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Brain-training app Peak sells majority stake to French publisher Hachette
Something of a sleeper hit, the makers of Peak — a subscription-based service specifically designed to entertain a user while simultaneously exercising their cognitive skills — have sold a majority stake to French publisher Hachette Livre. Created by London-based app company Brainbow, Peak has been downloaded over 15 million times and was named Best App in 2014 by Apple, while… Read More
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EU court rejects data retention law, throwing cold water on UK’s ‘Snooper’s Charter’
The highest court in Europe today ruled that “general and indiscriminate” data retention directives contravene European Union law — dealing a significant blow to governments and organizations who have been pushing for stronger surveillance and data collection, and giving a boost to privacy advocates in the process. More specifically, European Court of Justice threw… Read More
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Bringing Europe together at The Europas, London, 13 June, 2017
It’s time to mark your diaries for June 13, 2017 for The Europas Tech Conference & Awards TechCrunch is the exclusive media partner for the one-day event which takes a different approach to the usual events (tickets). As well as main stage speakers and panels, the ‘special sauce’ of The Europas is the small, intimate breakout sessions where delegates can deep-dive… Read More
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Prisma launches a social feed to see if style can transfer into a platform
Prisma, the app that popularized style transfer to apply art-esque filters to photos and videos after launching this summer, is finally attempting to turn itself into more than just a cool tool. In a big update being released today for its iOS and Android apps it’s adding it’s own social stream with a focus on location-based sharing. Read More
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Disrupt London was the biggest yet: 2,300 people, 3.5M video views, 150 press
There are few reasons why TechCrunch Disrupt (sign up here to get news about the next one) is so effective for startups. The combination of breaking news on stage and brand new companies in the Battlefield competition draws in the media and investors. And investors can easily walk a curated hall of new startups in Startup Alley, knowing that we have worked hard to bring the best and the brightest. Read More
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EU asks whether the financial sector’s use of big data needs new rules
European financial regulators are worried that big data techniques might result in restrictions on consumer access to products and services in future, and are considering whether new rules might be needed to tackle the risk of more granular algorithmic analysis leading to discrimination. Read More
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OS builder Thundersoft buys UI maker Rightware for $68M to expand in automotive
Thundersoft, a company out of China that designs operating systems for drones and other connected devices, has made an acquisition to drive deeper into automotive technology: it has paid €64 million ($68 million; RMB471 million) for Rightware, a company out of Helsinki that develops graphical user interfaces for connected devices, with a special focus on automotive: its Kanzi product… Read More
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WTF is Brexit?
At 10pm on June 23, 2016, the polls closed in the UK on a referendum on EU membership and the counting began. The next morning Europeans woke to the news that the British public had voted to leave the 28 Member State bloc called the European Union. The ugly word Brexit — coined during the campaign as a shorthand media conflation for ‘British exit’ — was apparently… Read More
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Encrypted messaging app Wire adds usernames so you can limit what you share with contacts
Wire, the Skype co-founder Janus Friis-backed end-to-end encrypted mobile messaging app, has added a username option — allowing people to communicate with others via the app without having to share their mobile phone number or email to do so. Read More
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London fintech startup Curve brings mobile wallet and all-your-cards-in-one app to Android
After launching on iOS, all the way back in February, London fintech startup Curve has finally brought its wares to Android. Read More
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Videopath’s platform adds crucial context to video — could it fight fake news?
Part of the reason so-called ‘fake news’ videos can spread so virally is that there is very rarely any supporting information attached to the video. Further links and verified sources just don’t get attached, either because there is no way of adding that to the video or the maker and/or the sharer just don’t bother. So a ton of video comes out that has no clear sources… Read More
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The Arduino MKRZero is a teenier, tinier DIY board for hardware hackers
What do you buy for someone who has everything? Either a pink fairy armadillo or an Arduino MKRZero. I’d recommend going with the Arduino. The MKRZero is basically a really, really small microcomputer with a number of outputs and headers as well as a battery management system and USB control. It’s great for learning or building 32-bit applications and it’s small enough to… Read More
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Social media sites may need to apply age checks under UK anti-porn law
Social media sites such as Twitter face being regulated in the UK under anti-porn proposals, as part of the government’s Digital Economy bill proposal. Read More
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Kreditech adds Rakuten as new investor, raises another $10.4M
Kreditech — the online lender that builds credit histories based on big data analytics and is backed by the likes of Peter Thiel, Blumberg and the World Bank’s IFC — is today announcing a new strategic investor, and with it, a little more funding. The Hamburg startup has raised $10.4 million (10 million euros) from Rakuten, the e-commerce giant out of Japan. The… Read More
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Brexit transition period vital to avoid UK fintech exodus, warns Lords report
A House of Lords committee in the UK has published a report on Brexit and financial services urging the government to secure a transitional period early in negotiations to avoid the risk of fintech firms shifting operations out of the UK as uncertainty after the vote to leave the European Union stacks up. Read More
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Just Eat pays up to £240M for Delivery Hero’s UK ops, £66M for Canada’s SkipTheDishes
Yet more regional consolidation is underway among the giants of take-out and delivery startups in Europe as they gear up to compete more aggressively against newer entrants like Deliveroo and Uber Eats. Today, Berlin-based Delivery Hero announced that it is selling its UK business, which operates as hungryhouse, to rival Just Eat for £200 million ($251 million) in cash, plus another… Read More
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