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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...

About a year ago, David Hyman, former Beats Music CEO and co-founder of music startup Mog that eventually sold to Beats Music, did something that was “very abnormal for me — career-wise,” he told TechCrunch. Hyman was an entrepreneur in residence at a giant real estate company. Because the music industry has changed so much, he said he didn’t want to do another music company. Learn more about your...

China’s Ucommune, the country’s largest rival to WeWork, has been on a busy acquisition spree to build out its domestic business and now it is looking at overseas opportunities after it closed a $200 million Series D funding round. The new round was led by Hong Kong-based All-Stars Investment with participation from Chinese investment bank CEC Capital and other investors. Learn more about your ad...

Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor Early-stage SaaS VC slip snaps recovery as public software stocks soar International growth, primarily in China, fuels the VC market today Crunchbase News recently profileda selection of U.S. companies’ largest VC raised in 2018, and no surprise here: the 10 larges...

Months after announcing its privacy-focused DNS service, Cloudflare is bringing 1.1.1.1 to mobile users. Granted, nothing ever stopped anyone from using 1.1.1.1 on their phones or tablets already. But now the app, now available for iPhones, iPads and Android devices, aims to make it easier for anyone to use its free consumer DNS service. The app is a one-button push to switch on and off again. Tha...

Upstart launch provider Rocket Lab aims to finally launch its first fully commercial payload to orbit this weekend after months of delays. The small Electron rocket will take six satellites from four companies to orbit as early as tomorrow evening Pacific time — Sunday afternoon at the company’s launch site in New Zealand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Who am I going to be worried about? Oh Facebook seeing? No, I’m not worried about Facebook seeing. They’re going to look at my great art collection and say they want to come steal it? No, I never really thought about it.” That’s my 72-year-old mother Sally Constine’s response to whether she’s worried about her privacy now that she has a Facebook Portal video chat device. The gadgetgoes on sale an...

Vine — the much loved and mourned short video hosting platform — will return, kind of, sort of. Co-creator Dom Hofmann announced on Twitter today that its spiritual success is set to arrive next spring. Details? We don’t have many. Though Hofmann did give us a name — Byte — and logo to match. From the sound out of, things will operate similarly to Vine, with short, looping videos. So far it’s got...

Sling TV’s growth further slows in Q3, but still leads rivals in terms of subscribers It appears Dish’s live TV streaming service, Sling TV, has been impacted by the increased competition from rivals like YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, AT&T’s DirecTV Now, and others. Sling TV still leads the market with 2.37 million subscribers for its TV service aimed at cord cutters, Dish reported in its Q3 2018...

Watchmaker Jaquet Droz makes luxury watches that cost more than some San Francisco apartments. Now, however, they’ve decided to go “downmarket” with their Sports Watch chronograph, a handmade watch that is designed for both work and play. The watch is a standard chronograph with big date, a complication that displays the date as two digits instead of on a rotating dial. Learn more about your ad ch...

I dunno, man. Maybe it’s 2018 getting me down. Maybe I’ve just been at this for too long. Maybe it’s the flu shot I just got. Whatever the case, count me among the unsurprised when some long awaited finally hits the market and, well, it looks rough. The Royole Corporation (What they call the Quarter-Pounder Corporation in France) looks like a strong contender to be the first to market with a folda...

Alice Lloyd George Contributor Alice Lloyd George is an investor at RRE Ventures and the host of Flux, a series of podcast conversations with leaders in frontier technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices