Natasha Lomas
Natasha is a reporter for TechCrunch, joining September 2012, based in Europe. She arrives after a stint reviewing smartphones for CNET UK and, prior to that, more than five years covering business technology for silicon.com (now folded into TechRepublic.com). At silicon she focused on mobile and wireless, telecoms and networking, and IT skills issues, and has also freelanced for organisations including the Guardian and the BBC. Natasha studied English at Cambridge University, and also holds an MA from Goldsmiths College, University of London.
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NHS memo details Google/DeepMind’s five year plan to bring AI to healthcare
More details have emerged about the sweeping scope of Google/DeepMind’s ambitions for pushing its algorithmic fingers deep into the healthcare sector — including wanting to apply machine learning processing to UK NHS data within five years. Read More
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UK surveillance bill passes House of Commons with bulk powers facing review
The UK government’s controversial Investigatory Powers bill easily passed a vote in the House of Commons yesterday, with 444 votes in favor and 69 against, after securing support from the opposition Labour Party. Only the SNP and the Green Party voted against what critics have dubbed a Snoopers’ Charter. Read More
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Celonis takes $27.5M led by Accel, 83North to grow the market for big data process mining
How do big businesses optimize IT-driven processes? Often by hiring management consultants to cast an expert eye over digital traceries and deliver recommendations for improving core operations like logistics and production. But Munich-based B2B SaaS startup Celonis reckons software can do a better job of flagging up areas where there’s room for business optimization. Its… Read More
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Preply pulls in $1.3M to expand its tutoring marketplace in Europe
Edtech startup Preply, which has built an online marketplace for finding and booking private tutors for a range of subjects, has closed a $1.3 million seed round. It supports booking of both in-person lessons in a chosen location and also remote tutoring, via a video chat. Read More
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New Snowden document reveals UK spy agency warned of ‘too much data’ risk in 2010
Another document from the original cache leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 has just been published by The Intercept, and it further bolsters the view that government intelligence agencies’ bulk collection of data for investigatory purposes is counterproductive to national security efforts. Read More
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Smartphone sales growth will drop to single digits in 2016, says Gartner
Analyst Gartner is expecting a big drop in smartphone sales growth, projecting the market will shrink from 14.4 per cent growth in 2015 to just 7 per cent in 2016 — with only 1.5 billion smartphone units being shipped globally this year. The high watermark for smartphone sales was back in 2010, when Gartner notes the market grew 73 per cent. The signs of a slowdown in the global… Read More
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Zuckerberg’s Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn accounts hacked
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been targeted by hackers who were yesterday able to briefly gain control of several of his social media accounts, some of which were defaced. Read More
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Swiss reject universal basic income in public referendum
The people of Switzerland have rejected a proposal to give a universal basic income (UBI) to every citizen, with almost 77 per cent saying ‘no’ vs 23 per cent in favor. Read More
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Announcing the TechCrunch Meetup + Pitch-off in Berlin!
Hallo Berlin! Did you miss us? We missed you which is why we’re returning for a TechCrunch Meetup + Pitch-off on 14 July, in conjunction with the incredibly fun conference, Tech Open Air. If you’re looking to pitch your startup to the TechCrunch team, local VCs and your local tech community, this is the moment you’ve been waiting for. Read More
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Snapchat secretly acquires Seene, a computer vision startup that lets mobile users make 3D selfies
Snapchat has acquired Seene (also known as Obvious Engineering) a couple of months ago, TechCrunch has learned. Seene lets you capture 3D models from your phone with a simple smartphone camera. Snapchat could use Seene’s format for a brand new category of selfie lenses, a new 3D photo format and potentially virtual reality projects. According to our sources, Snapchat was interested… Read More
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Internet connected bttn now half the size, adds long press
Internet connected button maker, bttn has launched a smaller version of its push-to-activate-a-digital service gadget. Read More
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UK surveillance bill “too broadly drafted”, says human rights committee
Another parliamentary committee that has been scrutinizing UK surveillance legislation currently before parliament says changes are needed to remove concerns the Investigatory Powers Bill would afford state security agencies powers that are too broad. Read More
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Why gaze tracking startup Cogisen is eyeing the Internet of Things
How will you interact with the Internet of Things in your smart home of the future? Perhaps by looking your connected air conditioning unit in the lens from the comfort of your sofa and fanning your face with your hand to tell it to crank up its cooling jets. Read More
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7Commerce takes full stake in Stylight
7Commerce, the investment arm of media company ProSiebenSat.1, is upping its stake in Munich-based fashion aggregator and discovery startup Stylight, intending to acquire 100 per cent of the company by July — pending regulatory approvals. Read More
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Nokia completes $190M acquisition of Withings health gadget maker
Back in April Nokia announced it was buying health and fitness focused gadget maker Withings for €170 million (~$190M). At the time it was expecting the acquisition to close in Q3 but it has now confirmed the close of the transaction ahead of schedule. Following the acquisition, Withings co-founder and CEO Cedric Hutchings has been made head of a new Digital Health business unit at… Read More
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BBC micro:bit learn-to-code device up for public pre-order in UK
A tiny programmable board designed as part of a UK educational initiative for kids to learn programming skills and originally distributed by the public service broadcaster, the BBC, to one million schoolchildren is now up for public pre-order. Read More
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Tor switches to DuckDuckGo search results by default
Tor users are currently being served DuckDuckGo search results by default. Read More
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Blendle adds apps for its pay-per-story news service in the US
News delivery startup Blendle, which is applying a marketplace model to journalism offering pay-per-article reads from a range of different publishers, has launched iOS and Android apps in the US, expanding how US users get to consume their chosen content. Read More
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Jolla launches a community device program for its Sailfish mobile OS
Just when you thought Finnish mobile OS maker Jolla had given up on making its own hardware, given its recent financing troubles which led to it having to shutter a planned tablet, it gets back in the game — albeit with a limited run of 1,000 smartphones intended for developers and enthusiasts of its platform to test the latest and beta releases of Sailfish OS. Read More
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What’s the point of virtual reality?
VR needs content if it’s to be more than a flash in the early adopter pan. But it’s pretty clear that in the short term at least it’s not going to have a whole lot of compelling content. And understandably so. It’s a new medium, after all, and figuring out how to create exciting ‘experiences’, as the VR pushers put it, is going to take time… Read More
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