The plot thickens, but doesn’t it always? New documents have emerged detailing former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn’s financial ties to Russian companies, including the U.S. subsidiary of Russian cybersecurity group Kaspersky Lab. One invoice form dating back to 2015 shows payments to Flynn made by three Russian entities: $33,750 from state-sponsored news source RT… Read More
For the last couple of years, private equity firms have been buying up public software companies that had fallen out of favor with investors. In fact, many of the top software deals in the U.S. last year were take-private transactions. Just three of them included the visual analytics company Qlik Technologies, which sold to Thomas Bravo; the marketing software company Marketo, acquired… Read More
Appodeal is announcing that it has acquired Corona Labs, creators of the Corona SDK for building cross-platform games and apps. The companies say the framework has been used to build more than 10,000 games including The Lost City by Fire Maple Games and HoPiKo by Laser Dog. Appodeal, meanwhile, is a mobile ad mediation company — in other words, it helps app developers manage… Read More
News junkies, rejoice. ABC News is rolling out an updated Apple TV application, live today, which makes the news division the first to offer a simultaneous multi-stream viewing experience in its tvOS application. At launch, there are a dozen different live streams users can choose from, presented in a row as the bottom of the screen. These can be placed in either a dual-screen mode or even… Read More
The UK’s data protection watchdog has said it’s “close” to concluding a 10-month+ investigation into consent complaints pertaining to a patient data-sharing agreement inked between Google-owned DeepMind and the Royal Free NHS Trust which operates three hospitals in London. Read More
Now that we know that the Lucid Air will start at $60,000 (before applying the federal tax credit that’s available for electric vehicles), people are going to start comparison shopping. The first competitor that springs to mind is that other all-electric luxury sedan, the Tesla Model S. The Air is significantly less expensive than the Model S 60, especially at the base level, where the… Read More
Whether or not you like the so-called Internet of Things, the fact is that we do live in an internet of things, and every one of those things has a chip inside it. These chips are very advanced, of course, but also in many ways very traditional. Reduced Energy Microsystems wants to upend the status quo with a chip tech that the competition is too set in their ways to adopt. Read More
Following the revelation that a private Facebook group with 30,000 members targeted female Marines in a non-consensual photo sharing ring, other toxic online communities are popping up — and proving that the Marines United scandal is by no means an isolated incident. This week, a group known as Just The Tip Of The Spear, commonly abbreviated JTTOTS, was booted from Instagram for… Read More
Rock Pamper Scissors, the London-based hairdresser booking app backed by Seedcamp and 500 Startups, has closed its doors. According to a holding page that has replaced the entrance to the site, the startup has “ceased trading”. Read More
Today we’re excited to announce the launch of ‘Equity,’ TechCrunch’s new venture-capital focused podcast. Matthew Lynley, Alex Wilhelm and myself will be its regular hosts, but the show will also feature special guests from the community. As a group we’ll tackle massive funding rounds (both down and up), notable acquisitions, interesting IPOs and more. We know… Read More
I never really used to drink Starbucks. “It’s too expensive!” I’d say while angrily waggling my aeropress in the air.
Then they released their damned mobile ordering app and suddenly I’m throwing fistfuls of cash at them.
Hacker Ryan Pickren took the idea one step further: he built a physical button that orders his favorite drink with one press. Read More
Online fashion retailer ModCloth, known for its vintage-inspired and indie apparel, is on the verge of being acquired by Walmart, by way of its subsidiary, Jet.com. The deal, which had already been rumored, is almost finalized and will fetch a price tag between $50 million and $75 million, sources tell TechCrunch.
This is a disappointing outcome for ModCloth, which had raised $78… Read More
Disrupt Berlin 2017 doesn’t take place until December, but if you’re looking to attend the best startup show in Europe for the lowest possible price, an important deadline is fast approaching. We’ll be releasing a limited number of tickets to Disrupt Berlin on Wednesday, April 5 and the special price of two for the price of one. By signing up now, you can use this extra… Read More
The world of consumer financial services has been turned upside down by the rise of newer technology like apps and the growing expectation from people that they should have a lot more flexibility and access when it comes to controlling how they spend and save their money. The latest development on this comes out of Canada, where a new startup called Koho is launching a service aimed at… Read More
Amazon’s virtual assistant just got a much wider audience. The company announced it’s integrating Alexa into its main shopping app on iPhone, starting today with a full rollout expected by next week. The assistant can do more than just provide a voice interface to Amazon’s retail store, however – it can also control your smart home, play your music or Kindle books,… Read More
BMW says that the car it intends to field with self-driving tech by 2021 will have Level 3, Level 4 and Level 5 capabilities, according to the automaker’s SVP of Autonomous Driving Elmar Frickenstein, who shared the info during a panel in Berlin on Thursday, Reuters reports. Level 5 autonomy would mean that the vehicle requires zero input from a driver to navigate city and highway roads,… Read More
Right, so robots! TechCrunch is pleased as punch to announce our first-ever robotics event: TechCrunch Sessions: Robotics, on July 17 in Boston at MIT’s stunning Kresge Auditorium. We are also happy to announce that MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a key sponsor. Our event is absolutely global, but there is no better place to stage the… Read More
At a moment when it’s hard to be bullish about smartwatches, Swatch isn’t just embracing the category. It’s going all in. Swatch, Switzerland’s biggest watchmaker, isn’t just planning to launch a smartwatch, the company is actually developing its own operating system in hopes of competing with the likes of Apple and Samsung (which uses a forked version of Tizen).… Read More
Hulu’s live TV service is just around the corner, and will enter a competitive market where rivals like AT&T’s DirecTV NOW, Dish’s Sling TV, Sony’s PlayStation Vue, and YouTube TV are now battling for cord cutters’ dollars. To date, Hulu hasn’t offered a ton of information on how its service will differentiate itself from others, but it has added a… Read More
