Netflix quietly launched a new discovery feature this week aimed at promoting its original programming to users who are watching via an app on their television. Now, when you leave the Netflix application idle, a screensaver will eventually appear displaying a rotating selection of Netflix’s Originals.
The company didn’t make a formal announcement about the new addition, which… Read More
Microsoft’s hardware lineup, including Surface Book and Surface Pro devices, are due for a refresh, but we still haven’t heard that much about what’s going to come along with the upgrades. Now, Windows watcher Paul Thurrott has provided a few details on the Surface Pro 5, which sounds like it’ll be an iterative update of the flagship Windows tablet hybrid. The Surface Pro… Read More
Mic has raised $21 million in new funding, which co-founder and CEO Chris Altchek said will accelerate the digital publisher’s investment in video news.
The company says it currently reaches 66 million unique readers and viewers each month, and that 75 percent of its daily views come from video — particularly impressive when you consider that it launched its first video… Read More
At the end of March, Amazon announced it was planning to shut down Diapers.com and all the other e-commerce sites operated by Quidsi – the company Amazon acquired for $545 million back in 2010. However, it didn’t offer any details as to when those sites would eventually shutter their doors. But it now appears the first steps towards closure have been taken – all the Quidsi… Read More
After the initial hype, chatbots have been written off by many in the tech industry for failing to deliver on their promise. But one of the leading figures behind chatbots believes one missing component can spark the revolution: payments. Initially viewed by many as replacements for apps, and a method to increase customer engagement, there are few early examples of tangible success to date, as… Read More
It’s no secret that data is the hot new revenue source for automakers, who are seeing additional profit opportunities bloom as vehicles become more connected and they can retrieve a ton of useful data that’s incredibly valuable when deployed correctly. Israeli startup otonomo has been on top of that trend since its founding in 2015, with nine automakers worldwide using its platform… Read More
Welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the financial side of technology. This week Katie Roof, Matthew Lynley and your servant sat down with Gene Munster, best known for his bullish takes on Apple as an analyst. Munster is now a venture capitalist at Loup Ventures, where he’s a managing partner. As a group we dug into Lyft’s… Read More
Samsung is back in business. Fresh from its highest profit jump in three years and the successful launch of its new flagship Galaxy S8, the Korean company is now forecasting a big jump in profits for its upcoming Q1 2017 financials.
The company is predicting profits for the quarter will come in around 9.9 trillion KRW ($8.7 billion), which would be up 48 percent year-on-year. Revenue is… Read More
You never think about it until it’s too late. Say you’ve built an amazing company selling the stoat-hair drink coasters from Iceland. Your ecommerce and marketing game is on point, your website is ready, and you get your first order. You realize that you don’t have any boxes. Your stoat-hair coaster business is ruined.
Luckily there’s Packhelp, a Polish company that… Read More
On Wednesday I had the unique pleasure of hanging out with a bunch of Macedonian startup founders and was very impressed. The Balkans have long been a promising spot for startups – the cost of living is low and the talent level is high – and this visit was unique in that everyone was fully prepared to pitch on a global scale. The winners of the pitch-off were Letz, a cool chatbot… Read More
The Wall Street Journal wrote a story that Spotify is “seriously considering” joining the stock market without an IPO. The news was also reported by Mergermarket. The idea would be to go public without the fundraising event, instead employees and venture capitalists would sell their shares to investors directly. We are hearing that the plans have not been finalized,… Read More
A VC once told me that fear was the best sales tool ever invented. That was in reference to the hockey stick growth his cybersecurity startup was seeing, thanks to a raft of stories in the media regarding high profile cases of companies being hacked. But might the same be said of banks and the pending threat of fintech? Arguably, they have much to fear. Read More
We live in the age of fake news — both the really fake news that’s simply fake and the kind of news that some people like to call “fake” only because they don’t like hard facts. Over the last few months, Google started working with fact-checking groups to include links to their posts in Google News’ story clusters. Starting today, fact check is available… Read More
The Kriesel high-performance electric converted Porsche, Jeff Bezos sells $1 billion in stock annually to fund Blue Origin, Hyperloop One completes Vegas test track and 23andMe can now let you know if you have the genes for Parkinson’s. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
President Donald Trump is expected to nominate Lyft General Manager Derek Kan as under secretary of transportation for policy, Reuters reports. Kan also serves on the board of directors at Amtrak and previously worked as policy adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who just so happens to be married to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. “Derek is a valued member of our… Read More
A Markham, Ontario startup called SkyX Ltd. emerged from stealth today to share with TechCrunch details about its unique industrial drone designs. The company’s SkyOne drones take off and land like a helicopter, but fly more like an airplane, with a range of more than 25 miles (40 km) per charge. For drone industry nerds, this means they have both VTOL and fixed-wing elements. Read More
DJI appears to be about to launch a drone even smaller than the Mavic Pro. Supposedly called the Spark, pics of the little drone has been popping up on several sites though DJI has yet to officially announce it. First, the Spark is smaller than the Mavic Pro when the Mavic’s prop arms are extended. The Spark appears to have fixed arms and brushless motors similar to the Mavic’s… Read More
NASA has announced the recipients of its most recent round of highly experimental projects it deems promising enough to fund. These NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts aren’t guaranteed to go all the way, but are rather sort of low-risk, high potential reward moonshots — science fiction they hope will be more the former than the latter. Read More
Okta is setting an increasingly ambitious target for its IPO, now officially pricing it at $17 per share set for its debut tomorrow — and looking to raise as much as $187 million in the hopes that it can capitalize on the newly open IPO window. Read More
