TechCrunch Industry News

The path forward now seems pretty clear. First we get through the grim month-and-more ahead, supporting health care workers in any way we can. (Tip: findthemasks.com lists where to donate PPE, personal protective equipment, in the US. If you have any, do so. We are very literally all in this together, and they need it […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With U.S. consumers asked to refrain from social gatherings and shelter-in-place at home due to COVID-19, media consumption is prepared to boom. Based on Nielsen data from prior major crises in recent U.S. history that forced consumers to stay home, total TV usage increased by nearly 60%. We’re not there yet, but consumption is starting […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.co...

Work in the time of coronavirus is driving huge growth in videoconferencing, as scores of office workers go remote and log on to meetings from home. Zoom — which offers a range of slick features like auto-transcription and virtual backgrounds — has been a key beneficiary of this viral boom. Back in February research analysts […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a volatile trading session that saw the White House signal intentions to release the largest stimulus package since the great recession of 2008, American stocks made up for yesterday’s losses with major indices rising sharply. The return to gains was welcome after stocks posted huge losses to begin the week, tripping the market’s circuit […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoice...

At what is now a daily coronavirus press briefing at the White House, President Trump today said that Google CEO Sundar Pichai called him to apologize. What Pichai apologized for wasn’t immediately clear, but Trump then went on to praise Google’s communications team for supposedly substantiating Trump’s comments about Google’s coronavirus screening site. “I want […] Learn more about your ad choice...

Yesterday, San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a lockdown for six Bay Area Counties: San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda. The public health order marks a big step to help reduce movement, potential transmission of COVID-19, of the nearly 7 million people within the Bay Area. It is important to […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/...

Tesla said Monday it has started delivering the Model Y crossover to customers in the U.S., hitting a milestone one year after unveiling the prototype and six months ahead of schedule. Reports of deliveries started last week. The tweet from Tesla, which included a video of the Model Y being assembled and then hitting the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An engineer from Charter, one of the largest phone and internet providers in the U.S., sent an email blast to a senior vice president and hundreds of engineers on Friday. In the email, Nick Wheeler, a video operations engineer based in Denver, criticized his employer for not allowing its staff to work from home despite ongoing […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoic...

After several weeks worth of leaks, the latest version of Apple/Beat’s Powerbeats arrive this week. One key thing many of the rumors got wrong is the name. There will be no Powerbeats 4 — not for now, at least. Instead, the company’s somewhat confusingly doing away with the number scheme in favor of the simpler […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brizzly, the name associated with a long-gone Twitter client, and later, a goofy project highlighting our addiction to social media, is coming back. And this time, it’s focused on serving the needs of Twitter power users in search of features Twitter itself has failed to build — like an Edit button and an auto-deletion option for tweets, among other things. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

American-listed shares are off sharply this morning, falling after a steep selloff yesterday was not staunched by a presidential address. The declines echo what happened to Asian-listed stocks earlier today. All major American indices are now in bear-market territory, having shed the requisite 20% from recent highs. Today’s carnage is simply bleak. As we write to you, here’s where stocks are: Dow...

Have you ever seen a dead cat bounce? It’s a term that Wall Street traders coined to describe the moment when collapsing markets briefly rise before resuming a downward trajectory. It looks like investors new to the notion of an economic downturn may have seen their first such bounce yesterday. The glacial domestic response to the spreading novel coronavirus in the U.S. Learn more about your ad ch...

NASA’s ambitious plan to put boots on the Moon in 2024 is looking increasingly costly — and increasingly unlikely — if the current cost overruns and delays are any indication, according to a report by the agency’s Office of the Inspector General. “NASA’s continued struggle with managing SLS Program costs and schedule has the potential to impact the Agency’s ambitious goals for the Artemis program,...

The European Parliament is instructing managers to prepare for all but a minority of staff to work remotely for 70% of the week as of next Monday — dialling up its response to Covid-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Full-time remote working may follow, it has also said. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It appears that the teaser from President Donald Trump’s press conference last night about the steps that the U.S. government might take to soften the economic blow of a more severe response from the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. has had the desired effect. At least it looks that way, given how the stock market opened regular trading hours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.co...

A small consolation in the growing COVID-19 crisis is that some of our moderate germophobia has begun to feel like a minor super power. As I got settled for a cross-country flight last week, I took out my hand wipes and did a whole number on the screen, tray table and arm rests, and this time no one looked at me funny. I go to a lot of conferences and trade shows and have to shake a lot of hands (...

Welcome to the bloodbath. This morning trading was halted on the major stock exchanges after the S&P 500 fell to 7% triggering what are one of the so-called circuit breakers to stop an absolute market rout. Within seconds of opening stocks fell sharply lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 872.42(or 3.37%) to 24,9992.36, the S&P 500 slipping 193.41 (6.51%) to 2,778.96, and the Nasdaq o...

John Oliver slammed Disney-owned Hotstar on Sunday for censoring his show, “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” in India, saying the local streaming service has edited at least three episodes in recent months. A recent episode of “Last Week Tonight”, in which Oliver criticised the Indian government’s recent policies and its leader, Narendra Modi, never aired on Hotstar.[The same episode is availab...

On Friday, Facebook announced that it would further attempt to limit coronavirus-related chaos on its platform by banning commerce listings and advertisements for medical face masks. “We’re monitoring COVID19 closely and will make necessary updates to our policies if we see people trying to exploit this public health emergency,” Facebook Director of Product Management Rob Leathern said in an updat...

Are you tired of TechCrunch reporting on the daily stock market gyrations? Well, we’re tired of writing about them. And yet here we are, because stonks yet again did wild things that we have to talk about. Markets are still skittish about the effect the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus, COVID-19, will have on the economy. And the U.S. is still figuring out exactly how many people in the country...

Bluecrew, a flexible staffing business owned by holding company IAC, is launching a new mobile app called Bluecrew Manager. Rather than relying on a network of independent contractors, Bluecrew hires its own W-2 employees, who in turn have the option to accept hourly jobs from Bluecrew customers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Israeli AI chipmaker Hailo today announced that it has raised a $60 million Series B funding round led by its existing investors, who were joined by new strategic investor ABB Technology Ventures, the venture arm of the Swiss-based multination ABB, NEC Corporation and Londons’ Latitude Ventures. The new funding will help Hailo to roll out its Hailo-8 Deep Learning chip and to get into new markets...

Just a few weeks back at CES, Google gave a sneak peak of a feature that would let your Android devices read entire web pages aloud to you — perfect for when you don’t have a hand free to scroll but still need to catch up on some text, or for when you just don’t feel like looking at your screen anymore. You’d say “Hey Google, read this page”, and they’d spin up Google Assistant’s neural networks t...

On a day that saw the U.S. Federal Reserve try to flip the only switch it can to light up investor confidence, investors remained unconvinced of the short-term financial prospects of the U.S. and global economies. All three major indices saw red on Tuesday after a sharp Monday rally partially erased their historically bad week that came before. The see-saw of domestic equities continued for yet an...

Apple agrees to settlement of up to $500 million from lawsuit alleging it throttled older phones Apple Inc. has agreed to pay a settlement of up to $500 million, following a lawsuit accusing the company of intentionally slowing down the performance of older phones to encourage customers to buy newer models or fresh batteries. The preliminary proposed class action lawsuit was disclosed Friday night...