TechCrunch

Why Minecraft predicts the future of collaborative work

Kids are the ultimate beta testers. As soon as they figure out what a new technology is for, they try to make it do something else. They push boundaries, break rules, play with possibilities and share their results in real time.<p>When I see how my son and his friends play Minecraft, I see the future …

Here are all the new emojis coming with iOS 10

1/7<p>Slightly flatter design<p>With iOS 7, Apple’s updated iOS with a brand new, flat design. And yet, emojis have remained rounded and shiny despite the iOS update.<p>Three years later, Apple is making the well-known faces slightly flatter with a pastel yellow color 🙃<p>2/7<p>Bringing more gender diversity to …

The drivers behind digital health apps

There has been an explosion of digital health startups in recent years. The market is expected to reach $233.3 billion by 2020, with the primary driver coming from the mobile health market.<p>Companies are springing up to offer solutions for the escalating costs of health care, wellness, physician …

Pokémon Go passed 100 million installs over the weekend

Pokémon Go users may be furious over the shutdown of the third-party trackers and the recent update that killed the nearby tracking feature in the game, but neither of these issues have stopped the app’s viral spread, it seems. According to new data from App Store intelligence firm App Annie, …

Third-party Pokémon Go tracking services get shut down

Pokévision, and other popular third-party tracking apps that helped Pokémon Go players discover which Pokémon were nearby and see their location on a map, have been shut down. The move follows comments from Niantic’s CEO John Hanke last week, where he referred to the use of such sites as cheating, …

Here’s the 18th batch of companies from 500 Startups

We’re already halfway through the year, which means it’s time for another batch from 500 Startups to start rolling out. This year, 46 companies are going through 500 Startups’ 18th batch, ranging from traditional B2B tools to a smart pill case that helps track whether or not people are taking their …

Uber China Merges with Didi Chuxing | Crunch Report

Didi wins, Uber retreats, but Chinese riders and drivers lose

No one wants to fight a land war in Asia, not even Uber. It could have burnt mountains of cash battling for market share with local ride app juggernaut Didi Chuxing, between marketing, discounts, and driver incentives.<p>Instead, Uber surrendered.<p>It’s sold its UberChina operation to Didi in exchange …

In-car cameras let autonomous vehicles track passengers as well as pedestrians

Powerful sensors and software have made autonomous cars impressively aware of their surroundings — but it isn’t just obstacles, pedestrians, and other cars that a vehicle’s AI needs to watch out for. It also needs to know what’s going on inside itself, and researchers from Fraunhofer are hard at …

OmniVirt brings 360-degree advertising to big publishers

OmniVirt is promising to help publishers and advertisers tap into the potential of virtual reality.<p>It’s not the only startup working on VR/360-degree ads (competitors include Immersive Media and VirtualSky), but co-founder and COO Michael Rucker said OmniVirt stands out by offering a 360-degree ad …

Clinton campaign to hold fundraiser at Black Hat hacker conference this week

Cybersecurity issues have plagued Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign for months, from her long-running email controversy to the recent hacks of the Democratic National Committee and the campaign itself. But cybersecurity experts appear to be embracing Clinton’s campaign — a fundraiser …

Apple wants you to think about the iPad Pro as a computer

You can’t say you haven’t seen this coming. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said again and again that the iPad Pro is the company’s vision of the future of computing. And today, Apple is confirming this vision with a new ad.<p>For the first time, Apple is calling the iPad Pro a computer. The ad ends with the …

Southeast Asia-based Carousell raises $35M for its social commerce app

Carousell, a four-year-old startup from Singapore behind a listings app that enables peer-to-peer selling in Southeast Asia, has closed a $35 million Series B round to grow its reach into new countries and increase product development.<p>The company is seen as one of the darlings of Singapore’s …

Glassdoor sued by user whose email was ‘leaked’ instead of BCC’ed

A little over a week ago, Glassdoor began emailing its users to let them know of an update to the site’s terms of service. But rather than BCC’ing its anonymous reviewers, Glassdoor dumped their email addresses into a regular ol’ CC field, effectively outing at least 600,000 members of the …

To Catch a Pikachu: NY Governor moves to ban sex offenders from Pokémon GO

When you think about it, the ability for someone to put a “lure” on a spot of their choosing and attract young Pokémon fans to their location is slightly disturbing — which is why New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is trying to ban paroled sex offenders from playing Pokémon GO and other online …

Elizabeth Holmes is finally presenting her technology to scientists, including a “miniLab”

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is presenting her blood analysis technology to a room full of scientific experts for the first time ever today at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<p>Her big focus? A customizable, tabletop mini lab.<p>The …

Salesforce buys word processing app Quip for $750M

Salesforce is continuing its buying spree to expand the kinds of cloud-based apps and services that it offers to its customers beyond basic CRM. The company has just announced that it is acquiring Quip, the cloud-based word processing app that was co-founded by Bret Taylor, formerly CTO of …

Glowforge raises $22 million to popularize its 3-D laser printers, catalog of materials

Of all the ways to make a 3-dimensional object, 3-D printing is still the freshest, whether what’s involved is plastic extrusion, milling away wood or metal, or the spinning of cells into functional living tissues.<p>Now, a company that makes a desktop laser cutter and engraver for home or office use, …

Tesla moves forward on $2.6B SolarCity acquisition

Early this morning, Tesla announced that it had come to an agreement to acquire SolarCity in a $2.6 billion all stock transaction. Tesla first announced it was interested in acquiring the solar power company back in June.<p>In the wake of the announcement, both Tesla and SolarCity stock is being …

Self-checkout startup Selfycart wants to help you avoid lines at the grocery store

Waiting in line at the grocery store is no fun — not for the customer nor for the store owner. Selfycart, a self-checkout startup participating in Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator, wants to make it so you’ll never have to wait in line at the grocery store again. On Monday, Selfycart is …

Binary Capital backs runaway trains with $175 million new fund

You’ve built an app and it’s blowing up but you have no clue how to scale or retain users. Who do you call? Binary Capital specializes in businesses with initial traction that need direction.<p>Binary’s founding partners got behind Tinder at 12,000 active users, Snapchat at 120,000, and Instagram at …

TCV closes $2.5B fund, TCV IX, for growth-stage investments

Technology Crossover Ventures, the VC that has backed the likes of Facebook, Spotify, LinkedIn, WorldRemit and Zillow, as well as more nascent investments, has closed a fund that will see the company taking many more bets in the near future. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that it has now …

HTC Vive X accelerator opens program to Shenzhen for VR hardware startups

HTC is rapidly mobilizing resources to build the broader ecosystem its own Vive virtual reality hardware will fit into. A big part of this strategy is its Vive X accelerator program which is aiming to train the next generation of innovative VR companies.<p>For HTC, the onus has largely been on …

Apple drops a new iOS 10 beta with a hundred new emojis 😱🎉🙌

Apple just released the fourth beta for the next iteration of iOS, tvOS, macOS and watchOS. In particular, there’s a groundbreaking addition in this release. The company has updated or redesigned over a hundred emojis.<p><b>Update:</b> here are all the new emojis coming with iOS 10.<p>Apple has shared a few of …

Apple Maps adds more transit and parking data ahead of iOS 10 redesign

Let’s be honest — Apple Maps had a rough start. Four years later, the company is still working hard on improving its location app with more data and features. Many people still prefer Google Maps over Apple Maps, but it’s clear that Apple is in this game for the long haul.<p>Last week, Parkopedia …

Sioeye Iris4G is an action camera with built-in cell service for live streaming

I get the chance to test out quite a bit of first-generation consumer gadgets. And while a few are great, the majority just aren’t able to meet the high threshold of quality that Apple has (for better or worse) subconsciously instilled in all of us.<p>So it’s always a nice surprise to find a hardware …

MIT researchers develop a low-cost device to monitor home power consumption

A team of researchers at MIT has developed a device designed to give home owners a better picture of how much power their individual appliances are eating up. The gadget, which was outlined in a paper published in a recent edition of the <i>IEEE Sensors Journal</i>, offers a simple installation process …

Uber reportedly invested $500 million to build a better mapping system

According to a report in the Financial Times over the weekend, the ridesharing giant is adding half a billion dollars to a new mapping project to help free itself of Google Maps.<p>Many ridesharing services use the maps service to navigate the roads, but Google Maps has limited accuracy in many …

Pokemon Go creator Niantic’s CEO hacked on Twitter

John Hanke, the CEO of Pokemon Go creator Niantic, has been hacked on Twitter by the hacker group OurMine.<p>In the past 24 hours, the hacker collective took control of the account and posted a series of tweets, including one that identified Hanke’s password as “nopass.”<p>Of course, this isn’t OurMine’s …

Google says 97% of connections to YouTube are now encrypted

Earlier this year, Google launched a new section to its Transparency Report that highlighted the use of HTTPS to encrypt connections between its users’ devices and its servers. At the time, the report only showed data for Google Drive, Finance, Gmail, Maps, News and the company’s advertising …