TechCrunch Industry News

This is, surely, the moment some loyal fans have waited for. And understandably so. The Galaxy Fold is, by all measures, an exciting phone. It’s the sort of bold brashness that has helped Samsung set itself apart from the competition. Many of us laughed at the Galaxy Note, too, and yet here we are, with larger phones across the board. Five months after originally planned, the Galaxy Fold goes on s...

In way, these new wireless controllers from 8BitDo kind of defeat the purpose of the Switch Lite. So, why do I kind of want them? Honestly, I’m pretty enamored with the new, more portable version of Nintendo’s wildly successful console. As I noted in a recent review, it’s exactly the take on the Switch I was looking for as a TV-less frequent traveler. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcas...

Verizon this week announced that it’s finally begun to flip the switch on its 5G network in parts of New York City, along with Panama City and Boise. That brings the wireless carrier’s (disclosure: also TechCrunch’s parent) totally number up to 13 cities with a taste of the next ten network. Here in NYC, 5G will touch three of the five boroughs (my home base of Queens, sadly, is not among them). M...

Amazon’s new Echo Dot With Clock is a new Echo Dot that has a clock Today’s deluge of Amazon hardware kicked off with a new addition to the Echo Dot line, the Echo Dot With Clock. That’s it. That’s the name. It is, as advertised, an Echo dot with a digital alarm clock built into the front, next to the speaker grille. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Apple has just released iOS 13.1. This updated brings everything new in iOS 13 in case you haven’t updated yet, as well as many bug fixes. I would recommend updating to iOS 13.1 to get a more stable phone. But that’s not all. iPadOS and tvOS are finally making the jump to version 13 with iPadOS 13.1 and tvOS 13.1 also available today. The update is currently rolling out and is available in the Set...

On Friday afternoon Chef CEO Barry Crist and CTO Corey Scobie sat down with TechCrunch to defend their contract with ICE after a firestorm on social media called for them to cut ties with the controversial agency. On Sunday, programmer Seth Vargo, the man who removed his open source components, which contributed to a partial shutdown of Chef’s commercial business for a time last week, responded. L...

Audio sharing is among the more delightful features arriving as part of Apple’s iOS 13 update. With it, users will be able to share songs across nearby device — a sort of 2019 version of buying a headphone splitter or handing someone your earbud. Beats pinged TechCrunch this morning to let us know that the new addition will be arriving on a number of its new headphones, in addition to AirPods. Lea...

After two years of work, the wrapper comes off the giant glass cube this week, as Apple’s Fifth Avenue flagship opens to the public this Friday. The big reveal coincides with the company’s latest releases, including new iPhones and an Apple Watch — an appropriately grandiose homecoming for new gear. This morning, the company offered a sneak preview to select media, ourselves included. Apple pulled...

This young litigation finance startup just secured $100 million to chase cases it thinks will win If you haven’t heard much about litigation finance, that may change soon. The practice dates back decades, though it’s been picking up momentum since 2006, when Credit Suisse Securities founded a litigation risk strategies unit that it later spun off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastcho...

Fans of sci-fi and fringe tech may already be familiar with the idea of the “space elevator,” which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like — and totally impossible with today’s technology. But a pair of scientists think they’ve found an alternative: a Moon elevator. And it’s slightly less insane… technically. The idea of the space elevator, first explored in detail by Arthur C. Learn more abou...

After being courted by seemingly every major entertainment and streaming company, Bad Robot has signed an exclusive deal with WarnerMedia. While the production company — led by Star Wars director J.J. Abrams and his wife/co-CEO Katie McGrath — was already working with Warner Bros. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, Apple has unveiled a new set of phones, including the iPhone 11, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max. These new devices are powered by a new chip, sport new cameras and are available in a variety of finishes and sizes. So without any further ado, let’s get into some of the details. iPhone 11 Design The iPhone 11 sports an anondized aluminum and glass design, which Apple claims is t...

Google to pay $549 million fine and $510 million in back taxes in France After years of back and forth with tax authorities in France, Google has settled a fiscal fraud probe, as the financial prosecutor’s office told Reuters and AFP. Overall, Google will pay a $549 million fine as well as $510 million in back taxes (€500 million and €465 million respectively). This is a settlement, which means th...

The Volkswagen ID.3 that debuted ahead of the IAA International Motor Show in Frankfurt looks like a compact hatchback. And it is. But inside customers might feel like they’re sitting in a bigger car, thanks to how engineers and designers took advantage of the electric architecture. Without having to contend with an internal combustion engine, there was more room to play around with. Learn more ab...

How long have you been using your current smartphone? The answer for an increasing number of consumers is years, plural. After all, why upgrade every year when next year’s model is almost exactly the same as the device you’re holding in your hand? Dutch social enterprise Fairphone sees this as an opportunity to sell sustainability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoic...

Joichi Ito, the embattled director of the M.I.T. Media Lab, has stepped down according to a statement by MIT’s president, L. Rafael Reif. The news was first reported byThe New York Times, which had received a copy of an email sent by Ito to university provost Martin A. Schmidt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I’ve long had a soft spot for Kobo for a few reasons. First is the simple fact that the company (now part of Rakuten) was one of the last few competing with Amazon in the e-reader market. Second is features like Pocket integration. Third is the device’s openness to file formats like ePub that don’t require the device to be tied to a single store. Kobo’s also never been afraid to experiment. Last y...

The Porsche Taycan is here — actually two flavors, the Turbo S and the Turbo — in case you haven’t seen the deluge of media coverage. The upshot: the “lower” priced Turbo starts at $150,900 while the Turbo S begins at $185,000. While Porsche is promising cheaper variants of the Taycan next year, well-heeled drivers of the world will have to make do with these two options for now. Learn more about...

All eyes are on the next iPhone, but Apple could also be working on a new Apple TV. The device could be announced next week, or maybe later this fall. The anonymous Twitter account @never_released shared the codename of a new Apple TV — AppleTV11,1 or J305AP. They have been accurate when it comes to finding codenames of various unreleased Apple products in the past. AppleTV11,1 is J305AP. https://...

It has been one week since U.S. border officials denied entry to a 17-year-old Harvard freshman just days before classes were set to begin. Ismail Ajjawi, a Palestinian student living in Lebanon, had his student visa canceled and was put on a flight home shortly after arriving at Boston Logan International Airport. Customs & Border Protection officers searched his phone and decided he was ineligib...

A UK group of climate activists is planning to fly drones close to Heathrow Airport next month in a direct action they hope will shut down the country’s largest airport for days or even longer. The planned action is in protest at the government’s decision to green-light a third runway at Heathrow. They plan to use small, lightweight “toy” drones, flown at head high (6ft) within a 5km drone ‘no fly...

Ever since they went from Back to the Future fantasy to real world wearable tech, Nike has promised that the Adapt line was more than just a one-off gimmick. Slowly but surely, the company has made its self-lacing motor technology more accessible, most notably though its long awaited Adapt BB sneakers, which arrived earlier this year. The company announced today that it will be bringing the tech t...

Most people don’t adjust the settings on their TV after they buy it. Most newer TVs, meanwhile, come with a bunch of random junk turned on by default; things like motion smoothing that makes epic movies look like soap operas, or noise reduction that can wash out details and make an actor’s skin look cyborg-y. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

More than 130 U.S. companies have reportedly applied to sell to Huawei, but the Commerce Department has approved none of them Trump said in July that some U.S. suppliers would be allowed to sell to Huawei while it remains blacklisted, but so far no vendors have been allowed to do so. Reuters reports that more than 130 applications have been submitted by companies that want to do business with Huaw...

Samsung’s settled into a nice little twice-yearly schedule for releasing flagships. That’s allowed the company double the opportunity to introduce some nice upgrades to their high-end Android handsets. Nearly six months after the release of the S10, the company just dropped the new Note line. Here’s a whole bunch of words I wrote about the 10+, the larger of the devices, which is helping distingui...