TechCrunch Industry News

General Motors is joining the list of big automakers picking their horses in the race to develop better batteries for electric vehicles with its lead of a $139 million investment into the lithium-metal battery developer, SES. Volkswagen has QuantumScape; Ford has invested in SolidPower (along with Hyundai and BMW); and now with SES’ big backing […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastch...

Third-party hardware integration can be a tricky thing. Peloton this week raised some eyebrows by dropping Apple GymKit compatibility for its Bike Bootcamp program. Users were, naturally, quick to react. The situation left some wondering whether the move was a direct response to Apple’s recent entry into the home exercise market with Fitness+. A Peloton […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Twitter has banned right-wing provocateur James O’Keefe, creator of political gotcha video producer Project Veritas, for violating its “platform manipulation and spam policy,” suggesting he was operating multiple accounts in an unsanctioned way. O’Keefe has already announced that he will sue the company for defamation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good news, Bay Area! Apple Pay now works with Clipper cards. That means you can now use an iPhone or Apple Watch to pay for BART. Or Muni. Or Caltrain. Or the Ferry! Or (almost) any other transit-related thing you’d otherwise use the plastic Clipper card for. Clipper has a page outlining the Apple Pay […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Microsoft is understandably positioning the latest additions to its Surface line as productivity devices. Laptop sales, in particular, have jumped amid the pandemic, as many have scrambled to shift to a work from home setting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s been about a year and a half since Amazon released the first Echo Buds. I reviewed them when they arrived, and they were, I don’t know, fine, I guess. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple only dropped info about WWDC two weeks back, but the company just announced another event – this one happening much sooner. After Siri spilled the beans this morning, the company has officially confirmed its next event for April 20. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The new Surface Laptop was the marquee arrival in today’s Microsoft announcement, but boy howdy, the company also dropped a whole bunch of new accessories. It’s a pretty broad range of new devices, including some small updates to existing products and entirely new entries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Workflow automation has been one of the key trends this year so far, and Zoho, a company known for its suite of affordable business tools has joined the parade with a new low code workflow product called Qntrl. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cleo Capital, a venture capital firm founded in 2018 by Sarah Kunst, is raising up to $20 million for its second fund, according to a source familiar with the matter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Starting this week, some Domino’s customers in Houston can have a pizza delivered without ever interacting with a human. The pizza delivery giant said Monday it has partnered with autonomous delivery vehicle startup Nuro to allow select customers to have their pizzas dropped at their door via Nuro’s R2 robot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Security researchers say APKPure, a widely popular app for installing older or discontinued Android apps from outside of Google’s app store, contained malicious adware that flooded the victim’s device with unwanted ads. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Historically, the transmasculine community has been neglected by the fashion world. But Both& is a new brand looking to offer clothing tailored specifically for transmasculine bodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The coronavirus pandemic has increased our collective screen time, and that’s particularly true on mobile devices. According to a new report from mobile data and analytics firm App Annie, global consumers are now spending an average of 4.2 hours per day using apps on our smartphones, an increase of 30% from just two years prior. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When the pandemic arrived in the U.S. early last year, companies scrambled to figure out what to do with their long-standing, in-person developer events. For Apple and Microsoft, that meant going virtual – something companies have done with mixed results. For Google, it meant calling off I/O all together. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yesterday we noted that Apple launched a new Find My Certification Asst. app, designed to test support for third-party hardware. Find My, of course, has been a long-standing feature for Apple’s own hardware like iPhones, AirPods and Macs, but back at WWDC, the company announced plans to open it up to manufacturers. Today the company […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/ad...

Facebook confirms it’s testing a new QR code feature and payment links for use with Facebook Pay to make it easier for people in the U.S. to send or request money from one another. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The last year has put a spotlight on mental health, and startup Real is looking to shake up the space with a product that makes group therapy available on-demand. Founded by CEO Ariela Safira, Real is inspired by a long-standing methodology in the world of mental health: Group therapy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two-year-old CRED has become the youngest Indian startup to be valued at $2 billion or higher. Bangalore-based CRED said on Tuesday it has raised $215 million in a new funding round — a Series D — that valued the Indian startup at $2.2 billion (post-money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple CEO Tim Cook dropped a few hints in an interview released Monday about the direction of the much-anticipated Apple car, including that autonomous vehicle technology will likely be a key feature. “The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view,” Cook told Kara Swisher in an interview on the “Sway” podcast. “If you […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Underrepresented founders are the most undervalued asset class in the U.S. today, and investors are starting to realize that diversity is not charity -- it’s economic opportunity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meesho said on Monday it has raised $300 million in a new financing round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 as the Indian social commerce startup works to become the “single ecosystem that will enable all small businesses to succeed online.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

U.S. consumers spent an average of $138 on iPhone apps last year, an increase of 38% year over year, largely driven by the pandemic impacts, according to new data from app store intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I use Feedly to work my way through each day’s stream of politics, tech, and media stories. Today, I am greeted with a picture of something called Feedly Cloud and the following message: Scheduled Maintenance Feedly will be back in less than 30 minutes. 60 minutes later, it still says that. Feedly is built on […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Launched in only November last year, the Craft Docs app — which was built from the ground up as an iOS app for collaborative documents — has secured an $8 million Series A round led by Creandum. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices