TechCrunch Industry News

Facebook’s external policy review board will meet with Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who went public with her concerns about the company last week. Facebook’s Oversight Board announced Monday that it would meet with Haugen “in the coming weeks” after the whistleblower accepted the board’s invitation to speak. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Five months after announcing a deal with two of China’s biggest two-wheel vehicle makers, Gogoro officially launched there today, opening 45 battery swapping stations in Hangzhou. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Experts say an environmental document that needs U.S. Federal Aviation Administration approval before SpaceX can begin testing the world’s largest rockets is missing key details about where its fuel will come from. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company would be moving its headquarters from Palo Alto, California to Austin, Texas, a city that has recently seen a flood of tech companies and remote workers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

RoboTire crossed our radar in February of last year, just before much of the world was brought to a complete standstill courtesy of the pandemic. Things were still fairly early stages for the Detroit-based startup, which was founded by former Spark Robotics CEO Victor Darolfi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rebel Foods, which operates a large network of dark kitchens in nearly a dozen markets, is the latest Indian startup to attain the unicorn status. The Bangalore-based startup said on Thursday it has raised $175 million in its Series F financing round that valued it at $1.4 billion, up from about $800 million last year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

OpenStack, the open-source project that gives large enterprises and public cloud providers the tools to run their own AWS-like private clouds in their data centers, today announced the release of OpenStack 24. Codenamed Xena, the release focuses on polishing many of the system’s sharper edges. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Uber is piloting new app features aimed at making air travel more hassle-free, including the ability to reserve rides from airports, gain access to enhanced curbside pickup, request a ride once you land and order food in advance from airport restaurants for pickup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Byteboard, a service designed to replace the on-site technical interview part of a company’s hiring process with a web-based alternative, will be spinning out of Google, TechCrunch learned and Google confirmed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A pair of new e-readers from Kobo iterate on the company’s high-end options, adding Bluetooth audiobook and stylus support to the now familiar asymmetrical design of its larger devices. The Sage and Libra 2 also gain a new charging cover so you only have to plug the device in every few months rather than every […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dapper Labs, the NFT startup behind NBA Top Shot which was recently valued above $7.5 billion, made an interesting acquisition this morning, telling Decrypt that they have purchased virtual influencer startup Brud and will be bringing the entire 32-person team aboard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

FoodTech is booming in Europe has grown exponentially. In 2020, €3 billion went into European FoodTech companies (State of European Tech Report, March 2021), and the pandemic has accelerated demand as consumers have shifted to grocery delivery. The industry has also been affected by the rise of direct-to-consumer food brands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jeff Bezos just can’t get away from labor issues. The beleaguered billionaire, who has faced repeated and persistent criticism over working conditions at the company he formerly led, Amazon, is now facing allegations of a hostile work environment at his space company Blue Origin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The future of office work, post-COVID-19, is driving plenty of startup activity. Not just around core business needs like comms (Zoom, Slack et al) — but entrepreneurs are also competing to come up with the perfect tool to recreate the social serendipity of office life in order to make dispersed workers feel a bit more […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Clubhouse announced today that it is unveiling four new features: Clips, Replay, Universal Search, and spatial audio for Android (which already exists on iOS). All of these features will launch today, except for Replay, which will roll out in October. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No one knows exactly how drone delivery will fit into the future of logistics, but one thing is for sure: the aircraft aren’t going to drop off important payloads directly onto someone’s lawn. Matternet’s Station, an automated landing space and payload control tower, may be the solution, and the flower-like structure has finally made the […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.c...

General Motors is rolling out a new end-to-end software platform in vehicles starting in 2023 that executives say will usher in a sweeping set of capabilities including giving drivers access to in-car subscription and using over-the-air updates to offer new apps and services. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The platform is available in across all 50 states and is designed for any type of employee leave, like parental, medical, caregiver or bereavement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon is introducing two new services tied to user health and fitness, and its Halo personal health devices. They include Halo Fitness, a new service for interactive home video workouts that looks a lot like Apple Fitness+, and Halo Nutrition, a personalized, guided meal planner. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Indian food delivery startup Swiggy is in talks to raise over $500 million in a new financing round that could value it at over $10 billion, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. Atlanta-headquartered Invesco is in talks to lead — or co-lead — the new financing round in the Bangalore-based startup, which counts […] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoice...

LinkedIn earlier this month unveiled a new push around creators to bring more original content (and engagement) to its platform, but that’s not the only effort they are making to bring more activity to its networking site. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that LinkedIn is also running a test around events — specifically, paid events. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/a...

The company whose tech powered the sensational MyHeritage app that turned classic family photos into lifelike moving portraits is back with a new implementation of its technology: Transforming still photographs into ultra-realistic video, capable of saying whatever you want. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Starting in 2030, California will require all light-duty autonomous vehicles operating in the state to emit zero emissions, thanks to a new bill signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

China’s central bank said on Friday that all cryptocurrency-related transactions are illegal in the country and they must be banned, citing concerns around national security and social stability. The world’s most populated nation also said that foreign exchanges are banned from providing services to users in the country. In a joint statement, ten Chinese government […] Learn more about your ad cho...

Unagi Scooters has revealed what it claims is the first 'smart scooter' in the Model Eleven. It includes a bunch of intriguing features, such as audible directions, remote kill and an ADAS sensor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices