TechCrunch Industry News

VC firm Partech has raised a new fund focused on seed investments. Named Partech Entrepreneur III, it is the third seed fund from the VC firm. Partech announced the final closing of its previous seed fund in December 2016. The firm is looking for companies at the very early stage, from pre-seed to pre-Series A. […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

DJI had to kibosh its usual big unveil this time out, for obvious reasons, but the company won’t let a little thing like a global pandemic get in the way of an announcement. A little over two years after unveiling its lightweight Mavic Air, the drone giant is announcing the sequel. When I reviewed the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The original Pixel Buds weren’t very good. No way around it. Here’s a thing I wrote about them in a review titled “A disappointing debut for Google’s Pixel Buds“: As recently as a couple of years ago, they would have been a contender for the most compelling Bluetooth headphones on the market. But given the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To: Hans (Mr. Vestberg? Boss?) RE: An Epic opportunity We wanted to jot down this memo to pitch a deal that could remake Verizon’s fortunes in the media business. Every major carrier and internet provider has staked out a huge piece of real estate in the entertainment world with the exception of Verizon (the parent […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A massive database storing millions of credit card transactions has been secured after spending close to three weeks exposed publicly to the internet. The database belongs to Paay, a card payments processor based in New York. Like other payment processors, the company verifies payments on behalf of selling merchants, like online stores and other businesses, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Vi...

When the Air Force asked hackers to break into a F-15 fighter jet at last year’s Def Con security conference, the results were both eye-opening and eye-watering. It was the first time hackers were allowed to work on the system to look for bugs. In just two hours, a team of seven hackers found a […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Founders have always faced big challenges, but they pale in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Moving your business forward will require new thinking, new tools and new opportunities along with tried-and-true essentials. We’ve got you covered on all fronts. Case in point — catching investor attention in this climate will require a pitch par […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastcho...

Apple will patch a newly discovered iPhone vulnerability that security researchers say hackers have already used to steal data from their victims’ devices. News of the vulnerability dropped Wednesday by security firm ZecOps. Zuk Avraham, the company’s chief executive, said the firm found the bug last year during a routine investigation. At least six organizations […] Learn more about your ad choic...

Helena Price Hambrecht and Woody Hambrecht always had plans for Haus, their direct-to-consumer low-alcoholic drink, to land white-label partnerships with local restaurants. But when coronavirus spread across the country and hurt thousands of local restaurants, the Haus founders saw an opportunity to fast forward on that product plan and at the same time give back. […] Learn more about your ad choi...

Nintendo is selling a lot of Switches. The convertible console has been a lifesaver for people sheltering in place around the world. COVID-19-induced travel restrictions and the long-awaited arrival of Animal Crossing: New Horizons have proven to be a perfect storm for the three-year-old platform. New numbers out from NPD this morning shed some light […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit pod...

Over the past two years, I’ve typed nearly every word I’ve written while traveling on the iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard Folio. For more on why you can see my iPad Pro review here. For the purposes of this look at the new Magic Keyboard, though, you should probably just know two things: It was reliable, […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When I was 10 years old, my dad took me to Fenway Park for the first time. I remember quite clearly walking up the runway and seeing the brilliant green lawn and being totally and completely amazed. Now that’s a great customer experience. I was hooked simply by the beauty of the ballpark, even before […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Spanish bank Santander has launched a new product called PagoFX. As the name suggests, PagoFX focuses on foreign exchange and lets you send money in other currencies. In other words, it’s a TransferWise competitor. It is completely separated from Satander’s retail bank products. You don’t need a Santander bank account. While Santander puts its logo […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podca...

That NASA intends to collect a sample from Mars and return it to Earth is well known — they’ve said so many times. But how would they go about scooping up soil from the surface of a distant planet and getting it back here? With a plan that sounds straight out of sci-fi. Described by […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple has dropped a new iPhone SE on the market today. It’s a 4.7” iPhone with a physical home button, Touch ID, a single rear-facing camera and the A13 Bionic chip on board. With a $399 starting price point, the new SE is aimed squarely at new iPhone users or first time smartphone buyers but […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

US major stock indexes fell in Wednesday trading as new data from the Commerce Department and Federal Reserve indicated a collapse in manufacturing output and retail sales. However, the declines did not completely erase yesterday’s gains in another sign that US investors and corporations may be better positioned to withstand the economic shocks caused by […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Pokémon GO was built to be played outside, with friends, as you wandered around and explored interesting landmarks around you — or, you know, the exact opposite of what we’re supposed to be doing right now. Niantic has been working on transitioning the game into something that can still be played from your couch (Pokémon […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the COVID-19 death toll in the United States continues to climb, American stocks are, in a grim divergence, recovering lost ground. It isn’t clear precisely why locally-listed equities have risen in recent weeks, let alone today, but let’s go over the day’s results so that we’re all on the same page. In regular trading […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bruce Springsteen once wrote, “We’re living in the future and none of this has happened yet.” It seems that the world is changing before our eyes as COVID-19 has sent us all home and forced us and our institutions to change the way we operate overnight. As Box CEO Aaron Levie pointed out on Twitter […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Four months after breaking ground, the Lucid Motors factory in Arizona sits  — its new roof and sign emblazoned on its side— waiting for construction to resume. The electric vehicle company released Tuesday new photos of the factory located off Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Tucson. Construction was “well ahead of schedule” when Gov. Doug […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoi...

Apple and Google’s engineering teams have banded together to create a decentralized contact tracing tool that will help individuals determine whether they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19. Contact tracing is a useful tool that helps public health authorities track the spread of the disease and inform the potentially exposed so that they can […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit pod...

Sam Altman, former president of Y Combinator and CEO of OpenAI, tweeted out his goal to secure 1 billion masks in 180 days. The public just needs to crowdfund those masks, first. Altman, along with his brother Max Altman, an employee at Rippling, Radu Spineanu, the co-founder of Two Tap, Tinnei Pang, a designer at […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a sign of just how broken the process is for startups looking to receive stimulus dollars, Silicon Valley Bank, the bank that claims “more innovative startups bank with us than any other bank,” only just began processing claims today. “Since the CARES Act and the PPP were announced, we have been hard at work […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Google’s game-streaming service Stadia is now free for anyone with a Google account, the company announced today. Assuming you’ve got a compatible device and controller — and good internet in one of the 14 supported countries — you can sign up right now and get the “Pro” edition with a handful of built-in games for […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let’s channel our guilt into something good. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices