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Former Twitter India head joins Times Internet to lead its global partnerships business
Jon Russell
2,016
11
15
Well that was quick. , where he was head of its India business, Rishi Jaitly has revealed that he will take up the position of CEO at ‘s global business. Jaitly spent four years with Twitter and is one of a number of executives, including , to leave the U.S. firm’s Asia operations over the past month. Now he will le...
“Anti-smartphone” Light Phone runs into delays
Haje Jan Kamps
2,016
11
15
For people who feel that we are a little bit connected these days, Kickstarter project was promising a respite. It was scheduled to ship in May this year, but has seen a number of setbacks. This week, the company issued . It says that while it missed its goal, it hopes to start shipping later this month. Light Pho...
Crunch Report | Facebook’s Fake News Problem
Khaled "Tito" Hamze
2,016
11
15
Tito Hamze, John Mannes Tito Hamze  Joe Zolnoski  Joe Zolnoski TechCrunch C/O Tito Hamze 410 Townsend street Suite 100 San Francisco Ca. 94107
Logz.io raises $16 million so folks can better understand and monitor their networks
Jonathan Shieber
2,016
11
15
It may not be the most compelling technology for consumers, but for businesses, it’s important to know what’s going on in a network. That’s why Logz.io has managed to raise $16 million in a new round of financing from investors led by OpenView Venture Partners with participation from the company’s previous investors 83...
This is why Snapchat didn’t give Spectacles to techies
Josh Constine
2,016
11
15
If you want to make something cool, don’t give it to geeks first. Google Glass learned that the hard way. Despite Snapchat’s best efforts, Robert Scoble still got a hold of a pair of the . He’s the enthusiastic tech blogger above who shot a nude selfie wearing Google Glass in the shower that came to embody the gadget’...
Firefly takes $5.6M Series A for its online learning tool for schools
Natasha Lomas
2,016
11
15
, a London-based edtech company that launched its SaaS teaching and learning support platform for schools back in 2009, has taken its first VC investment as it looks to accelerate growth of its user base — announcing a £4.5 million Series A today. Lead investor in the round is  , which has put in £3 million. Beringea i...
Levie on what Trump could mean for tech
Katie Roof
2,016
11
15
Indiegogo enlists MicroVentures for a new investment platform
Brian Heater
2,016
11
15
For sites like , supporting a project generally means a pat on the back, a t-shirt or, best-case scenario, an early delivery of whatever it is that company is selling. Leveraging a recently passed securities rule signed into law by President Obama some six months back (part of the 2012 JOBS Act) that lowers the bar on...
Happy 20th birthday, ICQ!
Devin Coldewey
2,016
11
15
Uh-oh! It’s 20 years to the day since the introduction of one of the internet’s most well-remembered chat apps: ICQ. It was pretty barebones in its first form, released by its Israeli student creators in November 1996, but over the next year had versions available for Windows 95, 3.1 (not everyone wanted to upgrade) an...
Context is key for valuations
Jennifer Swanson Lowe
2,016
11
15
For most of the past five years, investors in private and public software companies prized revenue growth above all else. Investors were more than willing to overlook near-term profitability (or lack thereof) in favor of an acute focus on growth. As a result, entrepreneurs were encouraged to invest in building massiv...
Chinese scientists CRISPR a human for the first time
Sarah Buhr
2,016
11
15
A group of Chinese scientists injected a human being with cells genetically edited using CRISPR-Cas9 technology. This is the first time CRISPR has been used on a fully formed adult human and it’s encouraged a biomedical battle between China and the United States. The scientists from China are hoping the genetically edi...
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Darrell Etherington
2,016
11
23
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AMC Networks backs Funny or Die
Anthony Ha
2,016
11
15
Comedy site has sold a minority stake to AMC Networks. The deal is intended to strengthen the ties between Funny or Die and AMC’s IFC channel, , with IFC President Jennifer Caserta joining the site’s board of directors. (Funny or Die already produced the IFC series and the upcoming series .) Funny or Die was fou...
AI-powered virtual assistant, Mezi, pivots to focus on travel
Lora Kolodny
2,016
11
15
A startup that originally launched as an , Mezi, has pivoted to focus on travel only. And why not? There’s little to do online that’s more annoying than booking flights, hotels and everything else you need just to take a break, or be somewhere for work. allows users to find and book flights and hotels and make restau...
Intel announces $250 million for autonomous driving tech
Kristen Hall-Geisler
2,016
11
15
When decided to take a crack at its first keynote at an automotive event, it swung for the fences. The company’s CEO, Brian Krzanich, took the stage at the ‘s Automobility event this morning to announce that Intel Capital would be investing $250 million in autonomous driving over the next two years. Technologies tha...
Google’s AI Experiments help you understand neural networks by playing with them
Devin Coldewey
2,016
11
15
Google’s work in and artificial intelligence is often interesting, but it can be a bit academic. People like to get their hands on these things — as much as you can, anyway, with something intangible. To that end, Google is collecting a bunch of little demonstrations of this emerging category of tech in its . The id...
Google’s Wifi router is now up for pre-order
Brian Heater
2,016
11
15
Perhaps you missed the news about . Wouldn’t have been hard. The company announced the thing at the same event it debuted the Pixel and its Daydream headset, so no one spent all that much time talking about the new home networking hardware. If you weren’t privy to the news, by way of refresher, the simply named Wifi i...
DJI debuts a monitor add-on for its controllers
Brian Heater
2,016
11
15
Along with the debut of two drones at what we assume will be DJI’s last big news of the year, the company showed off a new display add-on for its controller, aimed to take the place of a smartphone. The CrystalSky comes in 5.5 (920×1080) or 7.85-inch( 2048 x 1536) configurations, offering an ultra-bright screen designe...
Snapchat has reportedly filed confidentially for its massive IPO
Matthew Lynley
2,016
11
15
Snapchat appears to be moving forward in its plans to go public early next year with the company filing confidentially for its IPO, . In recent years, companies have begun filing confidentially for their initial public offerings well ahead of revealing their financial guts in the formal IPO process. That gives a time ...
FBI will receive ‘limited’ Twitter firehose access through Dataminr, but has to watch its step
Devin Coldewey
2,016
11
15
The FBI has publicly to get at the “mission critical” Twitter firehose through third party monitoring service Dataminr. But Twitter, which has a 5 percent stake in Dataminr and of course has sovereign control over the firehose, recently told the company to . So what’s happening here? TechCrunch was told that the ser...
Data Ethics — The New Competitive Advantage
Gry Hasselbalch
2,016
11
12
We are living in an era defined and shaped by data. Data makes the world go round. It is politics, it is culture, it is everyday life and it is business. Our data-flooded era is one of technological progress, with tides rising at a never seen before pace. Roles, rights and responsibilities are reorganized and new eth...
Secret is coming back
Sarah Buhr
2,016
11
12
Secret, the anonymous sharing app developed by David Byttow and Chrys Bader-Wechseler, looks to be on its way to resurrection. The app was part of a wave of anonymous apps like Whisper and YikYak but after facing a lot of criticism over privacy and cyberbullying. Secret allowed anyone to post snippets of text like a r...
Facebook needs accountability to win back advertisers’ trust
James G. Brooks, Jr
2,016
11
12
The advertising industry let out a collective groan in September when Facebook a “discrepancy” in its reporting that led it to overstate how much time, on average, viewers were watching video. Because the error was huge — numbers were inflated as much as   for two years — and in Facebook’s favor, some were quick to...
We are on the verge of a consumer M&A avalanche
Ryan Caldbeck
2,016
11
12
If you believe in the mantra “innovate or die,” you might conclude that the largest and retail brands are terminally ill. Giants like Kraft and Clorox all seem to be too slow and enslaved to shareholders to innovate. At the same time, they may be too large to perish…  at least for now. What have here is the perfe...
Here’s where seed investors are scaling up
Joanna Glasner
2,016
11
12
 
Gillmor Gang: Optimizzle
Steve Gillmor
2,016
11
12
The Gillmor Gang — Keith Teare, Frank Radice, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Friday, November 11, 2016. McLuhan said the medium is the message. Our next President agreed, and decided Twitter is the medium. Plus the latest G3 (below) with Halley Suitt Tucker, Mary Hodder, Elisa Camahort Page, and Tina Chase Gillmor. @...
Pro-Trump CEO gets booted from Y Combinator over harassment concerns
Anthony Ha
2,016
11
12
Andrew Torba, founder of conservative social network  , has been removed from Y Combinator’s alumni network. To be clear, Gab.ai isn’t a part of YC — instead, Torba participated in the incubator through his previous startup,  (now known as ). However, his login to YC’s private social network, Bookface, has now been d...
Trump surveillance fears could lift privacy tech in Europe
Natasha Lomas
2,016
11
12
The full ramifications of Donald Trump being the next president of the United States of America will not be known for months — perhaps years. Given he’s a man of many conflicting words it’s near impossible to know which of his pledges and pronouncements he will keep or act upon, likely until his administration is up an...
I refuse to review Snapchat Spectacles — but I’m glad to have my hands back
Matthew Panzarino
2,016
11
12
don’t think these things — especially as a gadget. More of a hybrid marketing/consumer research experiment than an actual product launch, Snap, née Snapchat, Spectacles are one of the coolest, most fun bits of hardware I’ve used lately and I just . But they’re not a full rollout of a hardware product. Reviewing the...
Facebook wants to make you secure no matter how hard you make it
Ron Miller
2,016
11
12
When you have a billion people using your service, you have an obligation to keep your users secure, even when they behave in unsafe ways. Alex Stamos, Chief Security Officer (CSO) at Facebook, speaking at last week, told a quick story to show what his company was up against when it came to security. “The family car ...
Is Netflix Disney’s next big buy and is Reed Hastings its next CEO?
Peter Csathy
2,016
11
13
Last month, and surprisingly spry international subscriber growth. But, make no mistake, it’s all-out war in our Internet-driven and increasingly mobile-first Media 2.0 world of OTT premium video.  And, Netflix is directly in the line of sight and vulnerable both short and long-term. AT&T, , just dropped its bombsh...
Samsung is buying Harman for $8B to further its connected car push
Jon Russell
2,016
11
13
Samsung is increasing its focus on the connected car after the Korean firm plans to buy auto and audio product maker  in an all cash deal worth $8 billion. You may best associate the name with audio equipment, but Harman is big on cars, too. The acquisition is Samsung’s largest to date and a big deal for its automot...
Naver to launch $43M fund to seek out investments for its Snow and Webtoon services
Jon Russell
2,016
11
13
Naver, the company behind U.S.-Japan-listed chat app Line, has teamed up with SoftBank to launch a global investment fund worth $43 million to help two of its promising services push on. The “SB Next Media Innovation Fund” is designed to invest in startups and technologies that have synergies with Snow — a Snapchat clo...
Snapchat Spectacles vending machine page starts 24-hour countdown to next location
Darrell Etherington
2,016
11
12
Snapchat’s going to be selling Spectacles at another location in just under 24 hours as of Saturday morning, as the company’s started a 24 hour countdown timer as of 7 AM PT (10 AM ET). The sleeping bot on Snap’s Spectacles locator page will presumably be replaced by an updated map when the countdown runs out, showin...
Trendspotting
Jon Evans
2,016
11
12
Brexit and Trump; applied CRISPR and the Gigafactory; the rise of self-driving vehicles, the fall of pollsters; the global saturation of smartphones, the first mass-market VR headsets; the first drone-delivered terror bomb, the first drone drug mule; Signal and the Secure Enclave; Ethereum and the DAO; AI and SpaceX — ...
WTF is computer vision?
Devin Coldewey
2,016
11
13
room throws you a ball and you catch it. Simple, right? What actually happens is roughly this: the image of the ball passes through your eye and strikes your retina, which does some elementary analysis and sends it along to the brain, where the visual cortex more thoroughly analyzes the image. It then sends it out to...
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Frederic Lardinois
2,016
11
15
null
Driving the Midwest
John Biggs
2,016
11
12
L ast September, in the depths of high summer, my wife and I wanted to see the Midwest again. It’s not a very common desire, this one, to drive hours between small Midwestern cities with nothing but cornfields and rest stops in between. But it was a good trip. We began in Brooklyn and drove across the Verrazano, a brid...
Defining our relationship with early AI
Andrew Heikkila
2,016
11
13
Artificial intelligence has fascinated mankind for more than half a century, with the first public mention of computer intelligence recorded during a London lecture by . More recently, the public has been exposed to headlines that have increasingly contained references to the growing power of , whether that’s been ...
How President Trump could abuse big data and the surveillance state
Jon Stokes
2,016
11
13
, gun-loving, white, male entrepreneur of some means, you might think I’m not feeling personally threatened by a Trump administration. You’d be wrong. You see, as one of the founders of and the guy who, for the first half of the site’s existence, , I have watched from up close as America’s executive branch, workin...
Zencaster makes it easier to record high-quality podcast audio
Haje Jan Kamps
2,016
11
13
With podcasting growing rapidly as a medium, a new generation of audio-recording tools are appearing. is a great example. The company’s new product, launched today, is designed to make it easier to record high-quality audio for interviewees based anywhere in the world. The problem the company is solving is that phone...
FriendFinder Networks hack reportedly exposed over 412 million accounts
Megan Rose Dickey
2,016
11
13
If you have an account on AdultFriendFinder, Cams.com, Penthouse, Stripshow and/or iCams.com — and reused it on other sites — you should probably change your password. FriendFinder Networks, the parent company of those sites, has reportedly been hacked, resulting in the leak of of over 412 million accounts, (h/t to  ...
How Facebook can escape the echo chamber
Anna Escher
2,016
11
13
Facebook may have built an influence so large that it’s cracking under the weight of its News Feed. Mark Zuckerberg began an interview on stage at Techonomy16  and Facebook’s impact on the election. Post-election, journalists, politicians, and pundits have questioned  , debating the merits of Facebook’s position of pri...
Snapchat’s Spectacles are now on sale near Big Sur in California
Darrell Etherington
2,016
11
13
The Big Sur Snapbot is , so if you’re looking to grab a pair, you’ll have to wait for the next popup location. Spectacles are on sale again, in their second ever pop-up location (the first was at ) – and people in and around Loma Vista near Big Sur state park are the new lucky lotto winners who can now purchase a pa...
How drones will reshape the enterprise
Alexander Niehenke
2,016
11
13
Most people associate with troops and mad scientists tinkering around in their backyards. Thanks to technological breakthroughs — including longer and safer flights — and new federal enacted this year, use is expanding beyond military and consumer markets and is seeping into the . Analysts at PwC the emergin...
Zuckerberg claims 99% of Facebook posts “authentic,” denies fake news there influenced election
Lora Kolodny
2,016
11
13
In case you missed it, last night Mark Zuckerberg to accusations that “fake news” on Facebook influenced the outcome of the U.S. election, and helped Donald Trump to win. The CEO claimed that at least 99% of news content on Facebook was “authentic.” Zuckerberg wrote: “Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99% of ...
Why the next great SaaS company will look nothing like Salesforce
Aaref Hilaly
2,016
11
13
For years, a truism in software investing was that the value of application software lies in data, not in technology. Companies like , , and are valuable because they are the “system of record” (SoR), or single source of truth, for their customers’ most valuable information, such as customer records or employee d...
Spark Capital suddenly has $1 billion to invest
Connie Loizos
2,016
11
14
, whose investments have included Twitter and Cruise Automation, has closed on $1 billion in commitments, it earlier today. The 11-year-old firm, which has offices in Boston, San Francisco, and New York, closed its fifth early-stage fund with $400 million, down slightly from the it had raised for its fourth-early s...
WhatsApp launches video calling for everyone
Josh Constine
2,016
11
14
WhatsApp wants to be international cross-platform FaceTime. Today, the Facebook-owned chat service WhatsApp is officially launching video calling for its over 1 billion users worldwide on iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Its debut follows a  from people who recently found the feature had been enabled in beta versions of...
Zuora latest cloud company to launch predictive data product
Ron Miller
2,016
11
14
, the cloud company that helps SaaS companies and others manage their subscription businesses, launched Zuora Insights today, a product designed to help customers understand the nuances of the data behind the subscriptions. Like so many SaaS companies these days, Zuora understands that there is value in the data they p...
Meet Impact VC, a new firm from Accel and DCM founder Dixon Doll
Lora Kolodny
2,016
11
14
One of the co-founders of Accel Partners and DCM, , recently formed a new venture firm called , along with and . Ball previously served as Oracle’s treasurer, where he helped manage $50 billion in assets. And Crawford was previously an investor and founded Velocity Venture Capital. Both are also former Kauffman fe...
Amazon now pays out instantly for video game trade-ins
Jon Russell
2,016
11
14
Amazon is gearing up for the Christmas season by allowing customers to get instant vouchers for trading their unwanted possessions. The U.S. retail giant has long-offered in exchange for gift card credit, but now — with Christmas just 40 days away — its new ‘Instant Payment’ service lets you get your money right away...
RageDonate turns Trump anger into charitable good
Kate Conger
2,016
11
14
A host of organizations have capitalized on the anger that followed the election of Donald Trump. The American Civil Liberties Union says it received its “ ” ever in the days following the election. The New York Times is signing up new subscribers faster than normal. And Planned Parenthood has called for donations in...
DroneBase raises from Union Square to pay any pilot for aerial footage
Josh Constine
2,016
11
14
That drone in your closet could earn you some money thanks to , a startup that delivers aerial data and footage to business clients. DroneBase’s new lets drone owners find gigs nearby where they can fly 10-minute missions, upload the assets and get paid if a DroneBase client wants to buy the info. By connecting idle...
A real teen’s take on Snapchat’s hot new Spectacles
Daniel Singer
2,016
11
14
on my home screen since when it took the LA high school scene by storm in 2012. Evan Spiegel first launched at his old high school in Los Angeles, which was down the street from my house. The simple concept of doodling on pictures of my friends on Snapchat was what I first fell in love with, then came stories and th...
GoodLands partners with ESRI to launch the Catholic Geographic System
Samantha O'Keefe
2,016
11
14
Religion and technology are not two phrases that often go hand in hand. Molly Burhans is looking to change that. Growing up Catholic in upstate New York, Burhans had the intention of becoming a nun. However, after studying landscape and ecological design in graduate school, she discovered a different calling. In her co...
Adobe makes big bets on AI and the public cloud
Frederic Lardinois
2,016
11
14
held its annual MAX conference for users of its Creative Cloud earlier this month. That’s where the company usually announces new and upcoming features to applications like Photoshop or Premiere Pro. This year, however, Adobe also introduced  , its new artificial intelligence- and machine learning-based platform that ...
xAd raises $42.5M more, buys WeatherBug to boost location-specific marketing
Ingrid Lunden
2,016
11
14
, the ad network that serves you ads in apps and mobile web pages based on your location, is today announcing another hefty round of funding, as well as its first acquisition in the world of consumer apps to grow its audience and data set. The company has raised $42.5 million, and it’s buying , the popular weather app...
Valuation metrics show weakening for the fourth straight quarter
Connie Loizos
2,016
11
14
The law firm quietly released its third-quarter venture capital survey this past Friday, and its findings aren’t exactly shocking. At the same time, they hint at problems to come for some startups. The survey, which analyzed the valuations and terms of financings for 149 Bay Area companies that raised capital in the ...
Facebook chose to fight fake news with AI, not just user reports
Josh Constine
2,016
11
14
versions of a fix for clickbait this year, and decided to trust algorithmic machine learning detection instead of only user behavior, a Facebook spokesperson tells TechCrunch. Today Facebook was hit with more allegations its distribution of fake news helped elect Donald Trump. A new saying Facebook shelved a planned...
Marshall’s new Bluetooth headphones promise 30 hours of life on a charge
Brian Heater
2,016
11
14
“Mid” is probably not the most intuitive name for a premium addition to an existing product category. But there you have it. Marshall’s latest on-ear Bluetooth headphones join the company’s (surprisingly good) Major II offering, priced at an additional $50. The $200 cans retain Marshall’s familiar aesthetic – you eithe...
Guess where Spectacles are going on sale next and win some TechCrunch swag
Fitz Tepper
2,016
11
14
We’re four days into the launch of Snapchat Spectacles and the hype has shown no signs of letting up. Snapchat has deployed its in two different locations so far –  in Los Angeles and a , California. Both locations were announced at 7AM local time, at which point it was a mad rush to get in line – hundreds of people...
GE Digital snags ServiceMax for $915 million
Ron Miller
2,016
11
14
announced today it was buying , a cloud-based field service management company, for $915 million. GE Ventures had been an investor in the company as part of the $82 million Series F round in 2015. The two companies have more in common than you might think. GE is building the Predix Platform, on top of which it hopes c...
German online wealth management platform Cashboard scores €3M Series A
Steve O'Hear
2,016
11
22
, an online wealth management startup based in Berlin, has closed €3 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Digital Space Ventures, with participation from existing investors Redalpine Capital, Earlybird, and 500 Startups. Other previous backers include Makers, and ProSiebenSat.1. The German fintech startup ...
Dear Facebook, please fix the plague of fake news before you ruin foreign elections too
Romain Dillet
2,016
11
14
It’s true, Facebook isn’t single-handedly responsible for the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. But the company played an important part in the rise of Donald Trump. Many people now think Facebook has to find a way to flag fake news appropriately before the next election in 2020. But it’s a much more urgent is...
Zugata raises $7 million to make annual performance reviews obsolete
Lora Kolodny
2,016
11
14
Even before they began to graduate from college, millennials drove , from management and recruiting practices to the design of office interiors. But companies are still adapting and figuring out what matters most to this large demographic and employee base. Now, a tech startup called has raised $7 million in Series ...
Investing in the future of urbanization
Connie Loizos
2,016
11
14
For roughly a year, Niko Bonatsos, a managing director at the venture firm , didn’t make a single investment. He was meeting with startups daily, as it’s his job to do. But Bonatsos, who General Catalyst to Snapchat in 2012, was finding it hard to be inspired by what he was saw. That changed in September, says Bonat...
Secure messaging app Telegram now offers its own anonymous blogging platform
Jon Russell
2,016
11
22
Telegram, the security-focused messaging app, has launched its own take on blogging platforms. If you’re among Telegram’s 100 million-plus active users then the new service will be much as you’d expect. It’s minimalist and anonymous — you can add your name if you wish — with support for markdown, in-line photos and o...
India’s tech bubble is about to burst
TechCrunch Staff
2,016
11
14
  The Silicon Valley “tech bubble” is a popular topic of discussion among business pundits, entrepreneurs and analysts who have dissected and predicted the upcoming “burst” for nearly the last decade. For all the talk of and a slowdown in private capital markets, it’s hard to say if, or when, this will ever come to a...
Agricool harvests $4.3 million to grow fruits and vegetables in containers
Romain Dillet
2,016
11
22
French startup has raised $4.3 million (€4 million) from newly launched VC firm as well as Parrot founder Henri Seydoux and Captain Train ( ) co-founder Jean-Daniel Guyot. Agricool’s product is quite unusual as the company wants to grow strawberries and later other fruits and vegetables inside shipping containers. ...
Twitter mistakenly suspended its own CEO’s Twitter account
Jon Russell
2,016
11
22
November 2016: the month that Facebook ‘killed’ its CEO Mark Zuckerberg (and ) and Twitter suspended its CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey. That’s right, social media glitches have embarrassed two of the world’s premier social networks lately. Hot on the heels of its founder as dead, so today Dorsey — the visionary beh...
Shopify’s experimental product shop launches flash sales app Frenzy
Darrell Etherington
2,016
11
22
Shopify’s Garage group is a product skunkworks of sorts, and it’s launching a new app called today, focused on flash sales, just in time for that most consumerist of holidays — Thanksgiving. Limited-release sales are big again, with Yeezy raffles all over the place and Snapchat just dotting the map with expiring Snap...
Ditto is now in Pokémon GO
Greg Kumparak
2,016
11
22
This post is going to be brief because I’m about two seconds from running outside to catch me some Ditto, but: Reports are pouring in left and right that Ditto has, at long last, been added to Pokémon GO. The lil’ purple blob has been curiously absent from the game since launch, but the reason wasn’t too hard to figure...
Crunch Report | Tesla and SolarCity-powered Island
Khaled "Tito" Hamze
2,016
11
22
Tito Hamze, John Mannes Tito Hamze  Gregory Manalo  Gregory Manalo TechCrunch C/O Tito Hamze 410 Townsend street Suite 100 San Francisco Ca. 94107
Google’s AI translation tool seems to have invented its own secret internal language
Devin Coldewey
2,016
11
22
All right, don’t panic, but . Well, that’s kind of an oversimplification, and the last part is just plain untrue. But there a fascinating and existentially challenging development that Google’s AI researchers recently happened across. You may remember that back in September, Google . It uses deep learning to produc...
Bad PR agencies can kill a startup before it has a chance to succeed
Colin Jordan
2,016
11
22
Right now there’s a multi-million-dollar con being played on employees, investors and founders of startup companies — and they don’t even realize it. In a dying media world where quality coverage has become invaluable to a rising startup, public relations agencies charge startups anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000+ pe...
Starbucks starts selling Ember mugs, which keep your drink at a steady temp for hours
Lora Kolodny
2,016
11
22
Last year, ran a crowdfunding campaign on to build a mug that keeps hot drinks at the perfect sipping temperature. By now, it’s sold 4,000 of these devices. And in something of a coup for the startup, has begun selling in its stores across most of the U.S. and online for $149.95. Whether it’s coffee, cocoa or t...
TechCrunch Gift Guide 2016
Travis Bernard
2,016
11
22
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Facebook built censorship tool to get into China despite human rights risks
Josh Constine
2,016
11
22
Facebook wants to be unbanned in China, so it’s built a censorship tool that could hide posts about prohibited topics from people in China, according to ‘ Mike Isaac. Rather than censor posts itself, Facebook would potentially provide the tool to a third-party in China such as a local partner company that could use it...
Lab-made meat startup Memphis Meats hopes to grow a Thanksgiving turkey
Sarah Buhr
2,016
11
22
sizzled onto the startup stage earlier this year with a lab-grown meatball. Now, it’s entertaining the idea of growing other meats — including turkey. The startup has created an to save some of the nearly 50 million birds from the slaughter each Thanksgiving by educating the public on what meat of the future could lo...
Patient data API pivotal to DeepMind’s push into UK’s NHS
Natasha Lomas
2,016
11
22
with the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS), initially focused on building an app for helping early detection of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI), was  — under a new information-sharing agreement with the Royal Free NHS Trust, and a broader scope for the collaboration. The agreement lasts until at least 2021. Under the ar...
Don’t know what they want? Give a pre-swappable Snappy Gift
Josh Constine
2,016
11
22
Pick the suggested gift or swap it for one you like better You go to , choose a price range and then select from a collection of gifts your recipient will choose from, like ‘gadgets’, ‘cooking’, ‘outdoors’ or ‘teens.’ You can then designate a suggested gift from legit brands like DJI drones, Amazon mobile devices, GoP...
SpaceX wins NASA launch contract for first-ever global survey of Earth’s water
Darrell Etherington
2,016
11
22
NASA has to provide the launch services for an April 2021 mission with the aim of surveying all of Earth’s surface water for the first time. The launch of the “Surface Water and Topography” mission will be handled by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, taking off from Launch Complex 4E at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base....
Zola wedding registry lands $25 million led by Lightspeed
Jordan Crook
2,016
11
22
, the smarter wedding gift registry, has signed term sheets on a $25 million Series C round of funding, according to sources close to the matter. Sources say that Lightspeed led the round, and that Zola’s pre-funding valuation was at $200 million. Zola is an online wedding registry that lets couples choose products fro...
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Sarah Buhr
2,016
11
14
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Platio turns sidewalks into solar collectors
John Biggs
2,016
11
22
Platio is a new company from Hungary dedicated to putting solar panels just about everywhere. They’re starting with sidewalks. Founded by a team of engineers and architects the system uses solid solar panels overlaid on plastic backing that ensures the panels won’t break when stepped on or rolled over and that each pan...
Building jobs, not walls, in Silicon Valley
Ravi Mhatre
2,016
11
22
election cycle that has provoked a lot of emotion and debate is immigration. To oversimplify, it comes down to whether new immigrant groups coming to the United States is a good thing or a bad thing. I can only tell you my experience, which is that of a son of an immigrant man who left India for a shot at building a...
Draper Nexus closes $175 million fund, LP’s include Panasonic, Canon and other Japanese tech giants
Lora Kolodny
2,016
11
22
Early stage venture firm, , has closed its second fund at $175 million, according to Managing Director . Its debut fund closed in 2013, at $50 million. Limited partners in Draper Nexus are global tech conglomerates, primarily based in Japan. For its second fund, the firm signed up about 20 LP’s including Panasonic, H...
Black Friday online sales to hit a record-breaking $3 billion, over $1 billion from mobile
Sarah Perez
2,016
11
25
Black Friday online shopping is continuing to grow, and this Friday was another record-breaking day. According to a new report out this evening from Adobe, which has been tracking e-commerce transactions throughout the sales holiday, Black Friday is on track to set a new record by surpassing the $3 billion mark for the...
No Man’s Sky’s upcoming update paves the way for building bases
Darrell Etherington
2,016
11
25
The sci-fi universe wandering game got a vocal and sizeable negative reception after a portion of players felt it overpraised with hype and pre-release advertising but didn’t deliver ultimately with actual gameplay. I , but it might be because I didn’t pay very much attention to the actual promises being made by stu...
Siren Care makes a “smart” sock to track diabetic health
Sarah Buhr
2,016
11
25
 smart s  that use temperature sensors to detect inflammation — and therefore injury — in realtime for diabetics. Co-founder Ran Ma was working on growing biomass to grow back skin that had been damaged while at Northwestern University when she started learning how to treat diabetic feet and thought of making a wearabl...
How to recruit, hire and retain female engineers
Sharon Wienbar
2,016
11
25
Leaders at tech startups are alarmed by the absence of women from mission-critical roles — software engineering, especially — at their own companies. Their boards are saying, “We gave you the money to grow, grow, grow, but you’re not. You don’t have the engineers to get it done.” The board can’t miss that you only se...
Sphero’s BB-8 wearable brings Force control to home automation with IFTTT support
Brian Heater
2,016
11
25
Sphero’s BB-8 was the most memorable bit of merchandizing among last year’s epic  merchandising bonanza. It was the perfect piece of synergy – leveraging the hardware startup’s compelling piece of remote control technology to bring to life the film’s most marketable creation. This year the company looked to take thing...
Watch Dogs 2 lampoons Silicon Valley with open-world hacking fun
Darrell Etherington
2,016
11
25
It was like Grand Theft Auto except it took itself and its melodramatic, sad sack hero very seriously. Watch Dogs 2 will probably hold a special charm for anyone who’s lived or worked in the Bay area, including Silicon Valley. The game uses San Francisco and its surrounding area as the canvas for its tale of counterc...
Jill Stein campaign files to recount votes in Wisconsin
Lora Kolodny
2,016
11
25
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, and independent party candidate Rocky De La Fuente, today filed for a recount of votes in the state of Wisconsin after Stein raised more than $5.2 million via to pursue “election integrity.” Stein’s crowdfunding campaign raised donations after a group of legal and cybers...
Salesforce serves as training ground for SaaS startup execs
Ron Miller
2,016
11
25
When startups go looking for executive talent, they want someone with some experience working for a successful organization. When it comes to the cloud, there is a dearth of expertise — with one notable exception — Salesforce. Perhaps, that’s why , has become a pipeline for executive talent. The company launched in 19...
Japan looks to create a superfast supercomputer for deep learning
Brian Heater
2,016
11
25
Japan is reportedly eyeing a return to the top of the supercomputer ranks. The county’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to spend 19.5 billion yen ($173 million) on a new supercomputer, according to budget filings , with aims of developing a machine capable of 130 petaflops. That number would put the comp...
Mobile and enterprise are the keys to VR/AR scale
Michael Boland
2,016
11
25
Though PC and console VR are the sexier formats we’re all excited about, is mobile where VR will really scale in the near term? This is a question I’ve been posing to investors and innovators for an upcoming research report. For example, despite impending  , IDC 2 million tethered VR headsets will be sold this year...
Giving corporate innovation a jolt
Armin Prommersberger
2,016
11
25
Today’s competitive business world demands innovation. Corporations need to innovate to inspire, compete and survive. However, the burden of innovation has largely rested on startups. Large corporations and established businesses are expected to out-think their rivals, but more often we see that they rely on minor pr...
Xiaomi admits it doesn’t make money on smartphone hardware sales
Darrell Etherington
2,016
11
25
Xiaomi’s business model isn’t about selling handsets, except insofar as those handset sales lead to recurring service revenue later on. So said Xiaomi global VP and former Android VP Hugo Barra in an interview with . The executive for the device maker was commenting on a drop in its smartphone sales in China, explaini...