TechCrunch

Chinese automaker Great Wall Motors is exploring strategic collaboration with Mobileye . Through this deal, GWM hopes to integrate Mobileye’s solutions into its vehicles. Starting with L0-L2+ within the next three to five years, the companies are also exploring opportunities for Mobileye’s Level 3 products. The word comes at CES 2019, where Intel-owned Mobileye has […]

Rather than just focus on Facebook’s problems like his 2018 challenge, this year Mark Zuckerberg wants to give transparency to his deliberations and invite the views of others. Today he announced his 2019 challenge will be “to host a series of public discussions about the future of technology in society — the opportunities, the challenges, […]

Google made a flurry of announcements at CES this week, many of them coming rapid fire this morning. Don’t have time to dig through it all? That’s OK. Here’s the condensed version: Google says that Assistant, its voice-powered AI, will be on 1 billion devices around the world by the end of this month. Meanwhile, […]

Muse, the maker of a meditation headband, today unveiled its latest product at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The sleep meditation headband, dubbed the Softband, is designed to help people meditate as they fall asleep. The idea is to put it on before you go to bed, play a meditation and then fall […]

Starting in the next few days, the Google Assistant on Android and iOS will be able to check you in to your flights. For now, you’ll only be able to use this feature for domestic flights on United Airlines, though, but the promise is to expand this to other airlines over time. To give this […]

Lenovo knows a good smart assistant when it sees one. The company was one of the first to team with Google on a third-party smart display, and now it’s getting in on the ground floor for Alexa tablets. The company just announced two devices — the Smart Tab M10 and P10. Both are 10.1-inch tablets […]

TV provider Dish is more tightly integrating its Hopper line of receivers with Google Assistant by integrating the smart assistant directly into its set-top boxes. The company was already working with Google on a voice-controlled experience, having announced a year ago at CES that it would allow customers to control their Dish TV experience using […]

We’ve known for a while now that Google Assistant (the company’s voice-powered AI, à la Siri or Alexa) would eventually be built right into Google Maps. They announced as much at Google I/O 2018, noting at the time that they were aiming for a summer launch. It didn’t happen by summer, but Google says it’s […]

If you like the idea of Amazon’s Echo Spot — that is, a tiny voice-powered assistant on your nightstand, complete with a full-color display — but are more into Google Assistant than Alexa, your options have thus far been a bit limited. You could put your phone on a dock, but that’s not quite the […]

Google Assistant has long been able to do quick, one-off translations — just say something like “Hey Google, how do I say ‘birthday’ in French?” That doesn’t help much with actual conversations between people who speak different languages. For that, Google is building what they call “Interpreter Mode.” If you speak English and want to […]

Google is making it easier for device manufacturers to integrate with Google Assistant technology, including those times when devices need to respond to voice commands without the benefit — or the expense — of being connected to Google’s cloud. To do so, Google is today launching into preview a new set of tools called, Google […]

The decision comes amid a $12M lawsuit alleging discrimination in The Wing's membership policy.

More autonomous vehicles are poised to descend on Arizona. This time, Walmart has signed a deal with startup Udelv to test the use of autonomous vans to deliver online grocery orders to customers. Under the agreement, Udelv will provide its second-generation autonomous delivery van, called the Newton, to Walmart to deliver groceries in Surprise, Arizona. […]

TechCrunch returns to UC Berkeley on April 18th for TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics+AI. The single-day event will feature talks, workshops, demos and plenty of networking opportunities. We added artificial intelligence to the event this year because the technology is so closely tied to the success of robotics and so much more. We have several ways for […]

While IBM is getting sued by the city of Los Angeles, accusing it of covertly mining user data in the Weather Channel app in the US, it’s testing the waters for another hyperlocal weather feature that — coincidentally — relies on data that it picks up from sensors on app users’ smartphones, among other devices, […]

All flights departing Heathrow, the U.K.’s largest airport, were suspended for an hour on Tuesday following a reported drone sighting. An airport spokesperson told TechCrunch that staff are “working closely” with London’s Metropolitan Police, “to prevent any threat to operational safety.” The airport did not say who reported the drone. Shortly after departing flights were […]

Using technology that sounds like it comes straight out of Predator, Miku is a new baby monitor that watches and senses your baby’s vitals in real time. The system not only broadcasts a secure feed of your baby’s sleep time but it also analyzes the heart rate and breathing without wearables. The system uses military […]

Amazon has reportedly acquired Israeli disaster recovery startup CloudEndure. Neither company has responded to our request for confirmation, but we have heard from multiple sources that the deal has happened. While some outlets have been reporting the deal was worth $250 million, we are hearing it’s closer to $200 million. The company provides disaster recovery for cloud […]

The company formerly known as WeWork has rebranded as the We Company — although a better name for its network of on-demand office spaces for the newly incorporated and nominally employed, co-living spaces for the same easyJet-set and educational and coding services could be “House of Cards.” News of the rebranding (first reported via Fast Company) comes […]