The U.S. House of Representatives recently sent a letter to troubled blood analysis startup Theranos asking for an explanation of the company’s failure to offer accurate results to patients using its proprietary blood test technology.
Theranos developed a technique using its proprietary ‘Edison’ machine it claimed could detect hundreds of diseases using just one drop of blood. Read More
HourlyNerd, a Boston-based startup, aspires to be more than an on-demand staffing service for skilled employees. It wants to be a full-service platform for large companies to change the way they think about employees. “If you think about a company today, it’s structured in the same way as 100 years ago,” says company co-CEO and co-founder Rob Biederman. HourlyNerd sees… Read More
To say that Nissan is watching Tesla’s every move would be an understatement. The Japanese automaker started this month with a splash, announcing it is expanding its No Charge to Charge promotion to include 11 new markets, such as Las Vegas, Cleveland and the car capital of Detroit to name a few. The program offers new Leaf drivers two years of free public charging with the purchase… Read More
The Juno probe has just made its long-awaited rendezvous with Jupiter, kicking off 20 months of unprecedented planetary science. We cornered the mission’s principal investigator, Scott Bolton, during a briefing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory — and he was more than happy to talk about all the cool new gadgets packed into the craft. Read More
Apple just released the second iteration of its iOS 10 developer beta. This update is only available to iOS developers with a developer account — at least for now. Apple unveiled iOS 10 at its annual developer conference. Read More
Google-owned DeepMind has expanded its collaboration with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), announcing a research partnership today with Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in London — its second publicly confirmed foray into working with the NHS. Read More
Microsoft today launched Skype Meetings, a new audio and video conferencing tool specifically designed for small businesses. Skype Meetings is essentially a stripped down version of the Skype for Business solution.
The more fully featured Skype for Business product allows you to host meetings with up to 250 people and it’s deeply integrated into Outlook, Word and PowerPoint. Skype… Read More
Goodbye to more tactile keys, and hello to planes of cool and smooth glass. Today, BlackBerry confirmed that it will stop making the Classic, one of the company’s last smartphone models based around a physical keyboard for inputting text, as the company prepares for a new series of phone designs based on Android and BlackBerry 10 platforms, and more attempts to compete in an… Read More
Startups like Warby Parker, Bonobos and Casper have proven that it’s possible to build a modern brand predominately using digital tools. As a result, a flood of early-stage tech VCs have barged into the market like Walmart shoppers on Black Friday. Read More
Granted, it’s not the most cutting edge new feature for iOS 10, but it’s an important one, nonetheless. Apple issued a release this morning announcing that the company is teaming with Donate Life America to bring organ donation to its mobile operating system. When iOS 10 rolls out this fall, it will include an option that makes it possible for users to become organ, eye and… Read More
As the number of apps and sites for buying and selling goods and services continues to grow, we’re seeing a shakeout among the companies that help make those wheels of commerce turn, with the biggest of the lot continuing to scale up and those that have failed to grow getting swallowed up.
Stripe, the startup based out of the U.S. that lets online businesses and apps quickly… Read More
A source inside Twitter told TechCrunch that the company estimates that it has around 10 million users in China. That gives us a glimpse at the potential number of people using VPN software to avoid China’s internet censorship system. Read More
There are now myriad financing options that founders can consider as they look to build their companies. Nearly 70,000 companies received funding through angel networks and 3,000 through venture capital firms annually, according to CB Insights. Read More
Silent Circle, the maker of encrypted messaging apps and a security hardened Android smartphone, called Blackphone, has discontinued its warrant canary. Read More
The Mogees Play is the latest product from London-based startup Mogees. Based on the same contact microphone and machine-learning technology first seem in the company’s original product, the Mogees Pro, it promises to turn any surface into a music and gaming input device, bridging the physical and digital worlds in new and delightfully creative ways. Read More
Circumvention Central is a resource that tests the speed and reliability of VPNs on actual websites not just servers, and on an ongoing basis. The result is that, rather than a static list of VPNs that you could plump for, Great Fire wants to provide a living, breathing ranking of those that work best. Read More
Swedish startup Instabridge, a Wi-Fi sharing community and mobile app, has picked up $1 million in new funding. Noteworthy for a European startup is that Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper’s Draper Associates has led the round, with participation from existing backer Balderton Capital. Read More
After traveling five years through the solar system, Juno has finally reached its destination and is currently in orbit around Jupiter, traveling nearly 250,000 kilometers per hour (150,000 mph). Read More
Silicon Valley leads the global technology innovation markets with the credentials and an ecosystem that is second to none. We have had contact with many of the leading technology accelerators operating out of Silicon Valley; their opening line for the conversation is often: “How are you relevant to us?” However, those of us living in the rest of the planet have to ask: “When… Read More
For some of us, hot dogs, patriotic songs and fireworks are enough. We here at TechCrunch expect more of our readers. Why be satisfied with fireworks when you could literally launch a Kickstarter into the sky. If you’re like me, you were likely quite disappointed to find out that Hamilton wasn’t about an epic duel, I mean “syndicate,” between Backstage… Read More
