TechCrunch Industry News

After last year’s stellar turn out of almost 1,000 Silicon Valley shakers and movers at our inaugural Winter Party, TechCrunch is returning with the 2nd Annual Winter Party in San Francisco on February 8. The party will feature tasty cocktails and canapés, party games and activities, plenty of photo ops, giveaways and some fun surprises. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/a...

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is good, clean, butt-kicking fun The Switch game is fan service in the best possible sense of the term After a few days with the game, I’m no expert. Hell, I’m not even entirely sure I’m confident enough to take on all comers. I am, however, most definitely hooked. This scrappy little gaming upstart just might have a future ahead of it, after all. I admit that I’ve not p...

You can now once again flip the camera during FaceTime calls with just one tap With the release of iOS 12, Apple hid the button that lets you jump from front camera to rear camera (or vice versa) during a FaceTime call. Previously a one-click thing, it was suddenly shoved away into a menu as if it wasn’t something you might use a half-dozen times per call. Don’t like the change? Good news! Apple i...

Sorry folks. If you wanted to buy a ticket to Startup Battlefield Africa 2018you’re out of luck. We’re sold out. However, you could be one of the lucky few to score a free ticket to our day-long startup-pitch extravaganza in Lagos, Nigeria on 11 December. We have a limited number of tickets available, so apply for your free ticket here — before they’re all gone. Learn more about your ad choices. V...

AWS, once a nice little side hustle for Amazon’s eCommerce business, has grown over the years into a behemoth that’s on a $27 billion run rate, one that’s still growing at around 45 percent a year. That’s a highly successful business by any measure, but as I listened to AWS executives last week at their AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, I didn’t hear a group that was content to sit still and...

Lou Shipley Contributor More posts by this contributor Why The Future Of Digital Security Is Open Sirius XM’s recent all-stock $3.5-billion purchase of the music-streaming service Pandora raised a lot of eyebrows. A big question was why Sirius paid so much. Is Pandora’s music library and customer base really worth that amount? The answer is that this was a strategic move by Sirius in a battle that...

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week as TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin came to life, Kate Clark and I snagged some mics and dug through the biggest news of the week (a $50 million check), and talked through who may go public next year, and what thoseIPOs might look like. Our usual fare, if you will. (I...

Before we send any planet-trotting robot to explore the landscape of Mars or Venus, we need to test it here on Earth. Two such robotic platforms being developed for future missions are undergoing testing at European Space Agency facilities: one that rolls, and one that hops. The rolling one is actually on the books to head to the Red Planet as part of the ESA’s Mars 2020 program. Learn more about...

Disrupt Berlin approaches with just a few days until things kick things off. We have an all-star lineup that only TechCrunch can assemble, and we’re expecting our largest number of attendees yet. Check out our star-packed agenda here. Here are all the deets you need to make for a stellar conference experience. Location TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin will be taking place on 29-30 November at Arena Berli...

Audi is making room in its electric future for more than SUVs or crossovers. After a string of teasers, the German automaker finally unveiled the Audi e-tron GT concept, a four-door all-electric coupe that has some Porsche DNA sprinkled in and that looks a lot like the A7. Audi introduced the concept Wednesday during the press days of the LA Auto Show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podca...

The 2018 holiday season is predicted to be a bumper year for e-commerce, helped by economic forces like lower unemployment and underlying trends like an ever-growing proportion of shoppers opting to spend their money online, and specifically on mobile devices. Thanksgiving, a day when brick-and-mortar stores tend to be closed, is a big one for online spending, and so far it’s off to a flying start...

As we hang out with family and friends this holiday season, it’s interesting to look back on the Bitcoin mania that we endured one Thanksgiving ago. Aunts and uncles asking about internet money as you passed the mashed potatoes while trying to explain the concept of decentralization in a way that made it seem like you knew your stuff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adch...

Don’t panic! Life imitates art, to be sure, but hopefully the researchers in charge of the Cognitive Architecture for Space Exploration, or CASE, have taken the right lessons from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and their AI won’t kill us all and/or expose us to alien artifacts so we enter a state of cosmic nirvana. (I think that’s what happened. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/a...

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re: Pretty good at tech stuff Spending time with your family for Thanksgiving Bored because you’re reading this article right now You may not celebrate Thanksgiving where you live, but most of our readers are American. So let’s use this opportunity to review the tech setup of your family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

TechCrunch has obtained an internal memo published by Facebook’s outgoing head of public policy Elliot Schrage in which he blames himself for hiring PR firm Definers. He admits to having the company push negative narratives about competitors, but says Facebook did not ask or pay Definers to publish fake news. COO Sheryl Sandberg left a comment on the memo, saying it was never Facebook’s intention...

The latest data from Inrix paints a dismal picture for folks traveling Wednesday (that’s today!) ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Drivers in Boston, New York City and San Francisco will see the largest delays with drive times nearly quadruple the norm, according to AAA and Inrix,whichaggregates and analyzes traffic data collected from vehicles and highway infrastructure. AAA is projecting 54.3 m...

Since taking the reins as chief executive of Kindred at the beginning of the year, Jim Liefer has been focused on commercializing his company’s autonomous robots. But unlike forward-projecting use-cases for robots that may (or may not) one day take over for human beings in a wide swath of functions, Kindred’s current robots are purpose-built for the floor of retail fulfillment centers. Learn more...

Walmart passes Apple to become No. 3 online retailer in U.S. Walmart has overtaken Apple to become the No. 3 online retailer in the U.S., according to a report this week from eMarketer. While Amazon still leads by a wide margin, accounting for 48 percent of e-commerce sales in 2018, Walmart – including also Sam’s Club and Jet.com – is poised to capture 4 percent of all online retail spending in th...

MailChimp, the popular email newsletter service and marketing platform, today announced a partnership with Square that will allow its users to create landing pages with built-in e-commercefeatures. These shoppable landing pages are meant to give businesses a new sales channel to sell things like limited edition good or run targeted promotions. MailChimp’s landing pages have been around for a few y...

Until autonomous vehicles are here, ride-hailing companies like Lyft and Uber have to attract and retain human drivers if they hope to sustain their businesses. Lyft announced Thursday a half dozen new driver-friendly features, from default tipping and in-trip tipping to ways to protect their ratings and an events planner. Lyft also committed to rolling out at least one new feature or enhancement...

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we had the excellent Connie Loizos on the air, we had Danny Crichton on the horn from New York, I was in the studio mostly hacking up one lung or the other, and we hadMatt Howard of Norwest Venture Partners. And so, with smoke in the Bay and snow in the Big App...

Dustin Rosen thinks L.A. has a problem, aside from its famously car-choked highways. There aren’t enough investors willing to write small checks. Why not? The way he sees it, most of the so-called micro venture funds have grown their funds to the size of traditional venture firms, and are making bigger bets as a result. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Das ist super geil — this is awesome! Early-bird prices for Disrupt Berlin 2018 passes have returned to the roost. But you need to act fast, because our time-sensitive offer expires in just 48 hours. This opportunity translates to serious savings in any language — up to €500. Here’s even more good news. During this sale, anyone who buys a Startup Alley Exhibitor pass will receive three Founder pas...

I’m a fan of Alexa and of voice computing in general. But when Amazon said it was putting Alexa into a microwave, I wasn’t so sure. The value in voice computing is being able to get to news, information, music hands-free, as well as perform simple tasks, including those for the smart home – like changing the thermostat from downstairs, or taking a peek at your security camera video from your Echo...

I’m calling it — this is the best deal of this year’s Black Friday season, for gamers anyway. It’s amazing. It’s spectacular. Sony is selling a PlayStation 4 Slim with the new Spider-Man game for $199. That’s way too little money. The 1TB PS4 slim currently retails for $300, and that used to be the cost of the 500 GB one. So a $199 price for the improved, terabyte-capacity console would already be...