While it seems “smart” everything is in full swing, the full realization of the Internet of Things is in essence still on standby mode. Homes are smarter than ever and VR, AR, personal drones and a dizzying array of wearables and medical devices flood the market, but there is still potential for more. Indeed, much of the technology is already baked in, just waiting to be actualized. Read More
UK property listings site Zoopla is splashing out £120 million in cash (~$150M) on a big purchase of its own — announcing its intention today to acquire real estate analytics firm Hometrack as it looks to expand its data and analytics services. Read More
Tact, the AI-driven sales tool that uses software smarts to simplify sales tasks, today announced integration with the newly announced Slack enterprise product, Slack Enterprise Grid. Tact, which currently has a mobile app and Amazon Echo integration (along with in-car integration in private Beta), sees messaging tools like Slack as a logical extension of the platform. It can help automate… Read More
Facebook is prioritizing “authentic” content in News Feed with a ranking algorithm change that detects and promotes content “that people consider genuine, and not misleading, sensational, or spammy.” It’s also giving a boost to stories that are going viral in real-time right now that could help it compete with Twitter for in-the-moment news sharing
To build the… Read More
Chevrolet is putting its electrified bets on the Bolt EV, as the company announced today that it’s ending production of the Spark EV, the compact car with a relatively meager 82 miles of electric range. The decision to end production of the car likely has a lot to do with the Bolt EV’s much more attractive options, which include 238 miles of EPA rated range. The price delta… Read More
Google today announced that the code for Chrome for iOS is now part of its Chromium open source project. On iOS, Chrome has to use Apple’s WebKit rendering engine instead of Google’s own Blink engine. Because of this, Google didn’t add the Chrome for iOS code to the Chromium code base before. Supporting both rendering engines in the same code base, after all, adds quite a bit… Read More
Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao received the confirmation of the full Senate on Tuesday. That’s the last hurdle for Chao, who now becomes the head of the Department of Transportation, replacing the outgoing Secretary Anthony Foxx, who was nominated by Barack Obama in 2013 and served until Trump’s inauguration on January 20. Chao served as… Read More
The French Government announced a new initiative today in order to promote gender equality in the tech ecosystem in France with the help of 15 organizations. Like in many other countries, there are less women working in French startups than men. This is a key issue when it comes to recruiting the best talent and addressing the right market. Other organizations like StartHer have done a lot… Read More
Slack, the business app that lets teams of users communicate, share files from other services, and work on them with each other, has taken off like wildfire since launching three years ago, with 5 million daily users, 1.5 million of them paying today. Now, Slack is embarking on the next step in its ambition to be the go-to platform for all workplace collaboration, no matter how big the… Read More
President Trump cancelled the signing of an executive order on cybersecurity without explanation, per pool reports. Trump had been expected to sign the order today to commission a review of the federal government’s capabilities and defenses, similar to reviews ordered by Obama when he took office and again last year. A White House official acknowledged the similarities between… Read More
Facebook gave businesses the Like button connected to their Page, and now Snapchat is giving websites their own QR Snapcodes. With today’s iOS update and Android beta, users can create a unique Snapcode for a website, which will open inside Snapchat when they scan it with the app’s camera. This could create a powerful way for businesses and other sites to promote themselves… Read More
Google Earth Enterprise, which originally launched over ten years ago, was Google’s tool for businesses that wanted to build and host private versions of Google Earth and Google Maps for their internal geospatial applications. In 2015, the company announced that it would shut the service down in March 2017 but in what is becoming a pretty standard move for deprecated products, Google… Read More
Academics from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have created a working system that allows vehicles to drive autonomously at highway speeds, while navigating multi-lane traffic in real-world settings, using wireless communication based on basic Wi-Fi standards. The study was meant to show how communication between vehicles enabled by tech built-in to most modern cars,… Read More
TechCrunch is getting ready to celebrate some of the most compelling startups and innovations of 2016 at the 10th Annual Crunchies Awards. Will you be joining us?
The Crunchies are just one short week away, and if you want to party in style for the cheapest possible price at the event best described as the Oscars of Tech, the time to act is now. Today is the last day to save 10 percent on… Read More
Zenefits today said it would be introducing new pricing tiers in an effort to simplify them, as well as add new tools for HR managers to ensure that employees are getting their documents in and they are compliant with regulations. The new tools — and pricing — are another way that Zenefits is trying to differentiate itself as an all-in-one platform for managing employee records… Read More
Over three million businesses now pay for Google’s G Suite productivity apps. Today, the company is launching a number of new security features that aim to keep these businesses’ data safe on its platform. Admins can now, for example, force their users to use physical security keys from companies like Yubico to access their data. They will also be able to manage the deployment of… Read More
Facebook today announced a laundry list of updates regarding its measurement partnership program, including expanded partnerships with Nielsen and comScore, and the addition of a new partner, DoubleVerify. The company also offered details on the status of current integrations, and the launch of a new online portal to help marketers see how their Facebook ads perform, in comparison with… Read More
The American Civil Liberties Union will learn how to turn the $24 million it raised over the weekend into growth and progress with help from top Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator. The ACLU will be part of the winter batch of companies in YC, where it will receive mentorship, a network of powerful connections in tech and a chance to present itself to investors on Demo Day.
Y… Read More
When it launched late last year, the new MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar was largely reliant on first-party applications to show off what it could do. Since then, a number of other companies have jumped on board, helping the secondary screen grow into something more than novelty. Of course, as with any new technology, there’s going to be some unanticipated downside. Test taking… Read More
Qvivr, a Silicon Valley-based FinTech startup originally known for building the SWYP programmable credit card, has raised $5M in Series A funding. The funding was led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from a large multinational Asian bank. The startup was founded in 2014 and originally launched with a pre-order campaign for a hardware product that would let users program all of their… Read More
