TechCrunch

 Everyone has a different preference for how to watch Disrupt, so we’re giving you tons of options. Here’s what’s on deck for the show. Read More

 The inflation-busting deals being secured by sports rights owners around the world demonstrate the unwavering value of live sports. Amid concerns over cord-cutting, the rise of time-shifted viewing and the unstoppable growth of digital and mobile platforms, the value of sports rights remains unquestioned. However, the industry remains ripe for change. Read More

 This year’s TechCrunch Disrupt SF Hackathon is set to be the best yet. We’re a few days away from the main event and are giddy with excitement. Check out the sponsor prizes and agenda of events to prepare yourself for an amazing hackathon experience. Read More

 Salido, a startup that describes itself as “the restaurant operating system,” is announcing that it has raised $2 million in additional funding. This round from strategic investors doubles the $2 million in seed funding that Salido announced last year. Phil Suarez, who partnered with French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten to launch well-known restaurants including ABC Kitchen and… Read More

 Actev Motors, a young, Mountain View, Ca.-based company, is gearing up to ship its eagerly anticipated all-electric smart go-karts beginning this fall. The vehicles, for kids ages 5 to 9, cost roughly $1,000, including a Formula One-like body kit that comes in silver or red, and shipping. They come with a lot of neat features that tech-savvy parents will appreciate, too, including an app… Read More

 Walmart latest earnings report wasn’t pretty. Overall revenue growth came in at a tepid o.7% for the first half of the fiscal year. Their e-commerce sales grew 11.8%, but the total e-commerce market is tearing ahead at 15% quarterly growth, which means they’re actively losing that market. Oh, and they bought a massively unprofitable e-commerce vendor for $3.3 billion dollars to make… Read More

 SpotHero is not new to the on-demand parking game. It raised $2.5 million in 2012, and another $20 million in Series B funding in 2015. This for a service that allows drivers to prepay for a parking space in a garage via app before the car ever leaves the driveway. “You can reserve a spot for three hours or three days,” said SpotHero co-founder and CEO Mark Lawrence, “and you… Read More

 Following yesterday’s iPhone 7 announcement, Apple is announcing that new AppleCare+ members will be able to get their cracked screens fixed for $29. This is big news for everyone who uses an iPhone with AppleCare+, and ultimately, anyone who owns an iPhone to begin with. It’s worth noting how much AppleCare+ costs — $149 for the iPhone 7 Plus, or $129 for the iPhone 7… Read More

 Managing the App Store can be one of the most difficult experiences for new developers. Getting noticed is hard, the experience isn’t that great, and now Apple is allowing search ads. And to make things more interesting, there’s a lot of interest in different platforms beyond traditional apps — including messaging bots. Eventually, there will have to be a way to… Read More

 Whether you’re working out of a dorm room or running a billion-dollar company, a little pivot can go a long way. At their worst, pivots can derail a company’s success, but at their best, they demonstrate a company is still attuned to its user base — no matter how big it gets. Digit, a fintech service that helps people save, launched a year and a half ago with the… Read More

 Online merchants spend a lot of money on chargebacks, which are demands by credit card providers to reimburse for fraudulent charges. That’s why Signifyd created technology that assesses a transaction risk before the card is processed. The San Jose-based company is raising $19 million in financing for its fraud protection services. Investors include Menlo Ventures, TriplePoint Capital… Read More

 There is a new generation of companies exerting such great influence on society that they’re essentially becoming utilities. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Uber are near monopolies that provide services as integral to our modern life as power, telephone and transportation systems were a century ago. But there is a key difference between last century’s utilities and today’s… Read More

 Pokémon Go has achieved a number of records since its debut – the most downloaded app in its first week ever and the fastest to reach 50 million installs on Google Play, for example – but now you can add one more to the list: the fastest game to reach $500 million in revenue. According to a new report from App Annie, Pokémon Go has now surpassed $500 million in worldwide… Read More

 2016 might be the year that HTTP finally dies. Chrome’s security team announced today that the browser will start marking websites that use insecure HTTP connections to transmit passwords and credit card data as insecure, beginning in January 2017. The warning will appear in the address bar of the browser and will call users’ attention to the fact that their personal information… Read More

 Do you have to keep your hands busy to think straight? Fidget Cube is a little device that lets you click, flip, roll, and slide its different buttons so you can stay calm. You can nab one for $19 on Kickstarter, and it’s supposed to ship in December, though every crowdfunded project seems to get delayed. Your startup’s next pivot? Should you quit your job? Is this the house you… Read More

 Twitter rolled out an update to its service this morning that aims to make the social app more competitive with mobile messaging clients, including the recently upgraded iMessage arriving in iOS 10. The company says it’s introducing a number of new features for Direct Messages – its private messaging feature – including things like Read Receipts, typing indicators, and web… Read More

 Need to post content to multiple social networks at the same time? A new chatbot called Yala wants to help. The bot, live now on Slack with Facebook Messenger support coming soon, not only does the work of posting for you, it’s also intelligent enough to know when to post. That is, Yala uses algorithms and machine learning to determine the best time to post in order to increase… Read More

 In what is certainly the first of many pieces of VR original content to receive a prestigious award, “Henry,” a short film by Oculus, has just received an Emmy for Outstanding Original Interactive Program. The virtual reality film chronicles the story of Henry, a cute little hedgehog that loves to hug despite his prickly spines. Things turn interesting rather quickly when he has… Read More

 Earlier this year, Glassdoor raised $40 million at a $1 billion valuation; and now it is putting some of that investment to use to grow internationally. The employee review and job-search platform has acquired Love Mondays, a startup based out of Sao Paulo that also lets workers post reviews of their workplaces. It’s even been described as “the Glassdoor of Latin… Read More

 Pre-orders for the two new iPhones start on Friday, with store availability from September 16. But, unlike in previous new iPhone release cycles, come Monday Apple won’t be saying how many handsets it’s shifted. Read More