | Americans spent nearly $20 billion on pizza deliveries in 2021. Most of us could probably bake one at home, but speed and convenience are powerful incentives at dinnertime. The potential of AI tools like ChatGPT creates a similar dilemma — should companies license large language models without modifications, or customi... |
HBO’s ‘The Last of Us’ gets a second season following successful debut | Lauren Forristal | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | HBO today that the hit series “ ” is getting a second season, likely satisfying more than 22 million domestic viewers that watched the Season 1 premiere episode so far. On the night of the premiere, it was viewed by Americans. The announcement comes less than a week after “ ” debuted its second-ever episode, which h... |
Share Creators wants to solve asset management mess for game developers | Rita Liao | 2,023 | 1 | 19 | Finding a isn’t always easy, but when you are the end-user experiencing a real pain point, the solution might be more obvious. That’s the case for newly funded , a platform that helps game developers manage and store large media assets as remote work becomes increasingly common in the industry. Based in the Bay Area... |
OpenAI begins piloting ChatGPT Professional, a premium version of its viral chatbot | Kyle Wiggers | 2,023 | 1 | 11 | OpenAI this week signaled it’ll soon begin charging for , its viral AI-powered chatbot that can write essays, emails, poems and even computer code. In an announcement on the company’s official Discord server, OpenAI said that it’s “starting to think about how to monetize ChatGPT” as one of the ways to “ensure [the too... |
Daily Crunch: Stripe responds to report that it seeks to raise $2B with a terse ‘no comment’ | Christine Hall | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | Well, it’s Friday again. And as the Equity pod team noted today, “ .” — and Kano, the venture-backed U.K. startup known for its build-your-own computer kits and software for teaching coding and associated STEM skills, has and infringing on its intellectual property, reports. By any measure, Salesforce CEO Marc B... |
Warner Bros. swiped our Harry Potter wand IP, says Kano | Paul Sawers | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | , the U.K. startup for its build-your-own computer kits and software for and associated STEM skills, has accused Warner Bros. of copying one of its products and infringing on its intellectual property (IP). The product in question is the that Warner Bros. back in October, and which began shipping to consumers... |
Hear the right way to acquire customers with Cube and Mayfield on TechCrunch Live | Matt Burns | 2,023 | 1 | 27 | Finance people live and breathe spreadsheets, Mayfield’s Rajeev Batra was telling me. We were talking about our upcoming TechCrunch Live event featuring him and Cube’s Christina Ross, and Rajeev was explaining how he sees Cube’s position in the marketplace. Christina Ross co-founded the company in 2018 in a bid to prov... |
Built buys fellow construction robotics firm, Roin | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | One of the most remarkable things about construction robotics is the sheer breadth of tasks that can potentially be automated. As I’ve noted before, the entire category is a prime target for robotics startups, given that it fills all of the big Ds of automation — dull, dirty and (quite often) dangerous. It’s also one o... |
Construction robotics firm Kewazo raises $10 million | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 23 | Automating construction makes plain sense on the face of it. It’s one of the world’s biggest industries. It’s also among the most expensive and, often, dangerous. Certainly it checks off the three Ds (dull, dirty, dangerous) of automation quite plainly. We encountered Kewazo several years back when the Munich-based sta... |
Scythe raises $42 million for its electric robotic mower | Brian Heater | 2,023 | 1 | 24 | Scythe first hit our radar when it with a $13.8 million Series A. The world of robotic mowers is already a fairly crowded one, but while many are going after home applications (lawn Roombas, if you will), the Boulder, Colorado–based firm is specifically targeting commercial landscapers. “[The M.52 mower] is purpose-b... |
Apple Maps’ business listings are about to get more detailed with launch of ‘Apple Business Connect’ | Sarah Perez | 2,023 | 1 | 11 | Apple Maps today is gaining a new tool that will allow the decade-plus-old service to better compete with Google: It will now allow business owners to update and manage their own information on the platform, including key details like business hours and location, photos, logos, special offers and promotions, and more. ... |
Toyota’s surprise executive shakeup may disappoint investors | Tim De Chant | 2,023 | 1 | 28 | Toyoda, surprised the automotive world this week by he would resign his position and hand the reins over to Koji Sato, who currently helms the company’s Lexus and Gazoo Racing divisions. But Toyoda isn’t going far. The 66-year-old isn’t retiring outright, but instead retiring to the boardroom, where he’ll take over ... |
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