TechCrunch Industry News

France’s tax on tech giants is happening

08 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Is it happening? Is it not happening? After years of back and forth, it looks like the new tax on tech giants in France is about to become a law. Big ...

Trump called Apple’s CEO ‘Tim Apple’ by mistake

07 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The president has to remember a lot of names! Some he remembers, some he forgets. But we will never forget today in the Year of Our Lord 2019 when Pre...

Court dismisses Paris lawsuit against Airbnb for illegal listings

07 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A court in Paris has dismissed a case against Airbnb, as Le Monde reported. Last month, the City of Paris sued Airbnb for 1,010 illegal listings. Acco...

Barstool Sports founder reportedly blames company ‘idiots’ for copyright controversy

06 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In a recent Twitter thread, comedian Miel Bredouw recounted some shady behavior by Barstool Sports’ legal team. In fact, even Barstool Sports found...

Mitzvah-minded unicorn Cross River is on holy mission to foster bank-fintech harmony

06 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“Then I took your ancestor Abraham from the other side of the Euphrates River and led him through the entire land of Canaan. I multiplied his descen...

Ava Duvernay releases the first trailer for her Netflix series about the Central Park Five

05 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ava Duvernay releases the first trailer for her Netflix series about the Central Park Five Celebrated director Ava DuVernay has released a harrowing f...

Samsung finally gets Bluetooth earbuds right

05 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Granted, this news is maybe a bit too late. Samsung’s already sold out of the free Galaxy Buds it was throwing in with S10 pre-orders. That said, th...

Equity Shot: Lyft files to go public and we’re stoked

04 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Hello and welcome to an Equity Shot, a short-form episode of the show where we dive into a single breaking news story. Guess what we’re talking abou...

Lyft will give drivers a one-time cash bonus up to $10K

04 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Hardworking drivers, rejoice! As part of Lyft’s initial public offering, the transportation company is deciding to reward the drivers who form the ...

Google is not great at retaining black, Latinx and Native American employees

01 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Believe it or not, the retention of black and Latinx employees at Google was better last year than in 2017. Though, Google’s attrition rates of bla...

Tesla halts online sales ahead of Elon Musk announcement

01 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Tesla buyers might have a hard time ordering a vehicle through its website for the next several hours. The “order” webpages for the Model 3, Mode...

Fortnite Season 8 is about to kick off — here’s what to expect

28 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Fortnite Season 8 is almost here. There’s a lot we don’t know — most things, really — but the long wait will be over soon. If you can’t stan...

Coterie, a young New York startup, promises to deliver charming party kits to your doorstep

28 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Party planning can be fun if you have the time for it and happen to know what you’re doing. For the rest of us, it can be a daunting, time-consuming...

Twitter’s latest test changes ‘Retweet with Comment’ so it looks more like a Reply

27 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Twitter’s new prototype testing program isn’t the only way it’s working to fix conversations on its site. The company confirmed it’s currentl...

Here are the first leaked images of Microsoft’s new HoloLens

26 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Microsoft is scheduled to hold a major press conference at MWC Barcelona later today. With Satya Nadella and Alex Kipman in attendance, the expectati...

Xiaomi announces its first 5G phone, the Mi Mix 3 5G

26 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Xiaomi doesn’t want to miss the 5G bandwagon — the company just unveiled its first smartphone that comes with a 5G modem at a press conference in...

Elon Musk finally hosted meme review with the co-creator of Rick and Morty

25 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been teasing — and his fanbase has been making pleas — to host a meme review. And after tweeted hints, meme r...

Pinterest and Lyft move closer to IPO, and LPs question the Vision Fund’s investment strategy

25 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. What a week. It had...

Samsung’s Galaxy S10 lineup arrives with four new models

22 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In what may well be the most Samsung move in Samsung history, Samsung just introduced four new Samsung S10 models. For the 10th anniversary of the fla...

Lyft reportedly plans to debut on Nasdaq next month

22 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ride-hailing company Lyft plans to file its initial public offering in March, possibly beating rival Uber to the milestone. Two reports, one from Reu...

Highlights & transcript from Zuckerberg’s 20K-word ethics talk

21 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Mark Zuckerberg says it might be right for Facebook to let people pay to not see ads, but that it would feel wrong to charge users for extra privacy ...

Cybersecurity 101: Five settings to secure your iPhone or iPad

20 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

iOS 12, Apple’s latest mobile software for iPhone and iPad, is out. The new software packs in a bunch of new security and privacy features you’ve...

‘There’s no way the US can crush us,’ Huawei founder claims

19 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Huawei’s founder has come out fighting against the U.S. government after he claimed that “there’s no way the US can crush us.” Ren Zhengfei, ...

Netflix office goes on lockdown over report of a potential shooter, suspect now in custody

19 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Alarming reports popped up on Twitter late Thursday of incident involving an armed individual at Netflix’s Hollywood office on Sunset Blvd. TechCrun...

Daily Crunch: Amazon scraps HQ2 plans in NYC

18 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at...

Peloton peddles toward an IPO, self-driving is big business and SaaS’s new highs

18 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week was a tre...

Boston and NY share high tech losses as Amazon and GE bail on same day

15 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Boston and New York have been sporting rivals for decades, constantly fighting over bragging rights across all four major sports, but today the two ci...

Xnor’s saltine-sized, solar-powered AI hardware redefines the edge

14 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“If AI is so easy, why isn’t there any in this room?” asks Ali Farhadi, founder and CEO of Xnor, gesturing around the conference room overlookin...

Apple’s iOS update makes it easier to get to your subscriptions

14 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Apple has made a small but important change to iOS that will allow users an easier way to manage their app subscriptions. In the latest release of the...

Someone could scoop up Slack before it IPOs

13 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this week, Slack announced that it has filed the paperwork to go public at some point later this year. The big question is, will the company e...

How to prepare for an investment apocalypse

12 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Micah Rosenbloom Contributor Micah Rosenbloom is a venture partner at Founder Collective. More posts by this contributor Business sch...

Waymo CTO on the company’s past, present and what comes next

12 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A decade ago, about a dozen or so engineers gathered at Google’s main Mountain View campus on Charleston Road to work on Project Chauffeur, a secre...

What to expect from Mobile World Congress 2019

11 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What to expect from Mobile World Congress 2019 Foldables and 5G all the way down I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: 2019 just might be th...

Spotify

11 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Hello, and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Kate Cla...

Instagram thinks you want IGTV previews in your home feed

08 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If you can’t beat or join them…force feed ’em? That appears to be Instagram’s latest strategy for IGTV, which is now being shoved right into ...

Uber competitor Chauffeur-Privé rebrands to Kapten

08 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

French company Chauffeur-Privé is going to expand aggressively over the next couple of years. That’s why the company is changing its name to Kapten...

Tesla has opened an Amazon store to spread its swag far and wide

07 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Tesla has opened an Amazon store to spread its swag far and wide Tesla has had a brisk merch business for years now, thanks to its fervent owner base ...

Vice Media will lay off 10 percent of its staff

06 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Vice Media plans to cut 250 jobs — about 10 percent of its total workforce. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news. When contacted by TechCrunch, a ...

Twitter bug makes it look like random retweets are appearing in your timeline

06 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A number of Twitter users have been complaining that tweets that were retweeted by people they don’t follow are now showing in their timeline. The ...

Lowe’s is killing off and bricking its Iris smart home products at the end of March

05 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lowe’s is killing off and bricking its Iris smart home products at the end of March If you’ve got any gear from Lowe’s Iris line of smart home p...

Snopes and AP leave Facebook fact-checking partnership

04 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Two of Facebook’s four fact-checking partners in the U.S. have left the program as of the beginning of this year: Snopes, which recently rebuffed r...

How to recover quickly if you get locked out of Google

04 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

I know first-hand how frustrating it is to get locked out of your Google accountand to lose access to much of your online life. I’m hoping this simp...

Nintendo is making Dr. Mario for iOS and Android

01 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Nintendo held off on building smartphone games for years, but now they just can’t stop. They started with a little stumble with the short-lived Mii...

Daily Crunch: Facebook beats Wall Street estimates

01 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at...

Many Xbox Ones aren’t working right now due to Xbox Live outage

31 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If you just tried to turn on your Xbox One and were met with nothing but a black screen: you’re not alone. A particularly bad outage in Xbox Live’...

It’s time to pay serious attention to TikTok

30 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If you haven’t been paying attention to TikTok, you haven’t been paying attention. The short-form video app hailing from Beijing’s ByteDance jus...

StarCraft II-playing AI AlphaStar takes out pros undefeated

30 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Losing to the computer in StarCraft has been a tradition of mine since the first game came out in 1998. Of course, the built-in “AI” is trivial fo...

Jobs platform Vangst just raised $10 million to plug more people into the fast-growing cannabis industry

29 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

People are increasingly interested in finding a way to participate in the cannabis industry, and for good reason. It’s growing like a weed (yes, we ...

Scooters 2.0, Munchery ghosts, and solving contraceptive deserts

28 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we had th...

Smartphones are about to get more interesting, but is it enough to drive growth?

25 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Smartphones are about to get more interesting, but is it enough to drive growth? As sales stagnate, will foldable phones and 5G be enough to save the ...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and that meme life

25 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mixtape, the podcast that goes a bit behind the headlines to bring tech to culture. This week Megan Rose Dickey and I welco...

A former Bessemer Venture Partners principal just closed his own $30 million fund, and here’s how

24 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Sunil Nagaraj, who’d studied computer science as an undergrad at UNC Chapel Hill, landed two pretty nice gigs after deciding to pursue an MBA at Har...

Fresh tickets and New VC partners for the TechCrunch Winter Party

24 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve got a double dose of exciting news for you, startup fans. First, we’re thrilled to announce that investment firms August Capital, SV Angel a...

Is your time worth more than $0.30 an hour?

23 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Most of us believe our time is extremely valuable, certainly worth more than thirty cents. But then you read about human decision-making, and you have...

Twitter bug revealed some Android users’ private tweets

22 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Twitter accidentally revealed some users’ “protected” (aka, private) tweets, the company disclosed this afternoon. The “Protect your Tweets”...

SaaS stocks are coming back to life

21 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Nasdaq’s BVP Emerging Cloud Index measures the performance of a portfolio of 45 SaaS stocks. Like much of the tech world, and the stock market in ge...

More scooter dollars, Slack’s revenue projections, and the IPO traffic jam

21 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We’re back! After...

Redpoint Ventures is raising another $400M to invest in Chinese companies

18 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Redpoint Ventures is doubling down on China. The firm, headquartered in Menlo Park, has filed documents with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissi...

Spotify launches Car View on Android to make using its app less dangerous behind the wheel

18 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Spotify launches Car View on Android to make using its app less dangerous behind the wheel Spotify is making it easier to use its streaming app in the...

Researcher shows how popular app ES File Explorer exposes Android device data

17 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Why is one of the most popular Android apps running a hidden web server in the background? ES File Explorer claims it has over 500 million downloads u...

China accounted for nearly half of app downloads in 2018, 40% of consumer spend

17 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

China accounted for nearly half of app downloads in 2018, 40% of consumer spend Global app downloads topped 194 billion in 2018, up 35 percent from 20...

How the new VR screen could end the smartphone

16 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Philip Rosedale Contributor Philip Rosedale is co-founder and CEO of High Fidelity. A smartphone screen is a wonder of the world. It’s not ...

VLC prepares to add AirPlay support as it crosses 3 billion downloads

16 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

VLC, the hugely popular media playing service, is filing one of its gaps with the addition ofAirPlay support as its just crossed an incredible three b...

Global VC market sees highest-ever concentration of supergiant dollar volume in Q4 2018

15 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News. More posts by this contributor ...

Gartner finds PC sales doldrums continued in 2018

14 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Gartner has released its quarterly PC sales survey for the fourth quarter of 2018, and it was the same old story. PC sales plunged in the fourth quar...

Halo’s second-gen brain stimulating headphones run $399

14 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Two and a half years after doing pushups onstage at Disrupt New York, Bay Area-based sports health company Halo Neuroscience is back with the second g...

These baby concrete speakers aren’t as heavy as they look

11 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

To paraphrase P. T. Barnum, “there’s a Bluetooth speaker born every minute.” At no time of year is that more true than at CES in Las Vegas, wher...

More tickets released for TechCrunch Winter Party at Galvanize

11 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Silicon Valley loves a party, and we’re ready to help you get your swerve on. We’ve just released a fresh batch of tickets to the 2nd Annual TechC...

This extra-large handheld Nintendo works (and feels) like the real thing

10 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Handheld retro gaming machines come and go, but few go so simply and effectively to the point as My Arcade’s Retro Champ. You stick in your NES cart...

This strange cedar egg wants to help you breathe deep and calm down

09 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In moments of stress and anxiety, there are those of us who find it difficult to breathe — and paradoxically, many reach for a cigarette or vape as ...

Daily Crunch: AR Startups face an uneasy future in 2019

09 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at...

Marc Andreessen: audio will be “titanically important” and VR will be “1,000” times bigger than AR

08 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In a new a16z podcast with the venture firm’s founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, there’s a lot to enjoy, from Andreessen’s TV show recom...

PSA: File your US tax return before scammers steal your refund

08 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s tax season! You know what that means? It’s scamming season, too. You might have heard this story before. Learn more about your ad choices. Vi...

Disney’s Star Wars Land could open in June, says CEO Bob Iger

07 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We know Disney’s Star Wars Land (or “Galaxy’s Edge”, if we’re being formal) is opening sometime in summer 2019. But thats about as exact as ...

Zelda has a minus world

07 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Listen, everyone. It’s not every day that a new fact comes to light regarding a game that came out more than 30 years ago. And I happen to love it w...

Samsung’s Space Monitor is practical and minimal

04 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Samsung always has a huge presence at CES, but it isn’t the giant TVs and flashy next-generation gadgets that have my attention this year; it’s th...

Hey look, it’s the Samsung Galaxy S10

04 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Well, what have we here? If it isn’t the Samsung Galaxy S10, courtesy of perennial smartphone outer, EVLeaks. This marks one the first good looks we...

Soulja Boy’s game consoles pulled from store weeks after launch

03 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As anyone from the Gizmondo to the Virtual Boy can tell you, it’s tough to launch a console. Of course, it’s helps when your device apparently com...

Shine brings its female-focused self-care app to Android

03 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Shine, one of the many apps capitalizing on the growing self-care trend, has now brought its app used by 3 million people to Android devices. Origina...

What to expect from CES 2019

02 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The timing is… less than ideal. Just as the industry is recovering from a holiday-induced hangover, we’re thrust into the country’s largest cons...

Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue

02 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this year, Netflix was seen testing a bypass of iTunes billing across dozens of markets worldwide. As 2018 draws to a close, Netflix – the A...

Polite Fortnite Society

02 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

My parents are approaching 60. When they were young, they hung out at diners, or drove around in their cars. My generation hung out in the parking lot...

Test your tech knowledge in TechCrunch’s 2018 Year In Tech Quiz

31 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Think you know tech? Square off against TechCrunch editors with 2018’s year in tech quiz. TechCrunch’s 2018 Year In Tech Quiz Square off against T...

Gfycat’s ‘GIFs’ can now keep the sound on

31 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Gfycat, a home for GIF-making tools and an online community, is rolling out a new way to create GIFs — it will now let you keep the sound on. With “...

Nyca Partners’ Hans Morris hunts for great fintech investments amid volatility

28 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Hans Morris is a name to know in fintech, and as finance and tech sectors prepare for tougher time next year, he has some incisive thoughts to share a...

Fortnite players report queue issues as Epic experiences a ‘minor service outage’

28 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Epic Games is having its own Christmas hangover. On Wednesday, a number of Fortnite players reported long queues that time out and problems logging ...

UK airport restarts some flights after drone shutdown chaos

27 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The UK’s second busiest airport, Gatwick, reopened its runway early this morning after a day of shutdown triggered after drones were repeatedly spot...

You can now connect to WireGuard VPN servers on your iPhone

26 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

WireGuard is a new VPN protocol that promises to be faster and more secure at the same time. And you can now connect to a WireGuard server on iOS than...

French data protection watchdog fines Uber $460,000 for data breach

25 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

One by one, European countries are slapping Uber with a penalty for the way it handled its 2016 data breach. Today, France’s data protection watchd...

Alexa gets access to Wolfram Alpha’s knowledge engine

24 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Knowledge base is one of the departments where Alexa has lagged Assistant. After all, it’s pretty tough to compete with Google when comes to a sheer...

A startup’s guide to CES

24 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The Consumer Electronics Show, like Burning Man, is a massive event in the middle of the desert. Also like Burning Man it is populated by some of the...

Some iPad Pros could come bent out of the box

21 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Some iPad Pros could come bent out of the box Apple has confirmed to The Verge that some iPad Pro models come slightly bent out of the box due to a ma...

The 5G wars have entered the petty stage

20 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

If you’re reading this the year it was written, you’re almost certainly not getting it over 5G. If you’re reading this in the future, congrats, ...

Help TechCrunch find the best lawyers for startups

20 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

TechCrunch is working on a new project to help you build a better company. We’re looking for the great service providers in the startup world: the l...

Five rockets are set to launch within 24 hours starting later today

19 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Today was supposed to be a historic day with four rocket launches by four different companies. But that’s not going to happen. As of publication, th...

This fake package covers porch thieves in glitter and fart spray

18 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Having a package stolen off your front porch sucks. No matter what’s inside the box, it just feels… violating. Someone came into your space and to...

Ten pieces of friendly VC advice for when someone wants to buy your company

18 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

David Frankel Contributor David Frankel is a managing partner at Founder Collective. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.c...

HQ Trivia and Vine co-founder Colin Kroll found dead of suspected overdose

17 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Colin Kroll, the 34-year-old co-founder and CEO of the HQ Trivia app, has been found dead of an apparent drug overdose in his apartment, TechCrunch ha...

Ridesharing IPOs and $850M for Luckin, Plaid and Zymergen

17 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week we had th...

Buy your tickets to the 2nd Annual TechCrunch Winter Party

14 Dec 2018

Contributed by Lukas

We love parties almost as much as we love startups, but we go absolutely bonkers for a hot startup-party mashup. That’s why we’re returning to hos...