Facebook wants to be unbanned in China, so it’s built a censorship tool that could hide posts about prohibited topics from people in China, according to The New York Times‘ Mike Isaac. Rather than censor posts itself, Facebook would potentially provide the tool to a third-party in China such as a local partner company that could use it to prevent users in China from seeing content… Read More
DeepMind CEO and co-founder Mustafa Suleyman talks to TechCrunch about its expanded collaboration with the Royal Free NHS Trust, including a forthcoming health data API infrastructure. He also responds to concerns raised over the wide-ranging scope of the data-sharing arrangement. Read More
Memphis Meats sizzled onto the startup stage earlier this year with a lab-grown meatball. Now, it’s entertaining the idea of growing other meats — including turkey. The startup has created an Indiegogo campaign to save some of the nearly 50 million birds from the slaughter each Thanksgiving by educating the public on what meat of the future could look and taste like. While I am… Read More
Zola, the smarter wedding gift registry, has signed term sheets on a $25 million Series C round of funding, according to sources close to the matter. Sources say that Lightspeed led the round, and that Zola’s pre-funding valuation was at $200 million. Zola is an online wedding registry that lets couples choose products from a number of brands and even set up a cash fund. Guests can… Read More
NASA has selected SpaceX to provide the launch services for an April 2021 mission with the aim of surveying all of Earth’s surface water for the first time. The launch of the “Surface Water and Topography” mission will be handled by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, taking off from Launch Complex 4E at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base. The NASA mission itself is a first,… Read More
Gift cards are soulless and buying the wrong gift leads to annoying returns. But you might not know if your loved one would prefer a drone, action camera or a VR headset. With Snappy Gifts, they get to choose. Snappy Gifts is a new startup offering a fresh new approach that takes the guess-work out of generosity.
You go to Snappy Gift’s app, choose a price range and then select from a… Read More
Platio is a new company from Hungary dedicated to putting solar panels just about everywhere. They’re starting with sidewalks. Founded by a team of engineers and architects the system uses solid solar panels overlaid on plastic backing that ensures the panels won’t break when stepped on or rolled over and that each panel connects with the next securely. Imre Sziszák is a… Read More
One topic in this election cycle that has provoked a lot of emotion and debate is immigration. To oversimplify, it comes down to whether new immigrant groups coming to the United States is a good thing or a bad thing.
I can only tell you my experience, which is that of a son of an immigrant man who left India for a shot at building a better life here in the U.S. and ultimately got his… Read More
Early stage venture firm, Draper Nexus, has closed its second fund at $175 million, according to Managing Director Q Motiwala. Its debut fund closed in 2013, at $50 million. Limited partners in Draper Nexus are global tech conglomerates, primarily based in Japan. For its second fund, the firm signed up about 20 LP’s including Panasonic, Hitachi, Kyocera, Shimizu, NEC, Canon and others.… Read More
Whether it’s for work or for fun, you probably know someone who pretty much lives on Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat/all-of-the-above.
Buying them a gift? We can help. Read More
I have, as you might imagine, deep and abiding opinions on keyboards. I’m not a gamer per se – I do enjoy the odd bout of Lemmings now and again – but I type a lot. So I always look for keyboards that are comfortable, clicky, and compact. The Das Keyboard Prime 13 is all of those. Das Keyboard has focused for years on creating very clicky, very usable keyboards for gamers… Read More
Up to now, sleep has been the one place you could reliably go to escape technology. But it was only a matter of time, really, before that window closed for good. Eight, a sleep technology startup out of New York, is launching a smart mattress, so you can keep yourself connected to the internet of things while you’re catching some Zs. As you’d expect, the simply named Smart… Read More
Oculus Rift owners will be able to stream Xbox One games to their headsets starting December 12, giving them an immersive way to play. This makes a ton of sense, given the existing cooperation between the two companies, including the fact that every Oculus Rift sold ships with an Xbox One controller in the box. That means gamers with Rift, a Windows 10 PC to run it, and an Xbox One will… Read More
When presented with a list of cars to test drive, the 2017 Toyota Yaris might not jump out at most people as the top choice. It’s not fancy, and it’s not a status symbol, but it’s got all the safety tech a person could want — and a touch screen — for $16,815. The test Yaris had not one single extra. The optional equipment column was a big blank space. The… Read More
At Disrupt NY in May we had the pleasure of seeing a very cool hardware startup make its debut on the Battlefield, looking to make waves in an industry very close to my heart (and mouth): coffee. Now Spinn’s high-tech coffee maker is available for pre-order, so if it piqued your interest earlier this year, now’s your chance to pick one up. Read More
For the longest time, Google Sites felt like the forgotten app in Google’s productivity suite. Earlier this year, though, the company announced that it would finally give Sites a full overhaul. Today, after a short beta, this new version of Sites is going live for all users. Google Sites is essentially a drag-and-drop website builder for creating both public facing web pages and… Read More
For a growing number of individuals who are happy using their smartphones, tablets and notebooks for the bulk of their media consumption, a projector makes a lot of sense vs. a traditional TV for occasional big-screen viewing, and Xgimi’s new H1 is an even better fit than most for the mobile generation. The Xgimi H1 is currently available for pre-order via a funding campaign on… Read More
Fender’s guitars are classic Americana – like a 57 Chevy or a pan of Jiffy Pop. From a design perspective, they’ve gone largely unchanged since the early/mid 50s, with the Stratocaster and Telecaster serving as the company’s biggest sellers. They’re solid, they’re well built, they’re iconic. Innovative, not so much. Over the past couple of years,… Read More
Welcome to the 2016 TechCrunch Holiday Gift Guide! We’ll be rolling out a bunch of guides leading up to Christmas, hopefully making your holiday shopping a little easier. Think you’ve got a budding coder in your house? The learn-to-code space has no shortage of ideas to inspire young minds and help them get to grips with programming logic. We’ve rounded up some of the… Read More
The U.S. election has inspired more people to become politically involved, and one of the most practical and direct ways to have an impact is to directly call your Congressperson to have your voice heard. However scouring .gov websites can be a little frustrating, and today’s current crop of online resources for reaching Congress are often poorly designed or hard to locate. A new… Read More
