The World Economic Forum — held in the mountain village of Davos, Switzerland every year — is increasingly attended by technology companies. And this year the theme of ‘responsible governance’ for the WEF conference is clearly going to be high on the agenda, especially in the era of ‘fake news’ and Brexit. Software might be ‘eating the world’… Read More
Microsoft has acquired Canadian startup Maluuba, a company founded by University of Waterloo grads Kaheer Suleman and Sam Pasupalak that also participated in TechCrunch’s 2012 San Francisco Startup Battlefield competition. Maluuba focuses on natural language processing, in service of pursuing general artificial intelligence, or building computers that can think like people.
The… Read More
South Korean internet giant Naver is in the final stages of receiving sign-off from the top Korean transportation regulator to begin tests of its self-driving vehicle technology on public roads. The company confirmed to TechCrunch that it will begin testing its self-driving tech on roads as soon as it receives final approval, which Yonhap reports could be as early as next month, according… Read More
Estonia-based Deekit has now closed a seed round of €400,000 in angel investment from investors around Europe, with Spring Capital from Estonia being the lead investor. Among the angel investors are Mark Gillett (former Skype CTO), Copenhagen Business Angel network represented by Ole Andresen (a regional managing director at Apple) and the Estonian Business Angel network members. Founded by… Read More
A security issue has been flagged in the hugely popular mobile messaging app WhatsApp that could allow for messages sent via the encrypted platform to be intercepted and read. Read More
What is it about Belarus that keeps producing image filter startups? MSQRD was famously acquired by Facebook last year for instance and it also produce the PRISM imaging app. Now new startup Fabby has managed to pull in a $2m funding round – which will go a long way in Belarus, I can tell you. The seed round of funding was led by Haxus Venture Fund. Haxus knows what it is doing in terms… Read More
After raising $50 million last year on a $400 million valuation, WalkMe — a company that offers on-screen site guidance and engagement analytics — has made an acquisition to beef up its presence in mobile. The startup has acquired Abbi, specialists in mobile A/B testing and app engagement (“Abbi” is both a reference to A/B testing and BI, business intelligence). Terms… Read More
According to a new year-end report from Sensor Tower detailing the top apps of 2016, streaming services dominated when it came to which apps, outside of games, pulled in the most revenue over the past year. At the top of the list is Spotify, which not only scored the number one spot on the iTunes App Store, but also was the number one revenue earner across both platforms, including both… Read More
After the early, exciting expository years of the Internet – the Age of Jennicam where the web was supposed to act as confessional and stage – things changed swiftly. This new medium was a revelation, a gift of freedom that we all took for granted. Want to post rants against the government? Press publish on Blogspot. Want to yell at the world? Aggregate and comment upon some… Read More
The Bolt EV is GM’s answer to Tesla’s rising influence, and it’s impressive by all early accounts. The affordable electric car with a class-leading range isn’t the sum of GM’s interest in electric vehicles, however – it’s just the beginning. GM plans to release a range of electric vehicles based on the Bolt platform, but they won’t be announced… Read More
As one presidential administration ends and another begins, it seems much easier to pause and reflect on all of the changes that have defined the last eight years of the Obama presidency. A constant throughout time, however, is the dwelling where many of the United States’ most important policy decisions have been made. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is one of the most recognizable… Read More
Nintendo continues to roll out Switch details. A lot of questions remain, but the company released the first game trailers. And boy do they look good. Watch the first set here. Read More
Nissan will start testing a version of its electric Leaf car with autonomous driving capabilities in London next month, kicking off its first European trials on public roads, Reuters reports. The Japanese carmaker also recently announced that it would be building two new vehicles in the UK, where it makes around a third of the total volume of vehicles produced overall. Self-driving trials… Read More
Hey – hey. It’s me. I know you might be wrestling with the decision of whether you’re going to pre-order a Nintendo Switch when they open for pre-sales, which either started around midnight or will kick-off around 9 AM ET depending on where you’re ordering from. I’m in that very same boat. Nintendo made the Wii U, is the main issue, and we had one of those and… Read More
Barely a week before he leaves office, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has authorized controversial new legislation that grants America’s 16 intelligence organizations access to raw communications data from the NSA’s surveillance efforts. Read More
Yesterday I caught up with George Spencer, the 29 year-old CEO and founder of London property tech startup Rentify. We talked proptech, scaling a startup, and why the tech press sucks. Read More
If you were staying up late to ride the hype train that is the Nintendo Switch only to find yourself hunting aimlessly for a pre-order button…. good news. Nintendo was weirdly vague about when US pre-orders for their new $300 console would open up (outside of a tweet that mentioned a limited number of pre-orders at Nintendo NYC) but a bunch of retailers just pushed their pages live. Here… Read More
Aiming for the stars and not quite making it, the ambitious App.net has finally officially shut down. Its timely rise and fall comes as highly symbolic as its once rival, Twitter, continues to struggle, years later, with monetization, content management and harassment.
Today’s announcement of its closure isn’t hugely surprisingly since App.net had been in… Read More
Nintendo has announced the launch date and price of the Nintendo Switch at an event in Tokyo; the company’s next console will be released worldwide on March 3 for $300 in the US and comparable amounts elsewhere. Read More
Lily Robotics shuts down, Techdirt is in a legal battle fighting for its life, Apple is poised to create original content, Starship Technologies gets a new $17.2 million round and Twitter to live stream Trump inauguration. All this on Crunch Report. Read More
