I usually don’t like to post Kickstarters unless I’ve seen the product firsthand but I also love dash cams. What was I to do? Luckily VAVA was able to supply a demo unit so I can report that this $99 dash cam is real, works, and could let you make some clever Russian-style road videos or record conditions before an accident. Most of the dash cams I’ve seen so far have been… Read More
Read-it-later bookmarking service Instapaper, owned by Pinterest since last year’s acquisition, was hit by an extended outage this week. The service came back online yesterday, February 9, after being down since 12:30 PM PT the day prior. However, the company says the issue is not fully resolved – it will take a week for it to restore all its users’ saved articles. Though not… Read More
What’s a six year old startup doing entering Y Combinator? Plotting a new growth trajectory after a pivot. Pilot may be a veteran in Silicon Valley startup terms but it reckons the freelance contractor marketplace model it switched to around a year and a half ago is ideally positioned to serve a future of work that’s increasingly fragmented and distributed. Read More
Nissan has a Star Wars-themed version of its Rogue SUV that capitalizes on its name’s relation to Star Wars, and Rogue One in particular. The full-size modified vehicle adds exterior ‘engines’ and a custom paint job to create a Rogue that looks like something out of my fever dreams (I own a Rogue and I love Star Wars). Here’s what I love about this: They cared enough to… Read More
Those looking to mourn Prince’s passing with a music marathon last April came away disappointed if they happened to (as most no doubt do) subscribe to any music service but Tidal. Now, nearly a year after his unexpected passing at age 57, The artist’s catalog is returning to additional online music services for the first time since 2015, when he pulled his songs over royalty… Read More
Chromebooks hit a key milestone last May, outselling Macs in the US for the first time ever, by IDC’s account. It was a pretty big win for a category oft maligned at launch for its relative lack of functionality. And while the devices are, perhaps, not fully mainstream, they’ve had an impressive rise over the last couple of years. If you haven’t had much experience with… Read More
Starbucks is furthering its push into China after it consummated its partnership with Tencent to introduce coffee gifting via WeChat, China’s top messaging app. WeChat, which recently revealed it has 768 million daily users, has evolved from being a basic chat app like WhatsApp into a platform that includes e-commerce, taxi-hailing, payments and more. Gifting is already hugely popular… Read More
Now that Snapchat‘s parent Snap has signalled its intention to go public (in early March, is the date that we’ve heard through the grapevine), it’s stepping up a gear to show that its business is definitely worth $25 billion. Snapchat’s pitch: it is much more than just a place for 158 million, mostly American consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 to dip in and… Read More
Today’s Stories
Twitter’s advertising business is stalling
Zenefits is laying off 45% of its workforce
Airbnb is buying Luxury Retreats for around $200M
Facebook can now replace your weather app
The Analogue Nt Mini is the perfect NES console for video game lovers
Credits
Written and hosted by: Anthony Ha
Edited by: Joe Zolnoski
Filmed by: Matthew Mauro
Teleprompter: Tomas… Read More
Swiftype started out helping publishers like TechCrunch offer better site search, but it’s been expanding into other areas like customer support and e-commerce. Now it’s making its biggest leap yet, with the launch of an enterprise search product. Basically, Swiftype is offering large and small businesses a place where they can search all their documents and files across a variety… Read More
We all read the daunting statistics about single motherhood and teen pregnancy, but we don’t always get to read stories that humanize the individuals going through these experiences. As we continue to highlight Black voices in the tech industry during Black History Month, we want to spotlight Rita Henderson. The proud mother of a 7-year-old activist and a #BlackGirlMagic… Read More
NeuroQore wants to shoot magnetic pulses into your brain to try to treat mental disorders such as anxiety and depression. Most doctors will give patients a number of drugs to treat these disorders, and up to two-thirds of patients won’t respond to their first drug. Another 10 to 30 percent of these same patients will never respond to drugs as treatment. But NeuroQore (not to be… Read More
Long before any mission to another planet is undertaken, NASA and other space agencies commission reports on why and how we might want to go about it. The latest such report was issued this week regarding Jupiter’s moon Europa, one of the most interesting and mysterious bodies in the solar system — and among the most likely to show traces of life. Read More
Surely everyone who picked up a pair of Nike’s limited-edition HyperAdapt self-lacing shoes had at least some small desire to rip them open to find out how they worked. But at $700 a pop, it’s an easy enough urge to suppress. The nice thing about the internet, however, is that we often can count on someone else to do our dirty work for us. Bay Area-based engineering company… Read More
A pitch competition highlighting companies with female founders is crossing the pond for the first time: The next Women Startup Challenge will be held in London and open to companies anywhere in Europe. The prize: a cool €50,000. Plus other, unspecified “startup friendly services.” Read More
Since President Trump took office, there have been protests large and small across the United States and around the globe. Esri, the big-data collection and analysis company, has helped communities using its services plan for these large-scale events and adapt when things don’t go as planned. “Whenever there’s a march or a disruption, there’s lots of factors to take… Read More
Jose Moran, who claims to be a Tesla employee working at the company’s Fremont, California assembly facility, took to Medium on Thursday to detail working conditions at the company, and to detail efforts on behalf of factory employees to unionize, an initiative in the beginning stages of being supported by the United Autoworkers Union, the U.S. automotive industry’s largest… Read More
Internet music giant Pandora fell 4 percent in initial after-hours trading after the company released its fourth-quarter 2016 earnings results. Pandora actually beat expectations, but this was already worked into the stock because the company announced last month that they would beat guidance. Investors were apparently looking for something better. The earnings per share loss came in at 13… Read More
Hyperloop One had a messy break-up with CTO and co-founder Brogan BamBrogan that ended in a settlement with terms agreed upon by both parties last November. But now the former SpaceX engineer is back in the Hyperloop business with Arrivo, a company billing itself as “the arrival company,” which could involve a lot more beyond zipping cargo and people from place to place. Read More
Valentine’s Day is fast-approaching, so we polled TechCrunch to find the best gifts and tech-inspired ideas to make this year’s Valentine’s Day more fun. Because nothing ruins the moment more than unwrapping a fitness tracker, we’ve put this guide together as a launching off point. The rest of the night is up to you. Read More
