Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said today that the company faced “difficult decisions” when it deleted a post by a Norwegian journalist containing an iconic photograph of a girl fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam War. Sandberg expressed regret at her company’s decision to repeatedly delete the photograph and said Facebook would do better at preserving newsworthy content… Read More
Another day, another drone that can perch on fences like a bird and carry deck chairs around in its scary claws. Officially called the PD6B-AW-ARM, this drone is made by Prodrone in Japan and features two robotic arms. The 6-rotor drone can lift up to 44 pounds and lasts for 30 minutes on a charge. The drone can lift objects and can even come to rest perched on a fence or railing, a feature… Read More
It seems counterintuitive to call a service Waitlist. No one wants to be put on a wait list; we want to just do the thing we came to do. But ChargePoint has, ahem, a point in creating this new feature, which launches today. Basically, it allows drivers of electric vehicles to virtually queue up for a charging station. Here’s the situation that Waitlist aims to solve. Say John, who has… Read More
I’ll admit that when ZTE first launched Project CSX, I was a bit underwhelmed, believing that the initiative was simply focused on handsets. Limited the crowdsourcing competition to those devices seemed like the company was resigning itself to a fate of suggestions along the lines of bigger screens and battery batteries. And as well and good as those things are, they’re the kind… Read More
Major deal alert –
iTunes is offering six different $10 bundles of 10 movies to celebrate 10 years of iTunes movies.
Proud of @iTunesMovies and 10 years of celebrating docs, indies, blockbusters & more. Congrats and thank you! https://t.co/Y9QEINrHfJ
— Eddy Cue (@cue) September 12, 2016
If you’ve ever bought a movie on iTunes you know how amazing of a deal this is. Read More
Eight years is a long time in the tech industry — not so much in politics, though. At Disrupt SF today, U.S. CTO Megan Smith and Deputy CTO Alexander Macgillivray reflected on the hard road the Obama administration has traveled in tech, the work they’ve done, and things that will take eight more years (at least) to accomplish. Read More
What’s the buzz all about at TechCrunch Disrupt? LoveNuts, that’s what. It’s a vibrator, designed to look like a funky nut — and adds the glistening sheen of plausible deniability by pretending it’s a flashlight. The company claims it’s “ready to rescue a woman in any kind of emergency.” Read More
French edtech startup OpenClassrooms has raised €6 million in new funding. Backing comes from Banque Publique d’Investissements (BPI), Citizen Capital, Xavier Niel (NJJ Capital), and existing investor Alven Capital. Read More
We were pleased to have “Silicon Valley” executive producer Mike Judge join us on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco on Monday. The HBO show has managed to both portray and parody the tech companies and familiar faces that we know and love. For those of you who watch the show, you know that Judge is no stranger to Disrupt. Startup Battlefield was featured throughout the… Read More
Silicon Valley has a huge diversity problem, but a blunt instrument hiring quotas for diverse candidates still isn’t the answer, according to Slack head of engineering Leslie Miley. Instead, Silicon Valley — and Slack — have to get inventive, and look in some non-obvious places, to figure out how to bring in candidates that are outside the traditional Silicon Valley… Read More
Razer’s not your average startup. For one thing, there’s the fact that the company has roots dating back to 1998, making it enough to vote or buy a lottery ticket here in the US (except in Nebraska, Louisiana and Iowa, apparently). Also, the company has devoted a good number of its resources toward funding and supporting other startups through ventures like OSVR and Razer zVentures,… Read More
Twitter is increasing its focus on live streaming today with the launch of a new Notification button on its app that lets you subscribe to be alerted when someone you follow starts live-streaming. When you receive the alert, you can immediately join the broadcast with just a tap. The feature works both for alerting users to new streams from Periscope, as well as for content from… Read More
Tesla topping the 300 mile per charge rating with its new 100 kWh battery was a big deal, but a new zero emission bus debuted today by Proterra has actually managed 600 miles out of a full battery in testing. In a real-world setting, Proterra’s new Catalyst E2 will probably manage somewhere between 194 and 350 miles in actual use settings – but that’s plenty according to… Read More
While not every movie can be Mr. Lovejoy, robots can now help producers find great films by sorting and scoring scripts based on actors, plot, and endings. Think of it as a robotic replacement for the Hollywood page. The startup that does this is called Scriptbook and it automatically reads and scores scripts, offering Hollywood fat cats the ability to choose winners over flops. The company… Read More
In a wide-ranging interview with TechCrunch reporter Frederic Lardinois today at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco, Twilio co-founder and CEO Jeff Lawson talked about the trials of going public, why paying attention to the stock price is unproductive, and how bots are overrated. It’s certainly interesting that the leader of one of the premiere communications companies today thinks bots… Read More
Razer originally started as a hardware company making mice, keyboards and other peripherals optimised for dedicated computer gaming, with its mantra being “For Gamers, By Gamers.” Now, 18 years into its life, it’s changing things up a bit. While the company continues to build hardware and its newer software business, Razer is now also announcing zVentures, a new… Read More
eBay today is launching a new program that aims to capitalize on the large number of older iPhones and other mobile devices poised to hit the resale market, thanks to the launch of the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models, announced last week. Called “Quick Sale,” the new program is powered by eBay Valet – the service where eBay pairs consumers with power sellers who… Read More
Europe’s top court, the CJEU, has been asked to rule on whether a privacy-related legal action brought against Facebook can be treated as a class action or not. Read More
Blavity, the new media and lifestyle site for the young and black in America, takes on meaningful subjects like the Black Lives Matter movement, NFL player protests and discrimination from Airbnb. The site, which showcases BuzzFeed-like content such as “15 times athletes joined Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest,” reaches about 7 million unique visitors per month and… Read More
Today at Disrupt SF 2016, DraftKings CEO Jason Robins sat down with TechCrunch’s Fitz Tepper to talk about the future of the Fantasy sports site, launching a whole new mobile app from the stage. Robins also confirmed that DraftKings is still in “on and off” talks to merge with FanDuel, its biggest competitor, and has been for “the past year and a half or so.”… Read More
