NEWS

RSS died. Whether you blame Feedburner, or Google Reader, or Digg Reader last month, or any number of other product failures over the years, the humble protocol has managed to keep on trudging along despite all evidence that it is dead, dead, dead. Now, with Facebook’s scandal over Cambridge Analyt…

Behind every great woman, there is often another great woman who has encouraged her and listened to her and advised her, rather than tried to compete with her. That’s the way that it should be, according to Shine Theory, a concept that was crystalized by journalist Ann Friedman in 2013 and em…

In the run-up to Mark Zuckerberg’s first appearance before Congress, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden issued a warning to the company about what it can expect from lawmakers if it doesn’t radically alter course. “Mr. Zuckerberg is going to have a couple of very unpleasant days before Cong…

Logistics may not be the most exciting application of autonomous vehicles, but it's definitely one of the most important. And the marine shipping industry — one of the oldest industries in the world, you can imagine — is ready for it. Or at least two major Norwegian shipping companies are: they're …

Last year, renowned VC Steve Jurvetson parted ways with his longtime firm, DFJ, in what appeared a painful split. Six months later, he’s back with a new firm, Future Ventures, Jurvetson tells us via email. (Recode was first to take notice of its new site.) Says Jurvetson: “I am incredib…

There’s always been a glaring issue with voice computing: Talking to a voice assistant with other people around makes you feel like a bit of a weirdo. It’s a big part of the reason we’ve been seeing the technology start to take off in the home, where people feel a little less self-conscious talking…

Microsoft is hoping to capitalize on the popularity of podcasts and videos to make Skype more appealing to content creators. The company is now testing a new “Skype for Content Creators” mode for its desktop app that will allow creators to place and record calls using Skype software, wh…

Following its $200 million acquisition of meal kit startup Plated last fall, grocery chain Albertsons announced this week it would roll out Plated’s meal kits to hundreds of stores by the end of 2018. The meal kits will also be made available for 2-hour delivery through Instacart, same-day an…

Amazon is making it easier for parents to manage their child’s device usage from their own phone, tablet, or PC with an update to the Parent Dashboard in Amazon FreeTime. Since its launch in 2012, Amazon’s FreeTime Unlimited has been one of the better implementations of combining kid-fr…

It’s becoming common to say that Mark Zuckerberg is coming under fire, but the Facebook CEO is again being questioned, this time over a recent claim that Facebook’s internal monitoring system is able to thwart attempts to use its services to incite hatred. Speaking to Vox, Zuckerberg us…

Harassment is clearly an issue everywhere. Hootsworth, founded by harassment legal expert Janine Yancey, is launching today to provide a resource and tool for employees and employers to address harassment and other workplace issues. “For a long time now I’ve seen that the current structure is…

Privacy watchdogs in Canada and British Columbia are combining existing investigations into Facebook and AggregateIQ. The latter being a Victoria-based ad targeting tech company that has been linked to Cambridge Analytica, the political consultancy at the center of the Facebook data misuse storm. F…

Samsung has released primarily guidance for its Q1 2018 financial period and the signs are that it will be another blockbuster. The Korean tech giant’s sales in 2017 were enough to see it unseat Intel as the world’s largest chipmaker based on revenue — ending Intel’s 25-year…

You can’t remove Facebook messages from the inboxes of people you sent them to, but Facebook did that for Mark Zuckerberg and other executives. Three sources confirm to TechCrunch that old Facebook messages they received from Zuckerberg have disappeared from their Facebook inboxes, while thei…

Could it be that the scourge of 3D film is coming to an end? The box office contribution of 3D showings dropped in 2017 to 12 percent of the U.S. and Canada's $11.1 billion total take, its lowest point essentially since 3D movies became a thing.

Exclusive: Your best look yet at LG’s new phone

You only get one link on Instagram, but Tap Bio lets you point that to a customized landing page full of all the sites you want to share. Rather than constantly change your Instagram profile URL, you can easily add slides equipped with links to your Tap Bio corresponding to your latest Instagram po…

Snapchat has undone its controversial redesign’s most significant change in an update to some users today. A tab that shows Stories in reverse chronological order, replacing the redesign’s algorithmically sorted feed for many people. We’ve reached out to Snap Inc and haven’t heard back. Showing the…

After a bit of a hubbub among developers this morning who were pissed that in a few months their third-party Twitter apps could lose essential functionality, Twitter announced that they would be delaying the sunset of certain APIs in an effort to make sure developers have enough time to make change…

AggregateIQ, a Canadian advertising tech and audience intelligence company, has been suspended by Facebook for allegedly being closely connected with SCL, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica. News broke late last month that AIQ, which was deeply involved with (and handsomely paid by) pro-Leav…

This morning, the developers of third-party Twitter clients Tweetbot, Twitterific, Tweetings, and Talon banded together to highlight upcoming API changes that could potentially break the way their apps work. As you might expect, their collective user base — a base largely made up of folks who need …

As if there weren't already cameras enough in this world, researchers created a new type that is both microscopic and self-powered, making it possible to embed just about anywhere and have it work perpetually. It's undoubtedly cool technology, but it's probably also going to cause a spike in tinfoi…

As part of Twitter’s efforts to rid its platform of abuse and hate, the company is teaming up with researchers Susan Benesch, a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and J. Nathan Matias, a post-doc research associate at Princeton Univ…

Across the country, police brutality and the series of fatal shootings of mostly black men have soured many on the role that police officers play in the community. To combat those negative assessments police forces are turning to an array of new technologies from body cameras, new communications te…

If you’re looking to travel abroad — and especially if you’re looking to work while doing so — it might be tough to convince yourself you can find a cool boutique hotel that caters to a lot of different price points, as well as surround yourself with people that will help you feel like …

Another data-point to flesh out the Facebook data misuse scandal: The company has informed the European Commission that a total of 2.7 million EU citizens had their information improperly shared with the controversial political consultancy, Cambridge Analytica (via Reuters). Facebook had already re…

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Katie Roof and I were joined by David Welsh, part of KKR’s growth equity shop. (His formal title: Member and Head of TMT Growth Equity, where “membe…

LG’s mobile business may be a serial loss-maker, but the rest of the Korean firm’s interests are doing pretty… better than ever actually according to its newest earnings forecast. Like fellow countryman Samsung, LG is on course for company-record Q1 financial results. The company …

Fans of Uber in Southeast Asia will have a little more time to continue using the app after Grab, the rival that is acquiring Uber’s business in the region, agreed to extend the life of the app until April 15 while Singapore’s competition commission reviews the merger deal. Grab had ori…

Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck, made famously after hackers made off with more than $400 million in digital token NEM, has been acquired. The company announced today (in Japanese) that Tokyo-based online brokerage Monex Group will buy it in full. The transaction will see Coincheck become a whol…

Redpoint Ventures has hired Annie Kadavy as its first female general partner. She’ll be on the early stage investment team. Kadavy has a background in venture capital, having spent several years at CRV. Most recently, she ran strategic operations at Uber’s freight division. She also has…

Retro video games have been a useful platform for machine learning research for years, and the systems created have been creeping through the classics, mastering them as they go. Sonic the Hedgehog may be the next to fall: OpenAI has announced a competition to apply machine learning to the classic …

In 1983, Chuck Hall, the father of 3D printing, created something that was equal parts simple and earth-shattering. He manufactured the world’s first-ever 3D printer and used it to print a tiny eye wash cup. It was just a cup. But that cup paved the way for a quiet revolution, one that today is cha…

Montreal-based fashion site Ssense is acquiring Polyvore from Verizon’s Oath, but the site will not live on. Ssense has already shut down the Polyvore site, taking its user data and redirecting traffic from the site’s main URL. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Polyvore was previous…

In life, they say you get what you pay for. That is no less true in politics, which is fueled by campaign donations and lobbying dollars that move policy on every important issue under the sun. The disclosed expenditures of the DC lobbying industry are more than $3 billion per year, while just the …

It’s been a week filled to the brim with customer security comprises, and here’s one more to add to the pile. A day after Sears, Kmart and Delta confirmed that they’d been impacted by a breach of data firm, [24]7.ai, Best Buy issued a public statement noting that it’s in the same boat. At last [&he…

Visitors to Backpage.com today were greeted by a simple message from the U.S. Department of Justice, noting that it had seized the classifieds site. According to the static image, the move was a joint effort that included the FBI, IRS and the U.S Postal Inspection Service. The action, while brash, …

The Clean Power Plan is shaping up to be the latest Obama-era legislation on the Trump administration chopping block. In fact, Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt has been quite open in his intentions to kill the plan focused on cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Apple is among the fir…

Postmates, the startup that offers on-demand delivery for anything in your city, now lets people order ahead for pick-up. This comes about one year after Square’s Caviar expanded into pickups, following the acquisition of OrderAhead’s pick-up business. It’s not clear how many mark…

Facebook is looking to self-police itself by implementing parts of the proposed Honest Ads Act before the government tries to regulate it. To fight fake news and election interference, Facebook will require the admins of popular Facebook Pages and advertisers buying political or “issue”…

There is a battle afoot, one you might not have heard about yet, but it involves a high-stakes winner-take-all contract for the Department of Defense’s cloud contract. It could involve billions of dollars and when a humongous sum of money meets a set of powerful tech companies, intrigue can&#…

TechCrunch reported last night that Facebook retracted Facebook messages sent by Mark Zuckerberg and other executives from their recipients’ inboxes. That’s an ability normal Facebook users don’t have. But now Facebook tells me it plans to make an “unsend” feature avai…

Walmart announced this week it’s going to roll out more than 500 additional Pickup Towers to its U.S. stores over the course of the year. The towers, which are like high-tech vending machines distributing customers’ online purchases, were first introduced into nearly 200 stores in 2017.…

Earlier this week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is slated to testify on the use and protection of user data in Washington D.C. on April 11. Turns out, Zuckerberg will have a busier week in D.C. than expected, with the Senate Judiciary and Senat…

We’re busy searching all of Europe for the very best and brightest developers, hackers, tech builders and marketers. Why? Because we want you to come and compete in the TechCrunch Hackathon at VivaTech, of course! The Hackathon takes place at the Expo Porte de Versailles in Paris on May 25-26 and, …

Millennials have been accused of possessing shorter attention spans than goldfish. Though that claim is questionable, online marketers know display ads and even sponsored content are no longer enough to attract twentysomethings. PlayingViral gives brands a new way to lure young consumers with embed…

Coinbase has launched a new fund called Coinbase Ventures to invest in early-stage cryptocurrency and blockchain startups. In a blog post, Coinbase head of corporate and business development Emilie Choi said that the fund’s goal is to strengthen the sector. “At least in the beginning, our goa…

Razer, known mainly for gaming laptops and peripherals, expanded its ecosystem today with the launch of Razer Game Store, an online game distribution platform. Razer Game Store will compete with Steam and Amazon, but wants to grab the attention of gamers with perks like the chance to earn more cred…

In an interview with Bloomberg, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg disclosed the fact that ongoing privacy revelations around Cambridge Analytica have some advertisers skittish. When asked about how many advertisers had paused their ad spending, Sandberg would only get as specific as saying that &#82…

YouTube TV is finding life inside a browser not built by Google. The live TV service is now running on Firefox after previously being locked down to Chrome. The new development first spotted by YourTechExplained isn’t a massive shock, Google had promised support for other browsers would be co…