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Goodhart’s Law, as phrased by Mary Strathern: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Honored more in the breach than the observance, alas. Our algorithmic world has turned so many measures into targets, and by doing so ruined them. Let’s talk about just one example: …

Habito, an app that helps you find the right mortgage, raises £18.5M Series B led by Atomico

Habito, a London startup that is bringing the entire mortgage process online, has raised £18.5 million in Series B funding. Atomico, the European VC firm founded by Skype’s Niklas Zennström, led the round, with participation from existing investors Ribbit Capital, Mosaic Ventures, and Revolutionary …

Watch astronaut Peggy Whitson return to Earth after 288 days in space

Record-setting astronaut Peggy Whitson is coming back from space as the cumulative record holder for longest time spent floating up among the stars and you can watch the live stream of her touching down to Earth tonight.<p>The de-orbiting burn will start around 5 pm Pacific, with the landing taking …

Twitter’s terms of service are suddenly making people freak out — but they’re not new

Twitter is making some minor changes to its terms of service (ToS) for users outside of the U.S. this October and a lot of people are rather upset about them.<p>What seems to be the trigger here is that these “new” terms are going into effect for the rest of the world on October 2nd and Twitter is …

GrubHub trial could have major implications for the gig economy

Next week, GrubHub will face two of its former drivers in court, which could set a precedent for future cases around the 1099, gig economy. The trial, which is the first of its kind in California, looks to answer the question many in the tech industry have had for years: Should a worker for …

IFA 2017’s biggest announcements

1/8<p>LG V30<p>A couple of years back, Samsung gave the Galaxy Note its own standalone press conference, leaving the title of IFA’s biggest launch wide open for the taking. This year, LG seems to have run away with the show. The company’s new flagship proves that it’s still capable of making a compelling …

Gillmor Gang: Summer School

The Gillmor Gang — Denis Pombriant, Keith Teare, John Taschek, Frank Radice, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live Thursday, August 31, 2017.<p>G3: Exit Interview recorded live Thursday, August 31, 2017 with Francine Hardaway, Elisa Camahort Page, Maria Ogneva, and Tina Chase Gillmor.<p>@stevegillmor, …

Funding your bliss: mindfulness startups scale up

The connected life is not necessarily the good life. Too often, it seems like we are squandering our time checking devices, losing touch with fellow humans and cultivating bad habits in the pursuit of instant gratification.<p>If only an app could fix that. Preferably, it’d be one we could use all day …

After Harvey, ignore the climate debate and focus on building better, more efficient cities

As Tropical Storm Harvey made its second landfall near the border of Louisiana and Texas this week, New Orleans marked the 12-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.<p>In the intervening years since those storms, the nation has been continually pummeled by “historic” climatological events.<p>While the …

10 of the most-funded startups to fail in 2017

1/10<p>Beepi<p>Raised $148.95 million in 5 Rounds from 35 Investors.<p>Beepi is a textbook case of a startup with a good idea — a marketplace for people to sell and buy used cars, which would be vetted, processed and delivered to the new owner by Beepi, bypassing the costly overhead and commission structure …

The product design challenges of AR on smartphones

With the launch of ARKit, we are going to see augmented reality apps become available for about 500 million iPhones in the next 12 months, and at least triple that in the following 12 months — as we can now include the numbers of ARCore-supporting devices from Google.<p>This has attracted the broader …

Final 2-for-1 Disrupt Berlin ticket release happening Wednesday 9/6

Alright, European TechCrunch fans, time to listen up — we’ll soon be releasing our final batch of Disrupt Berlin 2017 tickets at the deeply discounted rate of <b>two for the price of one</b>.<p>Yes, you read that right. If you act now, you can score not one but two whole Disrupt tickets for the price of one. …

GoGoVan becomes Hong Kong’s first $1 billion startup following merger deal

At our TechCrunch China event in June we discussed the bright future that Hong Kong’s startup scene has, despite some big challenges. This week the country passed a notable milestone as it got its first $1 billion valued startup, better known as a unicorn.<p>The company in question is GoGoVan, a …

Juicero Runs Out Of Juice

<b>Today’s Stories</b><p>RIP Juicero, the $400 venture-backed juice machine<br>• Google reveals the top things people want to find out ‘How to’ do<br>• Tinder hits top grossing app in the App Store on heels of Tinder Gold launch<p><b>Credits</b><p><b>Written by:</b> Tito Hamze, John Mannes <b><br>Hosted by:</b> Tito Hamze <b><br>Filmed by:</b> Tito Hamze <b><br>Edited …

Understanding Roku’s IPO And Its Growing Platform Revenues

In a pleasant Friday surprise, Roku dropped its S-1 document today, detailing its financial performance and corporate strategy.<p>The filing indicates that the company intends to raise $100 million in its debut. The figure is a widely-recognized placeholder number. The company could raise more or less …

Hackers are selling millions of Instagram celeb accounts on the web

A group of hackers used a bug earlier this week to scrape the phone numbers and email addresses of six million Instagram accounts and are now selling that information on the web.<p>The hackers mainly targeted celebrities and verified users, including Selena Gomez, who’s account was hacked two days …

Juicero Runs Out Of Juice | Crunch Report

What messaging means for the future of customer care

Have you ever spent time on hold with an airline, a credit card company, or your insurance provider? Of course you have, I bet you’re still humming the tune from that hold music you had to listen to.<p>For years, the frustration of traditional customer service, be it phone or email, have pushed us all …

SoFi responds to sexual harassment and wage lawsuits

Earlier this month, Social Finance, or SoFi, a startup centered around the refinancing of student loans, was sued by an employee. The senior operations manager who filed the lawsuits, Brandon Charles, says he was wrongfully terminated for reporting sexual harassment of female colleagues by their …

Roku files for $100M IPO

Roku has filed for an initial public offering of $100M per an S-1 filed with the SEC. The company will be listed on NASDAQ appropriately under the ticker of ROKU.<p>This has been a long time coming. Roku was founded in 2002 and raised over $200M since. It was key helped create the home streaming …

RIP Juicero, the $400 venture-backed juice machine

It sounds like America’s favorite $400 juice machine will be no longer.<p>“After selling over a million Produce Packs, we must let you know that we are suspending the sale of the Juicero Press and Produce Packs immediately,” reads the blog post.<p>Juicero had raised over $118 million in funding from …

Twitter has a big bot problem

Twitter bots – robots that interact with humans – have a long history. The Twitter API is fairly easy to use (I made a bot that plays Zork with a friend two years ago) and there is little protection against creating new accounts automatically. This ease of use used to be great for programmers but …

Alexa’s ‘flash briefing’ can now update you on the latest music news and events

Amazon Alexa’s popular “Flash Briefing” skill, designed to give you the latest news and information from a series of customizable news sources, can now tell you about what’s happening in the world of music, too. On Thursday, Amazon introduced a new skill called “Today in Music,” which will provide …

Designed for iPhone 8, Weather Atlas is a great replacement for your stock weather app

There’s no shortage of weather apps on the market, but you may have noticed that few of them are actually all that good. That’s where a new entry called Weather Atlas, from the developer behind the popular productivity app Launch Center Pro, comes in. This newly launched weather application aims to …

Dell Foundation pledges $36 million to Harvey relief effort

Michael and Susan Dell have doubled down on the tech industry’s commitment to bail out Texas as it recovers from Hurricane Harvey. The couple pledged a whopping $36 million to the effort through their foundation today.<p>The money, which represents the largest single contribution to date for the …

Google’s Search app on iOS gets a Twitter-like Trends feature, faster Instant Answers

Google’s search app on iOS is adding a Trending Searches feature, similar to Twitter or Facebook’s Trends, with an update that rolled out later in the day on Thursday. According to the app’s added “What’s New” text on the App Store, Google will now show you searches that are “trending around you” …

Ahoy.ai is a robot that can plan your schedule in Slack

Ahoy, mateys! A Columbus company called Ahoy.ai aims to schedule yer deck swabbing sessions with just one arrrrrmail or Slack.<p>Ahoy is the brainchild of Jesse Rowe and Alex Ogorek. Rowe is a senior at OSU and this is his first company. He has raised $14,000 from a small fund in Ohio and is looking …

TechCrunch’s Original Content battles evil alongside Amazon’s new version of ‘The Tick’

For the latest episode of Original Content, TechCrunch’s podcast covering the latest streaming shows and movies, we checked out Amazon’s new take on <i>The Tick</i>.<p>You may remember the animated show that ran in the ’90s, or the live action version starring Patrick Warburton that Fox broadcast a few years …

Tinder hits top grossing app in the App Store on heels of Tinder Gold launch

Tinder has hit number 1 in the App Store’s top grossing category for the very first time.<p>Claiming top spot in the App Store likely has to do with the global launch of Tinder Gold, which lets users see who has liked them without swiping at all, among other premium features.<p>Tinder’s initial foray …

The coolest new Star Wars toys from Force Friday

1/7<p>littleBits Droid Inventor Kit ($99)<p>New York-based education tech startup littleBits brings its tinkering expertise to a Galaxy far, far away with this droid-building kit. The set includes all the pieces needed to build a small working R2-D2 or create a brand new custom ‘bot. The kit features …